Day 38 – October 8 2012

This morning we decided to head to Seal Bay & take the guided tour onto the beach with the seals.  We only saw 1 echidna on the drive to Seal Bay, we have seen so many since we have arrived, there must be lots of them on the island.  The National Parks Island Pass gave us a “free” pass onto the beach with hundreds of seals of all different shapes & sizes, from the small cute pups to the 300kg big bull seals, they are really big when you  are close to them.  The wind was a bit cool, straight off the Antarctic, however, the sight of the seals made up for it, especially the small ones playing in the surf, catching waves & generally mucking about, the rest just lay in the sun & snoozed, some little pups snuggled up to their snoozing mum & sucked away.   There were a few seals up in the dunes, sunbaking & feeding their pups.

Next it was off to Murray Lagoon & we stopped at the Timber Creek Walk & had lunch at the picnic table.  The 3km walk started out interesting, we had only gone around 50 metres when I stopped Tereza, there was a dangerously venomous Black Tiger Snake, around 2 metres long, just on the edge of the track.  We stopped (of course) & watched it for a while.  The snake appeared to be trying to force its head into a small hole in the sand at the edge of the track, we can only assume it was chasing a lizard or some other small creature.  We took a few photos & moved on, the snake was not the least bit interested in us.  The walk meandered along the edge of Murray Lagoon, although there were not many water birds around, perhaps the large wedge tail eagle roosting in a tree close by was keeping them away.  There were lots of small birds flitting in & out of the undergrowth, lots of blue wrens & small honey-eaters.  The walk through the small ti-tree undergrowth was OK, but would have been a whole lot better with some more birds.  All was not lost, Ron found a couple of great feathers for his hat, I am getting a bit concerned that he might take flight & people will start photographing  believing that he is some rare Kangaroo Island bird species.  On the walk back we kept our eye out for the tiger snake & it was still there, in the same spot with it’s head in the same hole.  We watched it for a while, Tereza kept edging closer to the snake to take more photos & I tried to keep her back from it.  The tiger snake eventually pulled its head out of the hole & we decided to leave it alone & head back to the car.

We headed next for the Bald Hill Walk, only 500 metres to the top of a small treeless hill & a platform overlooking Murray Lagoon, across in the distance some sand dunes covered in vegetation, except the tops were snow white, they really looked great. On the way we spotted a large goanna, just sunning itself at the side of the track, it took no notice of us as we took a few photos & we left it in peace.  The bird lookout platform had a great view over Murray Lagoon, but not too many birds to be seen.  The walk back was pleasant, looking over another small lagoon, though the goanna was gone from its basking spot.

Time to head back to camp, we are early enough today so only spotted 1 kangaroo dashing across the road & a couple of wedge tail eagles riding a thermal.  Another very pleasant day with some cheese & bikkies to cap it off back at camp, with our personal resident koala in another tree next to our camp.