What to do in Kangaroo Island?

Kangaroo Island, also known as 'The Island of Dead Animals'..?

Even though it may sound macabre, there are actually a lot of animals here that have found their eternal sleep by the roadside. These are not primarily kangaroos, but rather crows and ferret-like animals and wallabies. We haven't seen any koalas on the road here yet, even though the island is supposedly full of them. On Kangaroo Island (KI), koalas are even sterilized so they don't reproduce. Just by the way, that shouldn't be further explored :p

Day 1
On Friday, we drove to Cape Jervis without having booked the ferry. Since the weather is currently unstable and there is no compensation if the ferry is canceled due to weather conditions, we 'spontaneously' drove to the ferry station. And we were lucky, we were able to take the first ferry to Penneshaw on KI at 9 am. The journey takes only about 45 minutes and it was really rough. And there was a child next to us: 'We're going under, we're going under! Can't he drive properly!' (They were Germans.) Great! Since we hadn't booked our crossing in Cape Jervis but at the counter, we got a free night at a campsite in addition to the cheaper price. Yeah ;D 

But the campsite is at the other end of the island, so on the first day we drove 120km to just before Flinders Chase National Park - as this was also a planned stop, it was the ideal campsite.

On the way there, we stopped at Seal Bay. For $16 entry, we could finally see sea lions! The area was very well done. Various things were explained about the animals, such as that after a two to three day tour through the sea to search for food, they need about the same amount of time to recover. That's why sea lions (and similar animals) usually just lie around on the beach.
There is also a guided tour to the sea lions, where you can go directly to the beach and see the animals up close, the cost is about $35, but it wasn't worth it for us. You could also observe a lot of sea lions from the observation platform.

After that, we continued driving and stopped at 'Little Sahara' - a sand dune from which you can go down on a kind of snowboard, or with a sled-like object. Tom had a lot of fun and I especially enjoyed watching it. It was extremely windy on the dune and the sand blew into your eyes. But nevertheless, it was a great fun!
The rest of the day was spent driving to the campsite and at the campsite. Thanks to the camp kitchen, we are now a little richer in borrowed sugar :D
To compensate, we left one of our four pots behind. We simply don't have enough space in our kitchen crate.. and who needs four pots with just one gas cooker?

Day 2
On the second day, we went to Flinders Chase National Park around 10 o'clock, which attracts with many different hiking trails and also has a lighthouse and the Remarkable Rocks to offer.
In order to move around a bit more than just from the driver or passenger seat to the trunk to sleep, we walked the Platypus Waterholes Walk, which leads to two waterholes where platypuses are supposed to live. However, as we learned from the signs along the way, the animals are nocturnal, so 12 o'clock noon was an inconvenient time to try to spot them.
Unsuccessfully, we went back to the Visitor Center. The about 2km long path (one way) leads through the national park, which burned down 65% in a fire in 2007. However, you can only see it to a limited extent in nature. Everything is green again, you can only see dead trees quite frequently in between. Some of the plants only grow after the fire, as the cores of the fruit need the heat to burst open. It was also very interesting that most plants grow back after the fire with red leaves to keep animals from eating them. Well done by nature!

After our little hike (which was enough), we drove to the Remarkable Rocks. Once again, it was stormy and you had to be careful not to be blown backwards. The rocks were gigantic: some hollowed out from the inside, others washed out so you could stand underneath them, and others had deep indentations as if someone with huge hands had tried to push the rock away (Tom also tried unsuccessfully). 

Then we went to the lighthouse and Admirals Arch. At the arch, we saw some seals again. Some dragged themselves up quite a distance from the water and were hidden among the stones. We only discovered some of them by chance after several minutes because they moved.
Since we still had to do some shopping that day and there are only three places with supermarkets on the island, we went to Parndana afterwards. Then to Stokes Bay, where our campsite served as a hostel for the night, costing $5 per person per night (about €6.30 for the two of us). 

Day 3
On the third day, we continued from Stokes Bay to Emu Bay, but unfortunately there were no emus. However, the 'place' was quite nice, if you want to call the row of summer beach houses that. But really very pretty for a summer vacation. There doesn't seem to be any grocery stores for sustenance there either, they seem to be very scarce throughout the island.
From Emu Bay, we headed towards Salt Lake. I had hoped that it would look similar to the Dead Sea, which was also the case at first glance from a distance and without glasses. But on closer inspection, there was no salt at the edge of the lake, only foam that looks like snow. Tom tasted it, the foam is salty too :D
However, we did not try if you can float on the lake like on the Dead Sea. It’s still a bit chilly. Probably not either. 

Then we went to the last campsite for our island trip, in the connecting piece between the big and small island that make up Kangaroo Island - Pennington Bay. The campground is right by the sea again and it was incredibly windy. Still, we managed to cook chicken curry and rice. After we had already settled into bed and realized how windy it was outside and how much the car was shaking, we moved and parked behind a larger van - the only other car in the parking lot. With lucky charm Tom, everything works out :p We did feel a tiny bit guilty for taking advantage of their windbreak, but our car was much better off at the new location.

The next morning we headed back to Penneshaw and took the ferry back to the mainland. And that was the end of the trip to Kangaroo Island and off to Canberra, only 1300km away :'D