Drowsy Drivers Die and Kangaroos! (that are alive!)

Don't worry, no one died. On our way back tonight we passed this sign on the side of the road that said "drowsy drivers die" and I have a plan to duplicate and distribute in the states when I get back.

Anyways KANGAROO ISLAND! It lived up to its name. I'll go day by day for you guys. So.

Day One:

We leave our CRAZY hostel at 8 am to run across town (with all our gear) to the YHA hostel...which took us the whole 30 minutes (we were getting picked up at 8:30), and for a glorious seven minutes of those thirty, it rained. No. It poured. I was soaked, and miserable, but then we got picked up and I dried off, and I was no longer cranky.

Our ferry to KI (Kangaroo Island) isn't until 4 pm, so we spend the day touring Adelaide and the coastal towns. We got to see the highest point in Adelaide that overlooked the entire city, and we got to see some beautiful waterfalls. On the coast, we climbed this huge hill (I say hill because I want to use the word 'huge', but it wasn't quite a "huge mountain"). It overlooked the beautiful ocean, and we got some awesome pictures...there are two pictures of me jumping up on a huge rock and another of me jumping from that rock to a smaller one nearby. Annelise got some awesome shots of me in mid air (which makes the pictures so damn amazing), and I got some good ones of her. We then cruised the coast to the ferry and we departed for KI.

We got to KI around 5 pm, and then had an hour drive to Kaiwarra (our "farm" stay). It's considered a farm because of all the sheep, wallabys, and kangaroo...but they had a full bar...so it's not really the typical "farm". Oh, and there were only three of us! Annelise, Margot (a swiss girl) and myself, plus Hamish, our fearless leader. So for dinner we had heaps of pasta with amazing tomatoe, meat, brocolli, zuchini, onion sauce.

Day Two:

We woke up at 7 am to Hamish's idea of a wake up call (blasting The Killers -- ((a band))). We had an awesome breakfast of cereal and toast, and around 8 am we took off for our 10 km hike through the forest to Hanson Bay. We started at Keeley Caves (but we were on top of the caves...so we didn't actually see them), and then we hiked by Grassdale Lagoon (which isn't a lagoon...it's dried up) but it's home to kangaroos!! So we started trekking across this lagoon, and I got probably within ten feet of two kangaroos (but then they hopped away). I got some awesome photos though (of course). At this point we were 3 km into our hike, and my knees were holding up. At what I thought was 6 km in, we found a sign that showed us a "you are here" photo with comparison to where we came from and where we had to go. From the drawn to scale size we estimated we had 3 km left. Unfortunately we had about 5 left. :( So we kept walking, and then ran into Hamish (who had driven the van around to our finish point and had began walking back towards us). We finished the last 3 km together, and finished at Hanson Bay (right on the ocean!). It was beautiful. We climbed a cliff and saw some HUGE waves crash into the rocks...which then sprayed us with tons of salty water.

We then went back to Kaiwarra and met up with three guys who were joining us (they were doing the two day tour as opposed to our three day). In the afternoon we went to SEAL BAY! WHICH WAS SO NEAT. We saw live Australian Sea Lions and they were so cute. This baby one came probably within 2 feet of us, because it was all cute and curious and ( you guessed it) we got some awesome photos. I got to see sea lions surfing the waves, and some big daddys and mommys cuddling up together out of the wind. There were HUNDREDS of seals in this bay and on shore. Oh man, it was so neat.

Then that night we went PENGUIN HUNTING! Not with a gun...with cameras. There are these teeny tiny penguins that hang out by Vivonne Bay (whose beach, by the way, was voted number one in the world, and I must say...it was pretty spectacular and looked as if it would be a surfers paradise). Anyways, it was night so we all had torches (flashlights), and I attempted to get some shots, but we couldn't use our flash...because apparently the flash blinds them for life :( but i tried, so we will see what you guys think when I show you the pictures.

Then to finisht the night Annelise and I taught the other four the glories of S'mores. Apparently roasting marshmallows over a camp fire is totally an American thing to do...the ENglish, Swiss and Aussies had no idea what we were doing.

Day Three:

We arose again to Hamish's idea of a wake up call...which this morning was Michael Jackson's Beat It, followed by Billie Jean. IT was pretty awesome. Breakfast was homemade (from scratch) pancakes. We packed up and headed out for the day. We spent the morning at ANOTHER seal bay...where we saw New Zealand Fur Seals...but we couldn't get that close to them, because we were on an elevated path way (as opposed to Seal Bay where we were right on the beach with them). But these little babies (probably twenty of them out of the hundreds and hundreds of seals) kept following us and tried climbing up to get closer to us. It was totally cute, and yes, I got awesome pictures.

Then we went to REMARKABLE ROCKS. And trust me, they were remarkable. They are these rocks, which I'm sure you can google, that are on this HUGE boulder on the ocean, that have been weathered and eroded over millions of years and have created crazy neat pathways and cut throughs and overhangs. Yes. We got awesome pictures.

We spent the rest of the day touring pretty beautiful spots and beaches before headingb ack to the getty and catching a charter boat back to Australia main land. At our lunch spot we saw this kangaroo with a baby joey in her pouch...which apparently was used to humans, because it let me hug it....yes, pictures to prove it!

Anyways, we got back after the hour and a half drive back to Adelaide, and checked into a new hostel, Backpack OZ (which is not as crazy as the other adelaide hostel). Apparently a bunch of hostel kids are going out to a pub tonight so we're gonna go with them. Also my friend Sarz is going to join us again (I hope). She just finished exams on tuesday, so it should be a lot of fun.

Alright, I'm off! Oh, and p.s my cold is gone. YAY. I still cough a little in the morning, but I think that's just because some flem gets down to my lungs as I sleep. But other than that, I am all cured. Hope all is well back home. Happy day early fourth of july!