Day 43, 16 Feb – Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island

Clear skies and smooth seas greeted us this morning as we closed the final mile to Kangaroo Island.  Our original forecast arrival of around noon was improved by about 1 hour to 11 AM.  It was going to be a beautiful day with calm seas – what a change from yesterday.

This is scheduled to be our final tender port this cruise.  We will all be glad to finally be done with them.

Tendering one last time

Tender tickets were scheduled to be distributed at 10 AM by the Lido Pool.  Since time was already limited ashore, I decided to bite the bullet and get in line about 1 hour early.  The line was already back to the Lido Pool Bar, near the entrance to the Lido with the first person waiting patiently near the Dive In.  I learned later that he arrived around 6:15 AM.  The difference between arriving at 6:15 and 9 AM was about 40 people or 80 tender tickets since each person can collect 2 tickets.  As it turned out, we would end up being in Group 5 which would make us the last people to board the first tender that wasn’t dedicated to tours and the shoreside set up.  This was the same tender as those people who got in line at 6:15 AM, so my timing of getting there 1 hour early was about right.  Henk was down on the platform supervising the operation which has become his standard practice this cruise.

Our tender left the Amsterdam at 11:34 AM with a tender ride of about 10 minutes.

Welcome to Kangaroo Island

There is a nice sign welcoming us to Kangaroo Island and these always make for nice pictures.  Afterward we spotted a man holding a HERTZ sign and carrying a clipboard.  He crossed our name off his list and told us to head to the end of the street where their driver would take us to the Hertz Rental Office, about ½ mile away.

There were 7 people in our group sharing the van.  Rick would be driving, and I would navigate.  The HERTZ shuttle was the manager’s personal SUV so only Rick and I went to the office to get the van.  We would return to the dock to pick up the rest of our group.

Renting the Van

This was a small Hertz office, but they had everything ready and most of the paperwork was already complete.  I always take the local insurance for these short one-day rentals while on a cruise ship.  Even though my credit card would cover most issues, I don’t want to have to deal with anything while on such a tight schedule, and making phone calls to credit card companies from the ship could be an issue.

An additional benefit of taking the local insurance here was that this allowed us to drive on the unpaved roads, which would save a lot of travel time throughout the day.  The people renting a car in front of me, who declined the local insurance, were told they were not allowed to drive on dirt roads without the local insurance.

Since we only had 4 hours instead of 8 we had to revise our plans.  We had always planned to go to the Seal Bay Conversation Park and that would still be our first stop, about 1 hour away.  Our next and final stop would be the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park in Parndana, about 30 minutes from Seal Bay in the center of Kangaroo Island.

The van was equipped with a Garmin GPS, but I used MAPS.ME on my Ipad as my first choice for navigation.  I always bring a cigarette lighter adapter that will keep my IPAD charged during the trip.

Seal Bay

We started out on a two-lane paved road, but we took a shortcut on a hard-packed dirt road which probably saved us 15 minutes on our way to the Seal Bay Conservation Park.

We arrived at Seal Bay Conservation Park around 1:30PM.  There are two choices for touring the park:  The self-guided Boardwalk tour for $16 pp AUS or the guided tour for $35 AUS.  The guided tour takes about 45 minutes and allows you to walk on the beach instead of being restricted to the Boardwalk.  The Boardwalk is, as the name implies, a boardwalk that goes from the visitor center down to the beach and is probably about a quarter mile long.

We chose to stick to the Boardwalk and not take the guided tour.  Once we reached the boardwalk viewing platform, which is the closest point to the beach, we were able to observe about a dozen or so seals of various sizes laying in the surf and occasionally rolling over or playing with one of their neighbors.  We were probably as close to the seals as you would have been permitted even if you were down on the sand on the guided tour.  If you only want to see the seals taking the boardwalk tour will get you close enough to easily watch them on the sand.  It’s possible that the seas were exceptionally close to the boardwalk viewing point today and on other days it may not be possible to see them as well without being on the beach.

A HAL tour arrived shortly after we did and everyone on the bus was on the same self-guided Boardwalk with us.  I don’t think the HAL tours included the option for a guided tour.

Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park

Our next stop was the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park (KIWP) near Parndana.  It took about 30 minutes to drive there.  It would have taken us over an hour to get there if we weren’t able to cut across the island using the dirt roads.  The dirt, or unsealed roads as they call them, are in good condition and I wouldn’t hesitate to drive a sedan on them.

KIWP is a small, privately run, wildlife park that is home to Kangaroos, Cassowaries, Wallabies, Pelicans, Koalas, Emus, Penguins, Flying Foxes and other animals you would find around Kangaroo Island.  The animals are kept in relatively small pens and are well cared for.  We were able to watch them feed the Pelicans and Penguins during our visit and they give you a bag of Kangaroo food you can use to feed the Kangaroos yourself.  For an extra $30 you can hold a Koala, or a snake for $10.

A copy of the visitor’s brochure is HERE.

Admission is $25, which seemed expensive for the size of the park, but everything on KI probably costs more due to the islands location.

We had to leave after 1 hour.  We could have easily spent another hour here if we had more time, but it was now 4 pm and we were 1 hour from the ship and the last tender was 5:30 only giving us a 30-minute buffer.  I didn’t mind cutting it a little closer than normal since our next port was Adelaide, only 20 miles away, and an easy ferry ride if we were to get a flat tire or something and miss the ship.

Back on the Ship

There is a single gas station in Penneshaw, which was not self-service, much to our surprise.  After we filled up, we dropped off the van and were in the tender line at 5:15 pm.

The ship celebrated the Chinese New Year today with decorations in the Lido.  There weren’t any decorations in the main dining room, but the menus did have a Chinese theme including such items as a Pacific Rim Salad, Chinese Curried Beef Brisket and Sweet and Sour Pork plus more.  See the complete menu on the blog.

The Valentines Day Gala that was canceled on the 14^th was held this evening in the Crows Nest.  They passed out the Chocolate Surprise after 9:30PM in the Crow’s nest and around Deck 5.  We missed the Chocolate Surprise since we went directly from dinner to the showroom and didn’t spot anyone passing out chocolate along the way.  We didn’t look too hard either.

Louie Shelton was back tonight with an all new show.  He played more Santana, Cream and other classic rock hits before finishing his show with Surfin’ Safari by The Ventures which featured Graham on the drums.  Louie puts on a great show and is worth making a special effort to catch one of his performances.