Nature Travel Specialists

POST-TRIP EXTENSIONS

Kangaroo Island Post-trip Extension

Day 1: Melbourne / Adelaide / Kangaroo Island
This morning fly to Adelaide, where you change planes for your 20 minute Rex flight to Kangaroo Island, departing at 5.30pm. As this is a small plane, you may need to leave some of your luggage at the airport for your. You are met upon arrival, and transferred to our accommodation, the delightful Kangaroo Island Lodge. D

Day 2: Kangaroo Island
You are picked up this morning to begin your days of island exploration. You’ll first visit the redgum forest along the Cygnet River valley to seek out koalas sleeping in the forks of the trees, then travel through some of the best wool-producing areas on the island to a conservation park on the north coast. Here we walk through the habitat of Kangaroo Island Kangaroos, Tammar Wallabies and the endangered Kangaroo Island Glossy Black Cockatoo. For lunch enjoy a delicious seafood barbeque served with fine South Australian wines before heading to a colony of Australian Sealions. At Seal Bay Conservation Park a walk among Sealions on a beautiful sandy beach may reveal watching pups nursing or playing in the surf. Old bulls bear the scars of territorial disputes, as your guide explains when he tells us about their unique breeding biology. In the afternoon we visit Cape Gantheaume Conservation Park including D'Estrees Bay - where ospreys nest, and kangaroos come out late in the day to feed. After this you are dropped off at your accommodation for the next three nights, the delightful Kangaroo Island Lodge. This evening take a shorter trip to look for wildlife at night, including the tiny Fairy Penguins which return to their burrows each evening from foraging in the sea. B,L,D

Day 3: Kangaroo Island / Adelaide
Flinders Chase National Park is a 74,000 hectare (190,000 acre) wilderness which covers the entire west end of the Island. We’ll visit Rocky River Homestead - originally a small farm and now the Park headquarters. This area is home to kangaroos, wallabies, possums, goannas, echidnas, koalas, platypus and many birds including the rare Cape Barren Goose. At Cape du Couedic on the south-west tip is a New Zealand furseal colony which is rapidly expanding. These animals can be observed at rest on the rocks or frolicking in the surf under Admirals Arch - a spectacular coastal grotto. On the headland above is Cape du Couedic Lighthouse which plays an important role in navigation. Further down the coast are the Remarkable Rocks, huge natural granite sculptures on the cliff top. Lunch today is a picnic in the bush before exploring more of the Island. Depending upon the day you might take a walk to a secluded cove, or watch for a platypus by a quiet pool. You return to the eastern end of the island via Vivonne Bay, one of the few protected bays on the south coast, and take the short 6.35pm flight back to Adelaide and your hotel. B,L

Day 4: Adelaide / Sydney / Los Angeles
This morning taxi to the airport for your flight home. Due to the International Dateline, you arrive in Los Angeles this same morning, the same day you left Australia.

Bruny Island Post-trip Extension

Day1: Melbourne / Hobart / Bruny Island
Fly from Melbourne to Hobart, in southern Tasmania, then travel to the seaside village of Kettering and the Bruny Island ferry. We spend the rest of the day exploring Bruny Island, searching for the Tasmanian endemic birds, including the 40-spotted Pardalote, Tasmanian Native-hen, Green Rosella and Black Currawong. All of Tasmania’s twelve endemic birds are found on Inala itself, among the 90 found here, of the 141 species that have been recorded for Bruny Island. Our accommodation tonight is at Inala, a conservation property operated Dr Tonia Cochrane, an ex-wildlife researcher scientist and now wildlife and birding guide. After dinner we take a night tour to see the Little penguin/Short tailed shearwater rookery. L,D

Day 2: Bruny Island
Enjoy a walking tour of Inala itself after breakfast, and then continue exploring Bruny - more time for endemic birds if required, as well as many endemic Tasmanian plants and Gondwana relict flora. Dinner then another night excursion to search for nocturnal marsupials - Eastern Quoll, Tasmanian Pademelon (both now only found in Tasmania) Bennetts Wallaby and Brush-tailed Possum. Also a chance of Long-nosed Potoroo if we are lucky. There is also a reasonable chance of seeing some unusual color morphs of the Brush-tailed possum and Bennetts Wallaby here- both pale cream-ginger with pink eyes (recessive and almost albino). B,L,D

Day 3: Bruny Island / Hobart
Leave after breakfast and travel back to Hobart. On the way there is an opportunity to visit a wildlife rehabilitation and conservation park, where some of Tasmania’s unique wildlife, including the Tasmanian Devil, can be seen up close. We overnight in Hobart, a delightful small city with a wealth of history, and the afternoon is available to look around. B

Day 4: Hobart / Melbourne / Los Angeles
Fly to Melbourne early this morning take a late morning international flight back to Los Angeles. Due to the International Dateline, you arrive in Los Angeles at 10am today, the same day you left Australia. *L,*D,*B

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