Somehow, I’ve got this far without even mentioning the wildlife—that’s primarily why people come to Kangaroo Island, after all. (Clue’s in the name, I suppose.) Even on the drive over, after our up-and-down 30-minute prop flight from Adelaide, we spotted wallabies hopping through the scrub and clusters of Kangaroo Island kangaroos through the ramshackle roadside fences; simply lazing around the lodge itself presents plenty of opportunities to watch ospreys soar past the windows, or to use the provided binoculars in your room to keep watch for pods of dolphins carving through the breaks below.
Photo: George Apostolidis
The real highlights, though, are the daily excursions led by the lodge’s team of in-house naturalists. They rotate shifts between guiding drives and sharing local lore at dinner, and many are in their 20s and 30s, here on three- to six-month seasonal residencies, ensuring they’re still as excited by it all as you are. Don’t let those fresh faces fool you, however: almost all of them are either studying for (or already hold) degrees in environmental science, marine biology, or conservation, and they carry that formidable academic depth with classic Aussie irreverence. Our guide on two afternoons, Angela, could break down the exact timeline of the post-bushfire regenerative cycle, yet introduced a sprawling colony of Australian sea lions by noting that their daily routine of sleeping 20 hours and sunning themselves on the sand was “basically me on my days off.”
On the subject of those sea lions: The following morning, Angela took us and a few fellow guests 40 minutes or so away in a minivan and down onto the wide, windswept beaches of Seal Bay, where we were able to walk (albeit slowly and quietly) just yards from dozens of wild sea lions. Some were dozing in tangled pairs right in the dune grass, while another sat upright like a whiskered Buddha, tilting its snout toward the salty surf spray. Upon walking to the water’s edge, one curious pup swam right over to me and surfaced just a few feet away, before somersaulting back beneath the waves—pure magic.
