Kangaroo Island to the Ghan Train

It's hard trying to find time to write things down before starting on another adventure. I was on Kangaroo Island for 2 days and was getting close to visual overload, even though the visual was mostly flora and fauna. I saw kangaroos (duh) of the wild variety, the albino variety and the not really tame but you could feed them and pet them variety, koalas, emus, sea lions, seals, tamar wallabies, echidnas, wombats, snakes, (singular) crocodile, kestrels, kookaburras, owls, eagles and cassowary (also singular). And as much as I don't like petting zoos or wildlife parks, it was definitely a thrill having a kangaroo squat next to me and eat out of my hand. They will hook their paws onto your fingers so you don't take the food away from them. Oh and the penguins! Seeing penguins hanging out at their burrows was great. They used to be called fairy penguins, but too much political correctness got in the way and now they're called little penguins. Oh and the pelican feeding! There's a local guy who feeds the pelicans every day and now it's advertised and some days dozens of people show up to watch. Apparently pelicans can't dive under water, so part of the feeding is throwing fish into the water to make the pelicans try and dive. Their heads go down, their butts and feet go up in the air and then they literally pop back up. It was pretty hilarious, though maybe not for the pelicans. Echidnas are a very bizarre animal, looking rather porcupine like and apparently wombats are so brick-like that if you hit them with your car at a reasonable speed, the car is generally worse off than the wombat.

Met a Canadian couple, the woman also a diabetic with the same inulin pump as I have. The man had to take our picture a few times with our pumps in plain few because "it just never happens that you travel with someone else who has a pump". Went to a sheep cheese and yogurt making place, a eucalyptus distillery and a honey bee farm. I really wanted to buy some honey for my dad, but Kangaroo Island is a bee sanctuary as is Perth, where I hope to go, so any honey would be confiscated. Can't bung up the bees.

Today I got on the Ghan Train which travels from Adelaide north to Darwin. I'll get off at Alice Springs, still a 26 hour train ride. I am in gold class, which means meals are included and I have a room or more like a large closet with a small bed for myself. The bed and the sink fold out of the wall and when you come back from dinner your bed is made and you can hardly open the door to get in.

In the 10 hours I've been on the train I may have been told at least 8 more things that I HAVE to do while in Australia. And if I can't fit them in I "just need to call up and say I'll be late, that's all".