February 13 - Kangaroo Island

We anchored on this beautiful day off Penneshaw, a little village on Kangaroo Island, the third largest of Australia’s islands after Tasmania and Melville Island.  The photos I took don’t do justice to this place but I will try to describe how fascinating it is.

Kangaroo Island from my veranda

Kangaroo Island separated from the mainland of Australia about 10,000 years ago after the end of the last glacial period.  Aboriginal people had lived here for many years before that as artifacts found have shown.  In 1802 an English explorer named Matthew Flinders named the place Kangaroo Island after the animals he saw. He was followed soon after by a French explorer named Nicholas Baudin who mapped the island.  Despite England and France being at war at the time, the two men met, had a cup of tea and decided to share in the naming of places on the island.  Eventually the English colonized it and it became part of Australia.

I found Kangaroo Island to be a fascinating place because of some of the biological things there.  Our guide was a man named Peter, a former mayor of the place so he had a lot of local insights to share.  He had also retired from Australia’s equivalent of the National Park Service so he was very knowledgeable about flora and fauna.  I’m writing a lot of what he told us down because I found it fascinating and I want to remember it.

The island is about 90 miles long and 34 miles wide at its widest point.  We actually landed on the easternmost peninsula of the island and for that reason we didn’t see much of what I’ll write about in a moment.  The population of the island is about 4500.  The countryside that we drove through looked pretty arid with the predominant growth being narrow leaf mallee eucalyptus trees.  These happen to be an excellent source of eucalyptus oil and that was one of the first exports from the island.  It also happens to be one of the favorite foods of koalas. 

These are narrow leaf mallee eucalyptus trees along the road.  Interestingly, the spindly trunks are actually the branches of the trees with the trunk being underground in the earth.

The undergrowth that's everywhere

I heard lots of interesting stories about different animals here but I’ll only tell about a few.  The first is about the koalas.  Back in the 1920’s the koala population on the mainland was dwindling so a decision was made to bring some to Kangaroo Island in an effort to save the species.  Three males and ten females were brought and you can imagine what happened.  The population exploded!  One hundred years later the koalas having eaten their way through their favorite eucalyptus trees were working on eating some species that were being grown for timber.  There was discussion about culling the population.  Mother Nature took over.  In late December and early January 2021 tremendous brush fires broke out on the western part of the island.  Before they ended more than 50% of the island was burned.  It’s estimated that more than 35,000 koalas died, countless birds, and a tremendous number of kangaroos, many of whom threw themselves off cliffs into the ocean to escape the flames.  The peninsula through which I traveled was part of the island that was spared.  According to Peter, the koala population is making a comeback.

Another interesting animal here which we didn’t see but whose story I found fascinating is the rosenberg’s sand guano.  This is a lizard/monitor that can be close to 5 feet long and is very fast. Kangaroo Island is dotted with termite hills. (I tried to get a photo as we drove by but none of them came out so I’m stealing one from the internet.)  The female guano tunnels into the northern side of a termite hill (that’s the sunny side in the land down under) and deposits her eggs then leaves.  The termite hill acts as an incubator for them.  Once they begin to hatch the termites become a built-in food source.  Unbeknownst to the little guannos when they’re ready to come out of the hill, a predator is waiting for them.  These are the feral cats living on the island.  Kangaroo Island has been overrun by these cats who have evolved into much larger, more dangerous cats in no way resembling a domestic one.  There are large scale efforts to eradicate them because they are a threat to many other species on the island, including birds and echidnas.  Anyway, the feral cats apparently have an innate ability to know when the little defenseless guannos want to come out into the world and are ready to dine on them as they emerge.  As a result only two or three of as many as 15 or 20 hatchlings survive.

This is a termite mound.  They were all along the road but I wasn't fast enough to catch a photo so I took this one from the net.

I didn't take this photo but I thought it would be interesting to see a picture of this critter.  Doesn't look much like the adoring mother.

I thought these were interesting stories of how nature operates on this island.  We drove out on a very bumpy road to Cape Willoughby where there is an old lighthouse dating back to the mid-19th century.  Along the way we saw some kangaroos sleeping in the shade but we didn’t stop. (It’s pretty sad when seeing kangaroos becomes kind of routine.)  There were three cottages at the lighthouse which used to be for lighthouse keepers but now it’s automated.  Two of the cottages can be rented by tourists. The third is a little museum and a bathroom stop.  As I walked into the cottage I had to pass a small garden with the sign below.  If you know me, then you know I was ready to get back in the minibus when I saw it.  I summoned my courage to walk past it and into the building.  All the windows and doors were open and in my irrational mind I was convinced that there would be a snake waiting for me in the building, especially in the bathroom.  So I skipped the opportunity for a pit stop despite my philosophy being never pass up on the chance for one.

Eeek!

No snakes around and plenty of clear space so they can't be lurking

Thankfully I didn’t see any reptiles.  Peter, the guide, told me not to worry.  There are only two kinds of poisonous snakes on the island and they don’t want to bother you.  I wasn’t really reassured.  We next drove to a place where there was a beach down one path and a suspension bridge down the other.  I walked down the path toward the beach but it was through lots of brush and got very sandy and it occurred to me that this was the perfect place for one of those two varieties of critters to be not looking to bother me, so I went back.  I know, I’m a wuss.

Finally we made a stop for a wine-tasting.  Okay, this I can handle.  There are a few vineyards on the island and what we sampled was from the Islander Estate Vineyards.  The owner is a Frenchman from a family of vintners in Bordeaux.  He spends half his time in France and half here.  The wines produced are in the French style and they were really quite good.

See all these guys hanging out in the tree above our van.  They are some kind of white parrot and boy were they a noisy bunch.

After tasting several it was time to reboard the tender and head back to the ship.  The wind had picked up so it was an exhilarating ride.  It was an interesting day for me in terms of information and pretty nice because I didn’t see any of those things I don’t like.