Kangaroo Island

From Adelaide, we went directly back into nature: With the car ferry to Kangaroo Island - an island where many species of Australian wildlife can be found in the wild. Besides (the common) kangaroos, it is mainly the koalas that can be found here in a large population, or rather were until the extensive wildfires in 2020... There are still koalas, but the population has significantly decreased (from 48,000 to 8,000). The same applies to the eucalyptus forests that provide koala food, hiking trails, infrastructure, and of course all other animal species... The fires in January 2020 affected more than 60% of the island area, and the effects are visible everywhere. But it is also visible how nature actually regenerates astonishingly quickly!

Unfortunately, we had to shorten our visit to the island by one day because there was a storm warning and our originally scheduled evening ferry crossing was canceled. Now we were transported away in the morning with the last ferry before the storm (it was already quite rough), which means we lost three quarters of an island day... That's why we couldn't take a closer look at the southern coast, but at least we saw penguins (on a guided tour), koalas and goannas (something like very large lizards), and (of course!) kangaroos and wallabies very well.