Today was everything that yesterday wasn't. Surprisingly. We booked a last minute HAL tour for Seal Bay Discovery. This was a tender port and there was quite a swell on the sea as we made our way over to Kingscote.
This small island (90 miles by 40 miles) has 4000 inhabitants. Although close to mainland Australia, it was isolated for 8000 years, and only birds crossed the channel. In the early 1800s - 3 explorers made their way here (Flinders (English), a French one whose name escapes me, and Pendleton (American) ). The latter man is responsible for the tragic almost total destruction of the Australian Sea Lion, which they project will be extinct in about 30 years. He slaughtered 100,000 seals on this island and had so many pelts and so much blubber that he had to build another ship to get it all home. We went to the largest colony on the island, - where 1000 of these lovely creatures remain, because there is a reef about a nautical mile offshore that prevented Pendleton from taking them all.
Our bus driver was extremely witty, and a very informative guide. The island now has tourism as its main industry, followed by agriculture (wheat, barley, flax, rapeseed) honey, and 47 vineyards, sheep and cattle. The land is surprisingly barren, and parched, with large tracts of land cleared for crops, and the rest covered in scrubby bushes and eucalyptus trees. And of course the name of the island comes from the large population of kangaroos. There is a large inland salt water sea on the island, that we passed by and a saltwater lake. There is only 1 stoplight on the island. In 2007 lightening struck a forest of eucalyptus and caused a huge fire that spread and burned for 3 1/2 weeks. We saw all the dead trees from one area, but it has regenerated, as the driver told us these trees love fires and grow back very quickly. The main road was in good repair, but you could see that much of the road infrastructure here is a dirt or gravel path. The climate is temperate, and it never snows, or gets too cold.
Our driver stopped to point out some large kangaroos, which at 8 am. were just either lying down by the side of the road to nap, or headed for the trees to sleep for the day. It was difficult to see them, because they looked like bushes if they weren't moving.
There are a few nice homes, but everything else is extremely modest, and there are quite a few old limestone structures from the early settlers. Our driver has lived here his whole life (63 years) and was the son of one of the 172 Returning Soldier families who were settled here after World War 2. This is quite a story. The Australian government divided land so each family had 1200 acres, and established them in communal homes for 2 years, while they all cleared the land, then devised a process whereby once they were profitable, they began to pay back the land value. Today there is only 1 man living of the original 172. Some of the farms have been bought up by the larger farmers on the land.
For those who don't know, my interest in seals goes back to the 1970's when I graduated from the University of Guelph, and worked at the College of Biological Science. Eventually I wound up working for the Dean, who had research students and grants for work on Pinnepedia (seals). I actually wrote some books for him on the topic, that are published, and while my detailed memory of their biology has faded, they hold a sentimental place in my heart. We arrived at Seal Bay, which is a National Park where a park ranger, took us to the beach right beside the seals. These seals are distinct from other Sea Lions, as the mature males have a golden mane of hair that makes them look like a lion when they are swimming. This population is used to humans, and just laid around the beach completely unperturbed at our presence.
Each adult goes out to sea to feed for 3 days at a time, often swimming about 250 miles to do so. They can dive for up to 12 minutes for a large male, and about 8 for a female. We saw an exhausted seal arrive back on the beach. When the female returns she calls out to her pups who come up to feed. They have the longest gestational period of any seal - 17 months which is one reason their population is so endangered, as having 1 pup, with 30 % mortality doesn't give them much chance to repopulate to safer levels. These seals are implanted with micro chips as soon as the mother goes out to feed, and they are well monitored by the park biologists. Their natural predator here is the great white shark. So those surfing waves weren't so appealing. Ten days after giving birth to her pup, the female goes into heat and gets pregnant right away. Some life.
The setting is beautiful, a large harbour on a very fine sand beach with dunes rising up behind. The seals have carved small paths in the dunes, when they travel up there to get shelter or give birth.
Our next stop was to the Eucalyptus refinery - the only one left , where they make eucalyptus oil, soaps, and lotions, tea tree oil and emu oil, and honey. All of the honey is harvested from the Ligurian bees, which were originally established from 12 Italian hives. This industry is thriving, with over 12,000 hives now. The most important thing is that this is the only species of bee on the island, and it is disease free, unlike many bee populations around the world that are dying and endangered from a mite. Kangaroo Island is involved in helping save bee populations around the world as they make Queen bees from their hives and ship them by post around the world in little wooden matchbook size cartons, with enough food to feed her for a week. I had the feeling that this may foretell the future, when small seemingly inconsequential and remote places on earth may play an important role as the planet gets sicker from all our abuses.
Our last spot was Pennington Bay - a spectacular deserted beach of turquoise waters crashing against the limestone cliffs.
What impressed me was how industrious the people on this remote island are, - so many different small businesses, and even an art show in the town, and yet it is not a place that I would want to call home, as it surely must be tough and require a hardiness of character. There are no amenities here - at all - we saw a restaurant and a craft centre, a motel, and a general store - that's it folks. Like the Falkland Islands, where we visited last year, there are lots of loners who would find this gorgeous landscape ideal, but for those of us wanting a bit more we would get cabin fever pretty quickly. Still we felt very fortunate to have spent a few hours here on this lovely unspoiled island.
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