Adelaide and Kangaroo Island - Aussie Adventure Part 1

Something funny happened on the way to the forum, as they say.  Or in this case, on the way to Adelaide.  We had gotten to LAX just fine, and actually had such a long layover that we ended up leaving the airport to go get lunch at a place Jaiman really wanted to eat at, and coming back to check in.  The flight to Sydney went without a hitch.  But when we arrived and checked in for our domestic flight, a bit worn and weary from the travel, I was thrown off a bit.  The plan had been to arrive in Sydney at 7:01 am and leave at 10 am for Melbourne, and then fly to Adelaide at 12:55, landing at 1:45.  But when we checked in to our flight, it said we were leaving at 9:55 am.  A little weird, but no big deal, I thought, they moved it up by 5 minutes.  But the flight wasn't going to Melbourne, it was going directly to Adelaide.  I had already disappointed Jaiman with the news that we had two more flights to go, and here we were looking at an itinerary that had us one just one flight left.  I assumed I must have changed the flights and not updated TripIt accordingly, but that actually wasn't the case.  From what I gathered, it seems Qantas had cancelled the flight to Melbourne and automatically booked us on a better flight to Adelaide.  Already, we were loving Australia. 

Things got even better when we checked our bags in - they had an automatic system to do so, and it worked like a charm.  Pretty awesome, Oz! 

Alright, so we arrived in Adelaide even earlier than expected, and our bag arrived and everything was good.  As we were driven to our hotel, we noticed a lot of Asian restaurants along the way - a mini China town if you will - and so, after checking into our hotel (which they let us a do a bit earlier than the usual 3 pm check in), relaxing a bit and then booking our Kangaroo Island tour for the following day, we decided to venture out and have some Asian food. 

We ended up at an okay place, but neither of us were really feeling it all that much.  Nevertheless, we were starting to decompress from the wariness of travel and general life stress.  We walked around town quite a bit, actually playing Pokemon Go, too.  While we were no longer avid players of the game (and most of the world has quit months ago), we were well aware that there was a region-specific Pokemon called Kangaskhan that we were determined to catch while visiting.  After some walking around, we decided to call it a night early, and headed up to the hotel room. 

We slept well, and were up and excited for our Kangaroo Island tour the next morning.  The shuttle driver was in the lobby ready for us when we got downstairs, and we were on our way.  We were transferred to a larger shuttle, and then were driven about an hour to the ferry terminal.  At this point, I wasn't feeling great, a little motion sickness or something bringing me down.  The waters were rough, so that only added to my motion sickness.  I cautiously ate a sausage roll for breakfast with a Sprite.  I will say, the sausage roll was fine, but it was nothing compared to Debbie's back in NYC.  Regardless, I made it without getting sick, but was definitely glad to be on land again. 

Ironically, the first iconic Australian animal we saw was a wallaby - dead on the side of the road.  Sad face.  The day was sure to get better from there.  Our first stop was Seal Bay where we saw Australian Sea Lions up close and personal.  We mostly stayed on a little boardwalk just a foot or two above the beach where the sea lions walked around, sun bathed and played.  This allowed us a very close up view without being in danger of the strong, unpredictable creatures.  But we did get to walk a bit on the beach itself (I know, I had to suck it up and keep myself from having a panic attack from the sand), and we were told to keep our distance during this walk, but still got to see them pretty well.  One little guy approached us directly, curious about us.  It was a very chilly day, being in the southernmost part of Australia and still spring, and the wind blowing off the water made it that much chillier.  In fact, the wind was picking up a bit of the sand, and making me a little uneasy, but I did my best to enjoy the adorable wild critters. 

We then had a quick lunch which was nothing to write home about, but satisfying.  I, of course, detoured to the bathroom first and practically gave myself a sponge bath in the sink, trying to rid myself of both the sand and the notion of sand.  Next, the tour took us to a koala sanctuary.  We were told that holding koalas was illegal in this state, which I had anticipated and understood, but that we'd be able to see them essentially in the "wild" since this was truly a nature preserve and not like a zoo or something like that.  I loved the smell of the eucalyptus as we walked through.  The first few koalas we spotted were a bit hard to photograph and see very well, but we did get a couple good views of some other ones as we went along.  One was a bit more active, and actually was jumping from branch to branch, which was fun to watch.  In the gift shop, there were those awkwardly frightening koala masks, and I joked with Jaiman that if I wanted a picture of me cuddling a koala, he could just put one of those masks on and pretend to be a koala for me.  He was not amused, and would not partake in such photo.  Being called Kangaroo Island, I was surprised that we had seen mostly sea lions and koalas so far, but there were wild kangaroos hanging out in the distance in several places, just not very photogenic, and we usually saw them as we passed without time to line up a picture anyways.  Our next stop on the tour was a place called Remarkable Rocks which was another windy, chilly place on the shore.  Here, the wind and ocean spray and carved interesting shapes into the rocks, hence the name.  We didn't stay very long or desire adventuring much because of the cold wind and ocean spray, but it was worth seeing I suppose. 

Then it was on to Admiral's Arch, which initially was a lot like Remarkable Rocks with the ocean spray and wind, but it had seals.  We winded down the path to the arch, watching playful and sleepy seals along the way.  They remind me so much of my chiweiner, Carly. 

I had been advised to stay longer than a day on Kangaroo Island, but I think our tour was sufficient.  I did much better on the ferry ride back, and even got some reading done on the bus. 

The next morning, we went to Hungry Jacks for breakfast, which is like Burger King, Whopper and all.  We both ordered toasties, which I think is another Australian staple.  Stopping in a convenience store, we discovered for the first time that Australia has some fantastic KitKats, including some of our favorites from Japan!  I got a Mint Cream & Cookie Smash pack.  KitKats in Australia have more thickness in the chocolate than American and Japanese KitKats.  The ones I got were Ah-Mazing! 

Then it was time to head out back to the airport for our next little journey… we flew to Alice Springs and then to Yulara for our stay in Ayer's Rock, otherwise known as Uluru.