Wow! We have just spent an amazing two days checking out all the aussie wildlife on Kangaroo Island - it's been the highlight of OZ so far. So before I forget, thanks Kirstie for the recommendation - it was awesome!

I think I left you with another early start to catch the ferry from Cape Jervis (which was an hour from Port Elliot where we were staying). The ferry crossing from Cape Jervis to Penneshaw was a just a bit rough and choppy - but ralph didn't make an appearance this time! When we arrived in Penneshaw we went to the tourist information and decided on what places we wanted to visit here. The first place we decided on was Paul's Place Wildlife Sanctuary after checking into our hostel at Kingscote. Now we took a bit of a gamble on this hostel, because Gavin couldn't remember the name of the hostel we booked, so after seeing there were only a few on the island, we picked the one that sounded familiar - luckily it paid off! From now on were writing down were we have booked to avoid that again! So we dropped off our bags and headed to Paul's Place. This was an experience itself as only Kangaroo islands main roads are tarmac, the rest are gravel roads,so we had some real rally driving to do to get there.

At Pauls' place we were roped in straight away! As the "English lady" I got to bottle feed a baby kangaroo - now look at the photo - does that look like a baby kangaroo to you? It was bloody heavy as you can see from the look on my face! Gavin got given the bucket of feed for the animals and was attacked by sheep, ponies, kangaroos etc! We then got to feed even more kangaroos, emus, deer, ducks, chickens, sheep etc. Gavin really enjoyed feeding the Kangaroo's. After this we got to have a cuddle with a koala - he was so cute! They also had Tammar Wallabies and Brushtail Bettongs in the enclosure with the koala.

Now the next part was the funniest I have thing I have ever seen, your lucky I got a photo because I was laughing so hard I nearly wet myself! The owner, Paul, said to the children in the group 'this is the part where someone dies in the group?' and he grabbed Gavin (as he's a 'pomme'), positioned him under the fence and called out, then started throwing seed on Gavin's head. Now at this point Gavin looked like he was going to poo his pants with fright as he had no idea what was going to happen! It was then that two emu heads poked over the fence and started to eat the seed on his head! So funny - plus he was finding the seed in his hair for the rest of the day! After both of us nearly needing pampers - we got to see two echidna's feeding and some lorikeets and other parrots.

NOW THIS IS A WARNING FOR SUE - DON'T LOOK AT THIS PHOTO FOR THE NEXT BIT!!!!

Our next highlight was a cockatoo called Joe, a possum and 'Daisy' the friendly carpet snake! Gavin didn't get to close to the snake but as you can see he made friends with Joe and also had a cuddle with the possum. And that was the end of our tour! It was really good fun and great to interact with the animals.

We headed back to the hostel and were told we would have to go and watch the pelican feeding at 5 O'clock. A guy gives a bit of a talk on the pelicans then wades out into the harbour and feeds the pelicans. That night we decided to go on the penguin tour, on the island are 'fairy' or 'little' penguins and they only come ashore at night, so you have a tour with a guide who shines a red light over the rocks and burrows (a normal torch would temporarily blind them). We got to see quite a few chicks and one or two coming out of the sea.

The next day we headed down the other end of the island, we didn't realise how big Kangaroo island is, it takes at least two hours to get to the west side of the island. We went down here because we wanted to visit the Hanson Bay Koala Sanctuary. You walked along a path lined with Eucalyptus trees on either side and try to find the 15-20 Koalas that lived here. The best sight was a mummy and baby koala, the baby looked really sunggled between it's mum and the tree.

After this we speed down the coast to Seal Bay, for some even more spectacular sights. We had a guided tour down to the beach and watched the Australian Sea Lions lounging on the beach after feeding for 3 days in the sea. There were lots of pups as well, and we really enjoyed watching the two pups play fighting and the big bull sea lions warning off others. We could have sat their all day and watched them, they are really beautiful animals. But our time on Kangaroo Island was coming to an end, so we made one last stop at Prospect Hill which had beautiful views over Pelican Lagoon and Newland Bay. Then it was onto the ferry for a much smoother crossing back to Cape Jervis and an hour's drive up to Adelaide.

So I think that keeps you up to date with our adventures so far.

Hope everyones well.

Lots of love

Helen and Gavin x