Australia visit with fantastic wildlife on Kangaroo Island.
The first part of my trip was a big conference with nearly all the suppliers that had something to offer in Australia. It was very interesting and very useful. I have learned a lot. This conference was held in Cairns Northern Queensland. From Cairns we made a short visit to the Great Barrier Reef and visited Green Island; a very small island with one hotel.
The next day they took us to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation. It was a very beautiful journey along the coast. In the Rainforest we were lucky enough to do a jungle safari! This is with ropes through the Daintree rainforest a fantastic experience. We also went to an open wildlife park with plenty, koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, crocodiles, snakes, emus and other creatures. We got to hold a Koala which was a great experience.
After our visit to the Cairns area we flew down to Adelaide. From Adelaide we were taken to Kangaroo Island, a journey of around two hours to Cape Jarvis from where you take the boat to Kangaroo Island; a journey of 45 minutes. Kangaroo Island is the third largest island off the coast of Australia. From east to west it is 155 km.
Kangaroo Island is filled with a lot of wildlife. It is obviously famous for Kangaroos and we did see plenty, mainly at dusk. Apart from kangaroos there are a lot of koala's, wallabies, snakes (very poisonous snakes live on kangaroo island), Echidna (this is a type of hedgehog), plenty varieties of birds and sea lions which you can visit on the beach but you will have to do this with a guide. The sea lions can be unpredictable. I also saw plenty of seals. If you are a wildlife lover I definitely would recommend Kangaroo Island.
There was a wide variety of accommodation from campsites to 5* accommodation. This is the southern ocean lodge which is beautiful and we had a tour around the hotel. The town of Kingscote is the main town on Kangaroo Island (around 4000 inhabitants). There isn’t much there but the pelican parade which is held every day at 5pm is worth a visit. You can also see penguins but unfortunately we did not see any.
From Kangaroo Island we flew back to the Mainland Adelaide. From there we went to the Barossa wine region where most of the Australian wine comes from. We did a lot of wine tasting and learned a lot about the different grape varieties. We tasted some really great wines. Also the food in Southern Australia was fantastic. If you like food and wine I would recommend that area of Australia. All in all it was a fantastic trip.