Kangaroo Island 2021

Lichen at Emu Bay
The colours of the lichen (Xanthoria parietina) on the rocks on the beach are attractive, but the full beauty of the symbiotic fungus and algae that is lichen has to be enlarged to be revealed. Photo Emu Bay, 2021/07/15, Canon Ixus 190

Home Top Index The orange lichen seen in the outer parts of the above photo is common in southern Australia on rocks within 20 metres or so of the coast. The green lichen provides a nice contrast. My first thought was that the two were distinct species, but I wonder if the fresh growth is green and it later turns orange.

Photo Emu Bay, 2021/07/15, Canon Ixus 190

This image shows better how the newer growth of the lichen is green while the older growth is orange. The depth of field is necessarily very shallow on a macrophotograph of high magnification.

An interestingly shaped rock on the Emu Bay beach; evocative of a human skull. The green and orange lichen is again present. Photo 2021/07/15, iPhone 7 Home Top Index A small part of Emu Bay waterfront showing a small area of the orange and green lichen. There is also a long sandy beach and a jetty. Photo 2021/07/15, Canon Ixus 190 George's Castle This remarkable development is at a location named Wisanger on the North Coast Road, west of Emu Bay. This viking long-ship is just one of many other parts to the 'Castle'. There doesn't seem to be a web site but there is a Facebook page. Home Top Index View from one of the towers. I read that 'King' George is 78 years old (as of June 2021). He has done very well to build all this. Admission free! Please give a donation, I did. Backstairs Passage This visit was in mid-winter, so not surprisingly we had quite a bit of rainy weather and low temperatures. (On average the minimum daily temperature in July is 7°C, maximum 14°C and there are 13 days in the month with rain.) The photo was taken from the ferry that took us from Cape Jervis on the mainland to Penneshaw on KI, looking back toward the north-east. Photo 2021/07/12, iPhone 7 Penneshaw People who go to KI by the ferry arrive in Penneshaw. We were impressed with the little gardens in the town centre. As in many places on KI, there were several excellent cafes in the town. Photo 2021/07/12, iPhone 7 Home Top Index I have more on Penneshaw and Backstairs Passage elsewhere on these pages. Tammar wallabies, Penneshaw reserve There is a reserve on the waterfront at Penneshaw. These, and other, tammar wallabies call it home. There are also Little Penguins, that only come out at night. Note that the two on the right are sitting on their tails; this is common in tammars. Kangaroos don't do this, I don't know if some other wallabies do. Photo 2021/07/17, Canon Ixus 190 A lone tammar sunning himself in a sheltered spot. Photo 2021/07/17, Canon Ixus 190 Cape Willoughby The Cape Willoughby lighthouse and the adjacent cove from which most of the granite for the building was quarried. We were told that explosives were not used in the quarrying. Home Top Index Photo 2021/07/12, iPhone 7 Some other photos of Cape Willoughby are elsewhere on these pages. Seal Bay Two adult and one pup Australian sea lions. We have visited Seal Bay at least four times and have seen many sea lions each time (there are actual seals on other parts of KI). To go beyond the visitor's centre one must pay a fee and be accompanied by a guide. (There was a mother and pup sea lion sheltering against one of the walls of the visitor's centre.) The guide who came with us was very informative and friendly. Photo 2021/07/13, Canon Ixus 190 These two pups were very curious. They came right up to us and sniffed the guide's boots. He said that this was quite unusual for them. Photo 2021/07/13, Canon Ixus 190 Regeneration Regeneration of the bush following the disastrous fires of late 2019 - early 2020 The regeneration on KI seemed to be much quicker than that at Armagh following the fire of 2019/04/16. We were surprised at the amount of regeneration there was in the 18 months since the fires. The yakkas (foreground, right of centre, Xanthorrhoea semiplana is the main species in KI) have recovered particularly well (I'm told that a particularly hot fire will kill them, but they seem to thrive on an occasional moderate fire.) The KI yakkas seem to typically larger than the same species on the Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia and much bigger than the most common species Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata in Mid-North SA, where I live. The flower spike/seed head of the KI yakkas are particularly tall. According to Wikipedia common names for Xanthorrhoea include grasstree, grass gum-tree (for its resin-yielding species), kangaroo tail and blackboy. In South Australia the most common name seems to be yakka (also spelled yacca and yakka). Looking eastward along the road to Flinders Chase. Species present include Eucalypts, Xanthorrhoea and bracken fern. I have noticed elsewhere that some trees that start recovering by epicormic growth (shooting from buds beneath the bark) can later die, as the gum tree in the middle of this photo has. Home Top Index Some of the undergrowth in the same area as the above two photos. The long trailing plant at the bottom could be Kennedia prostrata; common name running postman. The fern is commonly known as bracken fern, botanical name Pteridium esculentum. I have no idea what the very fine ground-covering plant is. Flinders Chase

