Hi-
I am planning a trip to Australia in October- we are doing 4 nights in Sydney, 1 night in Hunter Valley, 4 nights in Palm Cove/Cairns area PLUS- we have 2 nights in KI and 2 nights in Adelaide....
My first question is do you need 2 nights in KI? Also how far/long of a drive is it to the Barossa Valley?
Second questions... KI seems very big! where is the best central location to stay?

Need? that is hard to answer but I would not go for less time. Adelaide to the Barossa is just over an hour or was about 10 years ago. Try http://www.whereis.com/whereis/home.do
for distances and travel times

No, with as little time as you have you don't need to do two nights in Kangaroo Island. We booked an overnight package tour "Kangaroo Island Highlights Tour" through the Sealink Kangaroo Island Ferry. We don't usually do coach tours but this was a very efficient way of doing it. The package included round trip transportation from Adelaide to KI and back, an overnight stay at the Kangaroo Island Seafront Hotel, and then an all-day coach tour around the island during which we visited the Seal Bay Conservation Park, Flinders Chase Park, Remarkable Rocks, Admiral's Arch, and a caravan park that was home to koalas, Tamar wallabies, possums, Cape Barren Geese and more. Other animals we saw on on KI included a pod of dolphins (off the beach in Vivonne Bay), New Zealand fur seals, oyster catchers, Australian sea lions, and much more.
Our hotel was old fashioned and plain and its restaurant had mediocre food, but it had great ocean views, plus it was next to a penguin rookery, which we visited at night. In fact, you could hear the courting penguins from our room.
We also saw a heaps of birds and mobs of kangaroos during the drive from Adelaide to the ferry terminal in Cape Jervis.
It takes less than an hour to get from Adelaide to Barossa Valley. You could leave Adelaide very early in the morning and visit the wine country. If you decide beforehand on a few wineries you would like to visit and plan out your route, you could probably easily do both McLaren Vale and Barossa. In my opinion, McLaren Vale is a little more scenic, but I was happy to have visited both. However, my husband and I overnighted in the area around Adelaide Hills.

thanks for the feedback!

Diamantina- the KI info was great- thats actually the tour we will be with... are there other places to eat dinner around there or do you have to stay in the hotel?

As an Adelaidian, I find the Barossa very touristy and somewhat dreary. I much prefer the Southern Vales, near McLaren Vale. The wineries are nicer and the region is closer to Adelaide.

There are also some excellent boutique wineries.

Good restaurant is the Star of Greece, or Darry's Verandah, and the Salopian Inn. You are also close the coast (the Star of Greece overlooks a magnificent beach, including the area where the old sailing ship it is named after was wrecked in the 1800s).

McLaren Vale is noted for its excellent red wines. There are more than 30 wineries in the area - many award wining ones.

If you decided to take your own car to KI, you could combined the Southern Vales with this trip, as you have to drive through the region to reach the ferry departure point. There is good accommodation down there. Arrive at the Southern Vales in the morning, sightsee, spend the night there, and then continue on to Cape Jervis, which is where the ferry leaves from.

Email me at [email protected] if you want any more help.

Will you be staying at the Kangaroo Island Seafront Hotel, too? Because Sealink Tours offers you a choice of places to stay. We decided to stay there because it was close to the penguin rookery and because it had ocean views. But this was in 2002, so maybe things have changed! Maybe they have a new chef! Surely, someone else on this board has been there recently.
I do think there are other places to eat around there, though. I remember a good pub near the ferry terminal, maybe it was the "Penneshaw Pub," nothing fancy but decent food, and great ales (and I am generally a wine drinker). We ate there right before our departure from the island.
If you enjoy food, Kangaroo Island is known for its seafood and dairy products, particularly excellent cheeses. I also brought back some Kangaroo Island honey (made by Ligurian bees). And it is worth trying Kangaroo Island wine as well. You'll easily encounter Kangaroo Island products in Adelaide, most like at the excellent Central Market.
I just checked the Sealink ferry website and I see the "Kangaroo Island Highlights Tour" package does not include the overnight stay in the hotel, so we must have arranged to add that to the package. In other words, they must have customized a tour for us, or back then it was an overnight tour. We really enjoyed ourselves. It was a short trip, but satisfying.
As I said before, we overnighted in the wine country as well, in the Adelaide Hills. We stayed at an unusual, funky sort of place, in a safari tent at the Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary. It might be worth a visit if you like animals:
http://www.warrawong.com/
You needn't stay there to see the animals. They offer morning or evening walks. It is also close to Bridgewater Mill/Petaluma Winery, which is very pretty and has some nice wines (my favorite being their crisp and dry Riesling).
So many wonderful wineries in South Australia!