This weekend we have visited Kangaroo Island. The Island is Australia's third-largest and is southwest of Adelaide. When the island was first discovered in the early 1800's they thought it was mainland Austraila. A large proportion of the island is made up of National Parks and because of its isolation from mainland Australia, foxes and rabbits (which are harmal to native wildlife) are absent from the island.

Our first day started with an early pick up from our hostel at 6:30am. We when travelled down to the coast to the port of Cape Jervis where we caught the ferry over to the island. Our first stop, once on the island, was Pennington Bay and this where the explorer who found the island first landed his ship. The bay was beautiful with white sand and crashing waves. To get to know the other people in our group we had a sandcastle competition. There was a seal, a octupus and a traditional castle. The octupus won (neither one of our teams!). The rest of the day was spent sightseeing. We visited Admiral Arch and saw a New Zealand Fur Seal Colony (very smelly!), went koala watching at Hanson Bay Wildlife Park, and climbed the Remarkable Rocks. In the evening we headed back to our accomodation on a farm in one of the National Parks to have dinner around the camp fire. After dinner, we headed to Vivonne Bay to see Little Penguins returning from their day's fishing.

The second day was also an early start, but not before a hearty breakfast of pancakes! We headed to the Little Sahara first of all for some Sand boarding. Some of the sand boards wouldn't work very well as it was damp sand from the rain, so the spare body boards actually worked better! We had such fun and it was a great laugh. Everyone enjoyed themselves even though most of us got a few bruises!!!! After dusting off the sand we continued to Seal Bay where we had a guided walk with the Australian Sea lions. We were very close to the sea lions (within 10 metres) but they didn't seem to mind that we were there on their beach. The lions go fishing out to sea for 3 days at a time so when they get back they are very tired and mostly just sleep. We were also very lucky to see a pup with it's mum...very cute. Then it was onto a bird of prey show where we saw some native birds and even a Barn Owl which sat on our knees and we could even stroke it! After lunch the rest of the afternoon was spent visiting the beaches of the North coast of Kangaroo Island. Dan decided to jump down one of the small dunes on one of the beaches and he landed akwardly on his foot and sprained his ankle! He is now laid up and can hardly walk!

The island was very beautiful and well worth the visit. In some ways it reminded us of Devon, with green rolling hills and sheep everywhere!!!