Kangaroo Island, Adelaide, Aukland
Our trip moved into high gear, with more cities, more sites, more activities and less time to update our blog.
We finished Kangaroo Island with a bang- a private night time tour. Although there were no penguins to see this time of year, we did encounter an echidna (the other monotreme mammal besides the platypus) driving on a very remote back road. If you haven't heard of it, neither had any of us before this trip, but by now Emily is an expert on all animals Australian. The highlight of the evening was the visit to a friend of our guide, a sheep farmer who has devoted the past several years to building a backyard fantasy land, with a forty foot tree house, a 2 story castle-like structure, and various sculptures and other oddities built out of scrap metal. All lit up at night like Disney Land. Another Kangaroo Islander with perseverence.
Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, is a bland but pleasant little city. We took the tram (very similar to the Mpls trolley) to the beach.
Aukland, about the same size as Adelaide, is a more bustling city with a lot of nightclubs. Stayed at a wonderful hotel just a couple of blocks from the wharf. I spent a good part of our one full day there sailing in a exhbilition match race on a America's Cup type boat. Another wonderful day of sailing, while Joyce and the girls saw the sites from land.