KANGAROO ISLAND

We were picked up at 8:15 and our driver drove us to the Cairns airport whereby we caught a 10:20 flight to Adelaide on JetStar Air.

We arrived in Adelaide where our scheduled driver picked us up and shuttled us over to a bus station where we boarded a bus for a 1.5 hour ride to a ferry near Kangaroo Island. We then boarded the ferry for Kangaroo Island which was about a 45 minute ride.

Upon arrival, we had a driver drive us to the Stranraer Homestead. This is a Bed and Breakfast on a farm in the middle of no where – even went down gravel and dirt roads to get there. Upon arrival we knew this was somewhere special.

The 3,000 acre farm is owned by Graham and Lyn Wheaton. These are your typical hard working farmers which are the same any where in the country. They have around 3,500 sheep. We had a five star dinner which included chicken, red snapper and two killer desert options. Lyn knows how to cook!

The house was built in the 1920’s and was Graham’s grand fathers house. It has walls so thick the wifi will only work in one room.

I began typing this email at 5:00 am and of course Lyn is up at 5:30 to prepare breakfast. Both Lyn and Graham are in their late 70’s and love to meet people from around the world. The house is in top-notch shape and sparkling clean. We felt very welcome.

At dinner we met another delightful couple from the UK which led to some wine and story telling. Lots of laughter filled the halls of the old house. As the evening wound down, Jane and I helped clear the table as the other couple departed for bed. We stayed up a little longer and shared our farm stories. It was a precious moment.

Upon my entry of the dinning room, the table is perfectlty set for breakfast One at a time she starts to bring homemade dishes into the room. This woman takes no short cuts. Her Google ratings are all perfect. She gets it. I asked her about her perfect Google ratings and she just smiled and said no one is perfect.

My favorite room in the house was the study which was complete with a fireplace, piano and library of books which included a Webster’s dictionary that was a good nine inches thick and has 40 years of National Geographic magazines. I found a book written by Jason, the son of Lyn & Graham about the history of the farm. Very interesting read.

We were picked up by the tour guide an ventured out for a day of wildlife site seeing. It was great to see the animals in the wild – not in a zoo.

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I was especially honored to see the Australia Sea lions. There is talk about not being able to get this close to them in the future. They also mentioned at some pint we may not be able to hold Koala Bears.

The Australia see lions can spend up to 3 days hunting in the sea.This particular colony had 256 pups born in 2022 with 49 that died. They are being tracked very closely by game officials as they worry about extinction.

It was a remarkable day to see these animals in their natural habitat.

They had a raging fire go across the island a couple years ago that killed an estimated 40,000 koala bears. The good news is that the island can only support around 15,000 which is where the number stands today.

We had lunch in a sheep pasture where our guide cooked up white fish, potatoes and salad. Also had wine and great conversation with the other folks who were from around the world.

I took so many pictures I am having trouble getting everything downloaded and working because of slow wifi. Just couldn’t help taking all the pictures.

We returned back to the homestay and had another 5 star dinner.

We got up the next morning and had a fabulous home cooked breakfast, said our goodbyes to Lyn & Graham and got in our tour van for another day of site seeing on Kangaroo Island. On this trip we were looking at the incredible shorelines on Kangaroo Island.

We stopped Hansen Bay which was the best beaches I have ever seen.

The above video was called Cape du Couedic. The most active ocean I have ever seen.

While having lunch we were visiting with 4 girls that were traveling together form the US and learned that they had used Shannon with Down Under Endeavors which was the same travel agent that we used. Turns out Shannon was a sorority sister to one of the ladies with us. (It is really a small world). Their names were Gretchen, Rachel, Tracy and Rosey. They were out to have a good time.

We made are way back to the ferry, crossed the ocean and rode a bus back to Adelaide where we checked into the Mayfair Hotel. We will continue our journey tomorrow and fly to Sydney which is the largest city in Australia. 

Australia is made up of 8,222 islands. (A little fun fact).