Wildlife in Australia? Best Place to Go?

Old Feb 4th, 2007, 12:54 PM
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I'm surprised that there is so little mention of Kangaroo Island in this thread, and am confused about whether it is worth going there. We were in Australia Sept.-Oct. last year and were in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, the Cairns/Daintree/GBR area, the Red Center, and Tasmania. We saw lots of wildlife. We are going back this year, in Oct.-Nov. and are planning to go to Canberra (where I'll be a visiting fellow at ANU for 3 weeks), Melbourne, Adelaide and KI, and then the North Is. of N.Z. (We'll catch the South Is. on another trip.) My question is whether it's worth going to K.I.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Judilie
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Old Feb 4th, 2007, 02:35 PM
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Judilie;

Here's a link that may give you some insights into Kangaroo Island. If I were going to Adelaide (as you are), I would certainly make the time to include K.I. Wouldn't miss it.

http://www.tourkangarooisland.com.au/about/default.aspx

On the other hand, if I were going to Qld (as the original poster indicated), and only had 2 weeks in Australia, I wouldn't hare across the country in the opposite direction to go there, when there's an abundance of things to do & see in the area they're planning to visit.

As you've been here, you know that we're a vast landscape and distance = time; something that lots of "first timers", often more used to the European scale, find a little difficult to grasp. So, you will often find advice suggesting places to see in the general vicinity of a poster's stated destination, if they've given some idea of their itinerary.

As I said though, in your case, I'd definitely include Kangaroo Island.
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Old Feb 4th, 2007, 10:18 PM
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Thanks very much, Bokhara. I'd appreciate any tips you (and others) might have about K.I., regarding sights to see, places to stay, and places to eat. We're tentatively planning on being there Nov. 5-7 for 2 nights and nearly 3 full days. Is that too much time for K.I.?

Judilie
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Old Feb 19th, 2007, 08:10 PM
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Hi Eliza.

My husband and I were in Australia in September 2006 for three weeks. Our main interest was in seeing as much wildlife as we could while we were there. I am happy to say that we saw almost every animal we had set out to see, including the platypus and cassowary. Although we did take two night time spotlighting tours, many of the animals we saw we found on our own and in the wild. This was our itinerary:

3 nights Melbourne
3 nights traveling from Melbourne to Adelaide, via the Great Ocean Road
2 nights Adelaide
2 nights Kangaroo Island
3 nights Daintree/Cape Tribulation
2 nights Atherton Tablelands
3 nights Trinity Beach (north of Cairns)
1 night Sydney

We saw the most wildlife on Kangaroo Island and in the Atherton Tablelands.

I would have loved to go to Tasmania, Darwin or Western Australia but found we lacked the time. Also, traveling to Darwin and Western Australia can add signficantly to the cost of your trip.

Some of our highlights:
Searching for the lyrebird in Sherbrooke Forest north of Melbourne
Seeing the possums after dark in the Melbourne parks
Seeing our first koala in the wild near Lorne in Angahook-Lorne State Park
Seeing the whales near Warnambool
Spotting the kangaroos and emus as we drove down into the Tower Hill Park
The fur seals and sea lions on Kangaroo Island
Tracking down the echidna on K I
The cassowaries in the Daintree
Spotting the platypus in the Atherton tablelands
Spotlighting tour in the tablelands
Snorkeling on the GBR
The fruit bats in the Sydney Botanical Garden

I would recommend trying to find the Lonely Planet guidebook "Watching Wildlife Australia". I bought it used on Amazon and it had a wealth of information on where to find wildlife in Australia.

Also, if you decide to visit Kangaroo Island, I would recommend spending one night in Kingscote and one night near Flinders Chase National Park. This is not what we did but after we were there I decided this would have been the best course of action. Here is the reason. Although we had rented a car to use on Kangaroo Island, our rental contract expressly prohibited us from driving after dark. We wanted to see the fairy penguins but the fairy penguins only come in after dark. Since we were not staying in Penneshaw or Kingscote, the only way we could see the penguins was to hire a guide to drive us to one of the towns to see the penguins. Conversly, if we had stayed in Kingscote or Penneshaw, we would not be near the park and could not drive there to see the wildlife after dark. The island is quite large and it takes quite a while to drive between Kingscote and Flinders Chase.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Sara

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Old Feb 20th, 2007, 05:53 AM
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If you want to see wildlife, go to King's Cross in Sydney.
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Old Feb 20th, 2007, 06:47 AM
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Sari, that you for terrific suggestions, especially about the Lonely Planet book. I'm going to look for it right away. As I move forward in planning, I might post again. I'm still figuring out how to divide up our time. There's a chance we might be able to push our trip back to October, which would be great as far as the weather is concerned!
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Old Jul 18th, 2007, 04:39 PM
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Hi there,
I will start this post with a declaration that I have a vested interest in the business. I am a tour operator on Kangaroo Island (used to trade as Adventure Charters of Kangaroo Island but have rebranded as Exceptional Kangaroo Island). On our website we have a complete list of the birds sighted on Kangaroo Island with habitat, breeding, population trends and seasonality. I have also listed all vertebrates recorded for the Island and surrounding waters - this list has "likelihood of observation in a visit of a few days" for each species. Admittedly this is subjective and assumes you are either an experienced observer of wildlife, ask LOTS of questions of the locals, or take a trip with a guide. I have provided this information so that potential visitors to the Island come with realistic expectations. The biggest single issue with expectations is where vistors come in our summer (Dec-Feb) and hope to find kangaroos with thick fur coats bouncing around in daylight in the heat. They snooze all day in the shade of dense vegetation. Anyway hope this helps. Link to http://www.exceptionalkangarooisland...t_wildlife.php
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Old Jul 18th, 2007, 06:03 PM
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Thanks Craig - that's a great link!
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