Would you like to sit up front?' asks Peter, my driver. ‘You can watch all the wallabies bouncing off the bumper.' I already know that this island, half an hour by plane from Adelaide, is teeming with wildlife, so it's possible that we really will be arriving at my lodgings in a vehicle plastered with dead marsupials - although I hope not, and not just because we're going to an eco-lodge.

In fact Peter takes enormous care not to squash any of the kangaroos and wallabies that bound through the headlights and even swerves to avoid possums, which seems to me to be taking things too far. ‘Better not hit him - a mate of mine got a puncture,' he says as we slow for a spiny echidna bumbling across the road. When we arrive at the Wilderness Retreat our tally is zero. Ironically, when I walk across the dark garden with wallabies and possums scattering before me, my dinner is delicious barbecued kangaroo fillet in a creamy pepper sauce.

Over the next two days I see more than enough kangaroos to ease my conscience, and plenty of other animals too - even the hard-to-spot koala. On KI, as the locals call it, there are actually so many of these that control is necessary, involving the labour-intensive process of climbing up to each koala, putting a hood over its head and guiding it down to the ground, where it is taken away to a vet for sterilisation. Expensive? Certainly, but when you're dealing with a national icon, there's no other acceptable option.

Protecting the little blue penguins at Kingscote is a much cheaper affair, as stout fencing keeps feral cats away from the burrows where the birds nest at night. They're no longer called fairy penguins - ‘It's not PC,' explains my guide Anna, who is taking me on a night tour along the seashore and spotlighting them with her torch. Since the bulb is red and it's breeding season, it feels a little like Amsterdam, but it's impossible to watch the penguins hop over the rocks without grinning.

All penguins are appealing, but the little ones are cutest of all, even when making the most horrendous racket. Although they mate for life, Anna explains that they will ‘divorce' if they don't breed successfully, so I hope that the red light has not turned them off.

Wild party tricks

 

We walk back to the marine centre under a starry sky, past the rippling reflections of the yachts in the bay, and Anna shows me something astonishing.

At the bottom of a big aquarium there is a knobbly brown lump on the knobbly brown stones. It is a cuttlefish, a relative of the octopus. Anna holds a mirror up to the glass so it thinks it has company. When she whips it away a minute later, a different creature is in the tank - smooth, red and rippling, and keen to confront the stranger. Moments later it is back on the stones again, brown and knobbly once more. Months afterwards, I am still amazed.

The island holds other surprises for me. At the Island Pure Sheep Dairy I eat hot squeaky barbecued haloumi made from sheep's milk by Craig, who massages 180 udders twice a day. At Emu Ridge I see eucalyptus leaves distilled into a magic oil that will do everything from clearing stuffy noses to cleaning paintbrushes. I find a pile of tanned furry skins supplied by Barry the Cat Man, whose mission in life is to wipe out the island's 4000 feral cats. I try the purest honey in the world, discover at Parndana Wildlife Park that echidna have their feet on backwards, and witness a woman, totally without shame, cuddling an albino possum called Goldie.

Sea skirmishes

On the beach at Seal Bay I stand just metres from 350kg male sea lions, which are fortunately too busy kicking sand into the faces of weakling rivals to bother about the humans on their territory. It's a busy scene, with skirmishes going on all around and more sea lions surfing in as I watch, scattering the seagulls as they galumph up the beach. I'm told they are able to run three times faster than a person and will be feeling crabby after four days at sea without sleep. It seems like a good time to move on.

Further along the coast is KI's most photographed feature - the aptly-named Remarkable Rocks, which sit high on a headland overlooking the sea. Two hundred million years of weathering has eroded them into fantastic shapes and their covering of orange lichen makes them seem to glow on a dull day. One is shaped like an eagle with a huge hooked beak.

Down the road at the Outdoor Education Centre at Vivonne Bay, Dave the Raptor Man holds a huge white-bellied sea eagle named Selina on his arm, its viciously sharp beak just inches from his nose. ‘I don't mind being bitten,' he carelessly remarks. ‘It's the talons I worry about'.

I'm afraid for Dave's face, but he brushes Selina's mood off as PMT
- that's ‘pre-moulting tension' - and brings out a peregrine falcon, the fastest bird in the world.

My two days have flown by too.
KI is Australia's third biggest island and I have only had a taste, but when
I sit on the lovely white curve of beach at Emu Bay and watch pelicans cruise past towards the setting sun, I feel sure I've seen the best of it. The rest will just have to wait till next time.

By Pamela Wade

To Go

Return flights from Auckland to Adelaide with Air New Zealand start at around $900 plus taxes. Visit www.airnewzealand.co.nz.

Regional Express flies daily to Kangaroo Island for about $140 one way. The trip takes about 30 minutes.

The 45-minute Kangaroo Island SeaLink departs daily from Cape Jervis at the southern tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula. The return ferry costs about $100 per person.

Kangaroo Island Wilderness Retreat offers a range of accommodation options. Visit www.kiwr.com.

Visit the South Australian Tourism Commission website at www.southaustralia.co.nz, or to find out more visit www.tourkangarooisland.com.au.

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