First Day on Kangaroo Island

This trip was so last minute and so unplanned that we had to decide what to do after we woke up and ate the cereal that had been left for us in the hotel room. Some continental breakfast I'll tell you what. 
Cereal, bread for toast, juice, milk for the cereal, butter, jam and Vegemite. Wow!

We decided to hit one of the "you must see's" and we went to seal bay.  On the way we hit "Clifford's Honey Farm", and the "Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery" which were both simple but fun. At Cliffords we learned about making honey and about the Luguaria bees that are the only bees found on Kangaroo Island and were brought over from Italy. This particular bee has cross bred so much that the ones on KI are the only pure L.  Bees found in the world anymore.  I was struck again at how far a bee has to travel(a distance of several times around the world)and how hard they work for only 500g of honey. Garrett and the kids had honey ice cream and I had the chocolate covered honeycomb.

We saw bees hard at work in a glass hive and we taught the kids about honey. They weren't really wild about the way bees digest and regurgitate etc... to make the honey, but they still wanted to eat it afterwards. They tried some very different kinds of honey. Some we're really floral and one was really woody. I didn't like the woody one. It seemed like I was sucking on the forest floor, but it was actually Garrett's favorite. The sugar honey from the sugar flowers was my favorite. 

We bought the boys some lip balm made from beeswax and honey and we bought Ethne a bracelet she really wanted with little flower beads. She broke it a day later trying to fit it over her head for a necklace :) lol funny but also very sad since she cried and said "I need another flower blace-let. I boke mine flower blace-let"

At the eucalyptus distillery we tried eucalyptus lozenges and watched a video on how they distill it. Then we bought a patch for the backpack, some eucalyptus oil and some tea tree oil, and boy were we glad we did. It worked wonders on our mosquito bites and sunburns at the end of the day. 

Also, we used it to clean the scratches Ezra got from the kangaroo he was feeding. It is a natural antiseptic. Boy that kid can hold a grudge too. At the end of the day he said "I just don't want to ever see that kangaroo again. It was so mean!" he couldn't forgive it or get past it even though the kangaroo meant him no ill will. Then he took it a step further and said he never wanted to feed another kangaroo again, even though he had already fed several more that day.

After these fun adventures we made it down for the last tour of the day to see the AU Sea Lions. We took the beach tour and it was, as the ranger put it, outrageously expensive. $85 AUD for the family. We were surprised how expensive some things on the island were and then at the same time how cheap others were. 

I was struck by how different these sea lions looked from the ones in San Francisco and the NZ Fur Seals. I asked the ranger about them and the differences and she said that they are all seals (sea lions and seals) but that these were different from proper seals that don't walk on both flippers or have external ears and such. This hardly satisfied me as an answer and the kids and I will be looking into it further to satiate our curiosity. 

After the sea lions we went over to bales beach and took in the beauty. We were the only people on the whole beach and it was magical. We wadded in deep but didn't go for a swim because we were warned that this side of the island was very dangerous for swimming. The rip tides are super strong. I have to admit too that I was glad the water was crystal clear because for the first time in my life I am worried about sharks. They have SO MANY here. Plus with all the seals being so close and the great white shark being there biggest predator I felt extra nervous.

This day was full of good things but also quite hard. Ethne cried so easily and the boys were SO NAUGHTY! Plus no one felt good so we didn't feel like eating and then were low energy the whole day. Garrett and I weren't as patient as normal so we had a hard time dealing with the boys naughtiness.

We did have fun though and while it was hard it was far better than sitting at home. It was a great day for learning new things and playing in the sand.