Expert: Nimrod - 5/16/2004

Question
Greetings,

First, let me thank you for volunteering for this service!  To give you a bit of a background, my husband and I (active early 50s) are in the midst of planning our trip of a life-time--10 weeks in Australia this October - December.  We live in bush Alaska, 90 miles from the nearest road, on a fly-in only lake.  We love animals, the natural beauty of a location over cities and shopping.  We are trying to plan our trip over the Internet and are actually finished except for our last 2 stops--SA and WA.  We are hampered in our Internet searches because our connection is via cell phone and it is difficult getting a line clear of static and then being able to hold a connection for any length of time.  

Anyway, we have just finished booking 3 days on Kangaroo Island, and our flight back to Adelaide.  We have from November 22 until the AM November 27 to see what we can see in this region.  We are looking for suggestions from people who know the area about how to spend our time.  

We thought we would spend one day in Adelaide; one day on a Barossa winery tour (didn't want to drive as we both wanted to enjoy the grape!); then rent a car and travel outside the city for 3 days, 2 nights.  

We are not into spending long days driving (about 4-5 hours is our max).  We like to alot 2-3 hours a day for walking/hiking.  One option we considered was to head to the Adelaide Hills one day (24th), overnight in the southern regions and spend the next day/night in The Coorong region (25th), returning to Adelaide on the evening of the 26th.  

But, a travel agent I have corresponded with via the Internet has not encouraged The Coorong as a destination, suggesting instead that we head northwards towards Wilpena.  A trip to The Pound would, we think, eliminate our exploration of the Adelaide Hills as we would spend one day driving north, one day there, and one day return.

So, now we are thinking maybe we should just base all our nights in Adelaide and simply take day-trips out to the Adelaide Hills, Clare Valley, Fleurieu Peninsula.

So you can tell, we are so confused.  We would greatly appreciate the benefit of your experience and recommendations as to an itinerary/route, 'must sees', etc.

Additionally, any comments on Kangaroo Island would also be appreciated.  We have based ourselves for 3 nights at Emu Cove at what appears to be a charming B&B.  We will have a car and intend to explore on our own.

I hope you have the time to respond and look forward to hearing from you.

JoAnne Yerkes
Shell Lake, Alaska

Answer
Kangaroo Island is fantastic.  Book one of the many sight-seeing tours including the evening walk along the beach to see the penguins.

Have you considered taking the Gan rail trip to the opal mine fields and staying overnight there in an underground B&B?

Otherwise I would leave booking trips until I arrived in SA, get a tourist brochure or two and decide then.

The Botanical Gardens in Adelaide are a definite must see as well.