Kangaroo Island Adventures
As in any business, it pays to know the locals and Craig Wickham of Kangaroo Island Adventure Charters uses his contacts to maximum effect. This is private property but Craig has the permission of a local farmer and friend to bring tourists to a piece of Kangaroo Island which would normally be off limits. And when you get here, you can sample some of the best that the Island has to offer. "I often get people regardless of where they're from, saying that the best fish I've ever had in my life, I reckon that's a pretty good accolade for the local King George Whiting." Craig's a local too, who left to pursue a career as a ranger and has returned to set up his own business. This guy's an impressive host who with his National Park's experience can also guarantee local and overseas visitors a feast of wildlife. "They really want to see the Kangaroos, they want to see the Koalas and of coarse to be able to have lunch down here and then go for a walk and find some Koalas in the trees. You can tell people Ok we're in good Koala habitat look about two thirds of the way up in the tree they're nestled down in a fork, go for it and go and have a look." True to his word, Craig took us several metres into the nearby bush to the banks of the Cygnet River where the clawed gum trunks point to a close encounter with the locals.
"They were brought in as a conservation measure because the Koalas were feared to be wiped out by hunting in the 1920's. There were two million Koalas taken out in 1924 for their furs. This is of Australia generally so they were brought in Kangaroo Island as a place where they could be safe and breed.." "And now they have to be moved out again?" "So obviously they've been pretty successful." In fact there were so many on the island that several hundred had to be moved to other areas of the State like the South East, while tags identify those that have been sterilised to keep numbers down. For Craig the banks of the Cygnet River offer the perfect setting to bring international tourists in search of this obvious Australian icon and the lesser known delights of this Aussie bush. After lunch it's off to Lathami Conservation Park on the Northern side of the island with its spectacular gullies. Here, come sunset, Craig will help you find kangaroos as well as these little guys, who survive here and no-where else because of the islands unique history.
"There's a couple of things with Kangaroo Island one is the isolation. It's been isolated for long enough from any human pressure with Aboriginal people not having lived here for quite some hundred years and maybe thousands of years and then more recently isolation meaning that we've got no oxen and rabbits so the understory is in tact. Little Wallabies that are more than common the abundant Tammar Wallabies, they're extinct on the mainland because of foxes. Now to be able to go out in the bush and show someone at very close range this is an endangered species that just about is gone, this is what Australia might have looked like prior to Europeans coming here." Craig Wickham's Adventure Charters of Kangaroo Island run full day tours taking in Cygnet River, Seal Bay, Destrees Bay and Lathami Conservation with a seafood lunch for $215 per person. For bookings contact phone (08) 8553 9119 or email wildlife@kin.on.net or check out their website at www.adventurecharters.com.au.
For more information you can email info@postcards.sa.com.au