A part of the view from Bunker Hill Lookout on the road to Cape Du Couedic, Admiral's Arch and Remarkable Rocks. As in so much of Kangaroo Island the bush in this area, mostly mallee, is recovering from the fires of late 2019 - early 2020. The brown area on the left is probably a saline flat. This area was also burned in December 2008; see a photo elsewhere on this site.

Gyrostemon thesioides was common at the time of our visit in Flinders Chase - on the way into the National Park information centre and also along the road toward Admiral's Arch and Remarkable Rocks. I thought at first that it might have been an introduced weed because there was a lot of it close to the roadside (weeds often spread from roads outward). But it was also widespread away from the road. It is a native. Home Top Index Photo 2021/07/14, iPhone 7 A closer shot of the Gyrostemon thesioides. I'm told that it is stimulated by fire and dies back after a few years. Photo 2021/07/14, iPhone 7 Admiral's Arch, Flinders Chase Admirals Arch; two or three seals are just visible in this photo, which was taken in 2009. We didn't see seals in the Arch itself on the 2021 visit, but there were quite a few nearby. This wooden fence has been shredded, apparently by its saline environment. It is at Admiral's Arch, on the south coast of the Island at Cape Du Couedic and near Remarkable Rocks. Home Top Index Photo 2021/07/14, iPhone 7 Admiral's Arch is one of the very popular attractions of Kangaroo Island; there are many photos of it elsewhere on the Internet. A closeup image of the shredded wood of the wooden walkway shown above. I don't recall ever seeing wood that has deteriorated to this state elsewhere and don't know anything about the cause. I can only assume that it is the sheltered highly saline environment. Remarkable Rocks One of the top tourist attractions on KI is the granite rock formation a few kilometres east of Cape Du Couedic. I have unsuccessfully looked for a web site that gives a good explanation of the formation of Remarkable Rocks. (I'd be pleased if a reader could inform me of one, my email address is on the About Me page.) Home Top Index Some of the rocks, looking toward the east. My own understanding of the formation of the feature is that the magma that crystallised to form the granite of Remarkable Rocks invaded surrounding rocks at great depth many millions of years ago. As it was a huge mass of magma and at great depth it had time to form large crystals while is slowly solidified. Over many millions of years the land was very slowly raised, the covering rocks eroded away, until the granite intrusion itself was exposed to the weather. Very very slowly wind, rain and salt-damp eroded the granite to form the present grotesque and fascinating shapes. Toward the eastern side of the formation, looking toward the north. Surprisingly, considering the popularity of Remarkable Rocks and the number of tourists that we saw on KI, we had the place to ourselves for a short while. Home Top Index This area is on the western side of the formation and it is looking toward the west. The Cape Du Couedic lighthouse would be beyond the bay and just to the left of the edge of this image. The roof of a cavity. While the curved parts of the roof might appear to be convex, in fact they are actually concave. The vertical grooves on this rock-face are striking and unusual. The view is looking toward the north. A small section of the temporary path can be seen in the bottom right corner of the high definition image, and a little of the car park area is just visible in the distance on the extreme right. Home Top Index These burned trees adjacent the Remarkable Rocks car park are something of a work of art. They were shaped by the salty winds off the tree while they were alive, then burned in the fires of late 2019 - early 2020.

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