15 Tips for doing Kangaroo Island

For years I’ve been looking at Kangaroo Island in magazine and online “top list” articles. It looked absolutely stunning and untouched, and I promised myself that I’d get there one day. On one of the rare occasions on this trip we decided to pre plan a few weeks ahead due to a long weekend. Much to my husband’s dismay his passing comment of “we should get somewhere booked for that long weekend” turned into a budget buster 2 week expedition to Kangaroo Island. Before he knew what was happening ferries and park permits were booked.

There’s so much to see and do on Kangaroo Island that it is truly overwhelming when you first start looking into it. Because we knew we had a set time on KI (as the locals call it) we spent time planning our days and it truly paid off.

Here are our tips to get the most out of KI like we did.

• Kangaroo Island is heaven for wildlife

By far this has been the best spot we’ve come across for spotting wildlife. We spotted our first echidnas ever as well as our first whale of the trip. We spent the day fishing with wild dolphins at American River. We camped underneath koalas. Add in countless seals, kangaroos, wallabies and possums. Kangaroo island is without a doubt the biggest wildlife adventure we’ve come across. Ironically KI has a few wildlife parks which you can visit, but we didn’t feel we needed to visit them as we’d seen so many animals already (and for free). Before we got to Kangaroo Island I made it clear we weren’t leaving until we found an echidna and we got so excited spotting one we nearly ran off the road. A little bonus tip, the best place to spot echidnas are on the side of the roads.

• Kangaroo Island is huge

From end to end it takes a little under 2 hours to drive across KI. The couple of main roads are sealed but the majority of roads around the island are unsealed roads. We split our time by staying in 3 different places across the island to save us time (and petrol) by travelling back and forth across the island. We stayed at Rocky River in Flinders Chase National Park on the west side of the island, then moving to Vivonne Bay in the middle and then finishing up in Dudley which was close to the ferry back to the mainland. Splitting our time across the different zones of the island was the best decision we (I) made as it allowed us to explore so much more of the island.

• The best fishing is at Christmas Cove

We dropped a line in up and down KI during our two weeks there. By far the best fishing spot we found was Christmas Cove just near Penneshaw. Will caveat this by saying that we don’t have the rods or skills for beach fishing We spent a little under 2 hours fishing at Christmas Cove and pulled in close to 20 fish between us. Super proud to say that I caught the most and the biggest fish out of me and Daniel – and with using Kaia’s $5 Kmart kids rod as well. Imagine what I would have reeled in with a proper fishing rod!

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• Take the detour to check out Hanson Bay

One of the most beautiful spots we’ve come across in Oz so far and so worth the unsealed road detour. It’s the most perfect bay your mind can conjure.

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• In Winter you have the place to yourself

While island holidays in winter isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, in our opinion it was the best time to visit KI. Everywhere we went we had it to ourselves, and we had the camps to ourselves every night except one. You can tell from the way everything is built that its set up to manage absolutely massive crowds. When chatting to one of the staff at the Flinders Chase Visitor Centre café she said that during summer the minimum wait for a coffee was 45 minutes to an hour. No thanks. We thoroughly enjoyed having the whole island to ourselves. At all the main attractions like Admirals Arch, Cape Borda Lighthouse and Remarkable Rocks we were lucky to run into any other people. We definitely wouldn’t visit at any other time.

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• Sealink ferries have great deals – but call them

We booked our ferry tickets with Sealink and ended up phoning them to book as I had a question that I couldn’t be bothered to search for the answer to online. They ended up having fantastic deals which weren’t available to book online and ended up saving us nearly $300 all up. Sometimes it pays to use old school methods!

• Do sunset at Remarkable Rocks

We visited Remarkable Rocks during the day and did the official walking trail, but then came back to watch the sunset on the roof of our car. We snuggled in on the roof of the car with some snacks and sundowners and created a truly magical family moment. About 2km before the car park there is a layby on the side of the road which is the perfect spot to view the sunset over the Remarkable Rocks.

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• Pick the better seal spot

Before I get slammed online, let me say that I know that any animal viewing is completely seasonal and differs day to day if not hour to hour. I also don’t begrudge funds which go to animal conservation. However we visited Seal Bay and paid the $42 entry for the self guided walk to view the seal colony and left extremely disappointed. We saw only a couple of seals there when a few days before we visited Admirals Arch and saw hundreds of seals much closer and for free. We spent ages at Admirals Arch watching all the seal pups play in the rockpools right in front of us. Again, just our experience but Admirals Arch was a thousand times better for seal viewing.

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• Vivonne Bay campground has resident koalas

While on the topic of wildlife, if you are looking for guaranteed koala spotting head to the Vivonne Bay campground. There are a couple of trees in the centre of the campground which is home to a little koala family who are apparently there all year round. It was pretty special for us to be camping underneath wild koalas and definitely one of those “this is why we are doing this” moments.

• Get your exercise at Little Sahara

We took the kids for a morning of sandboarding at Little Sahara. While the price of $37 to rent a plastic board seemed a little steep at first, that melted away pretty quickly with the fun we had. I can’t remember the last time I saw Kaia squeal with so much joy. The sand dunes are deceptively steep – climbing to the top of those over and over will exhaust even the fittest person. Yet again, a small price to pay for truly wearing the kids (and husband) out for a quiet afternoon.

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• Splurge on some unique accommodation

 Although we didn’t do this, if and when we go back to Kangaroo Island the first thing I will do is splurge on one of the unique heritage accommodation which KI has to offer. The lighthouses on KI (of which there are many) have the option to stay in Lighthouse Keeper cottages which looked amazing. Next time!

• Time your visit to Cape Borda Lighthouse for the cannon firing

The Cape Borda Lighthouse fire the cannon each day at about 1:00pm at the end of the 12:30 tour. We timed our visit to coincide with this and it was well worth it – I truly think it was one of the highlights of Kaia’s young life so far. The awesome guy managing the light station was kind enough to fire up the cannons just for us.

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• On the hunt for the elusive platypus

I’ll be honest, the main reason I booked Rocky River campground was because of its close proximity to Platypus Pools. An absolutely wonderful, flat 2km loop walk perfect for small kids. The walk takes you around various different pools which – as the name suggests – are prime spots for finding platypus. Now there’s a few things I know about trying to see platypus in the wild. Your best chance is at dawn or dusk – check. Each day for the four days we were there we headed out at dusk to try our luck. The next requirement is that you need to be completely quiet and still as platypus are extremely shy. I have no doubt with our kids this is why we failed to spot one. Even with one of them asleep during one of our hunts we still couldn’t manage to keep the other one quiet and still. Yet another reason to go back!

• Get an awesome history lesson at Rebuild Independence at American River

Admittedly, we only stumbled in here because we thought it was a coffee shop but instead came across an amazing boat building yard, where they are currently building a replica of the 35 tonne sealing ship Independence. An interesting story of how French, British and American explorers crossed paths with the pretty remote Kangaroo Island in the centre of their stories back in the 1800’s.

• Kangaroo Island will exceed all expectations

I had no doubt that Kangaroo Island would provide a great selection of pristine beaches – this is after all what all the pictures show and we didn’t even get a chance to visit off of them. But I truly didn’t expect such an abundant show of wildlife and such a vast array of natural attractions. I don’t know of too many small islands where you can visit amazing underground caves, massive sand dunes and mind boggling rock formations all within a few kilometers of each other. Usually a place is lucky to have one “thing” which its known for but I truly lost count of how many different things KI has to offer.