Our first full day on the island was Hogmanay and we drove up to the "capital" Kingscote in the north to get provisions in for New Year. On the return journey, we stopped at Island Beehive where they produce honey from Ligurian bees. We had some nice tasters but we didn't do the factory tour. Their honeycomb ice cream was excellent however.
The next pit stop was KI Spirits - the smallest distillery you have ever seen. It was very homely, but production was little more than a domestic kitchen could do. The sampling session was good however - we tasted their gin, but skipped their range of flavoured vodkas and went for their liqueurs:
We then compounded the felony and indulged in their Drunken Ice Cream - basically, it was the same honeycomb ice cream we'd already sampled at the Island Beehive, with added walnuts, doused in spirit - and just to make sure, some honey and walnut liqueur was poured over the top! Here's the ingredients:
It was a lovely way to spend an hour or so in a nice homely farmstead setting. Here we are with big grins after the tasting:
We shared dinner at the cabin and stayed up to see the New Year in - a fairly raucous game of cards helped keep us all awake.
On New Year's Day, we decided to head west. We made a quick stop at Vivonne Bay where Kelly and Chris had spent a few hours the day before. It's a gorgeous beach - Jo found a sea horse washed up:
We drove on and stopped for coffee at one of the few places open on this public holiday - the Koala Centre and Walk. We didn't do the formal walk - no need - there were 2 koalas in the trees where we parked - male and female apparently, although we learned that the female was probably sterilised anyway, as they had too many koalas on the island for the eucalyptus trees which they feed on, and they'd had to introduce a programme to ensure numbers didn't keep escalating.
After that, we entered Flinders Chase National Park and headed down to the south west corner of the island to see what they call Remarkable Rocks - and they were. Formed naturally millions of years ago, there were some very strange shapes on view:
We picnic-ed there too:
After lunch, we headed back to the Park HQ and Jo and I went on the 4.5 km walk out to the Platypus watering hole. It was a lovely walk, but it was still way too hot to see any animals - they only appear when the sun goes down and it begins to cool off. Here's Jo at the watering hole:
So that was it - now back to base camp where Ross was taking a day out, chilling and reading.
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