Kangaroo Island: where gourmet trail meets eco-safari

Life was rough on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, 200 years ago. When a Captain Sutherland of the Royal Navy visited in the early 19th century, he found it inhabited by a motley band of fur-clad whalers, sealers and escaped convicts.

These renegades, he wrote, were "the terror of ships, being little better than pirates." Using the island as a bolt hole from the colonial authorities, they hunted seals and whales, traded skins and meat for rum and tobacco and grew vegetables on tiny plots hacked out of the bush. "They are complete savages, living in bark huts like natives," Sutherland noted with distaste. "They dress in kangaroo skins without linen and wear sandals made of seal skins. They smell like foxes."

These days, the pirates and whalers are long gone. Instead of clubbing seals and hunting whales with harpoons, the inhabitants of Kangaroo Island, which lies off the coast of South Australia, are busy rectifying the damage done by their predecessors.

Seal colonies are thriving, whales regularly pass by on their migration from the Antarctic to the Great Australian Bight, and the large tracts of native bushland which cover a third of the island positively pulsate with life.

 At times it feels as though the island is one vast nature reserve. Within half an hour of flying in from Adelaide to the island's only airport, at Kingscote, I'd spotted a chubby male koala propped lazily in the crook of a gum tree. Echidnas snuffled through roadside undergrowth, Cape Barren geese pecked daintily at swathes of emerald green grass, and sea eagles soared overhead. 

At just over 150 kilometres in length, Kangaroo Island is Australia's third largest offshore island, after Tasmania and Melville Island, north of Darwin and yet it's home to just 4,000 people. Last connected to the mainland 10,000 years ago, it was named by the British explorer Matthew Flinders, who saw kangaroos when he sailed past in 1802.

I hooked up with South African-born Brian Vanner, a guide with Adventure Charters of Kangaroo Island, and we drove from Kingscote to Lathami Conservation Park. We crept through low mallee scrub before meeting a timid Tammar wallaby. The petite marsupial stifled yawned as it cleaned its snout with tiny paws, scanning us with wide eyes.

Further along the track we came across a rare glossy black cockatoo poking its head out of a hole high up in a gum tree, while the biggest ants I have ever seen trooped across the path. "They're called inch ants because of their size," Brian said. "Be careful - they have a sting worse than a bee."

After bouncing down a long dirt road for 40 minutes, dodging kangaroos leaping left and right, we came to the gloriously isolated Cape Willoughby lighthouse, built in 1852. At its base squat three whitewashed, red-roofed cottages, two of which provide accommodation for visitors. The third is used by National Park ranger Bart Khaper, whose duties include taking daily weather recordings for the Bureau of Meteorology.

"Southern right whales come right past this point each year," said Bart, scanning the narrow waterway known as Backstairs Passage which separates this end of the island from the mainland. "We've got sea eagles, kestrels, ospreys and lots of tiger snakes - the workers who built the lighthouse recorded killing 1,800 in two years."

Kangaroo Island is a paradise for foodies as well as wildlife enthusiasts. It produces some of the country's finest honey, wine, lobster, olive oil and cheeses. On my second day I visited the Island Pure Dairy, outside the tiny settlement of Cygnet River, which produces deliciously creamy sheep's cheese. There was feta, ricotta, Spanish-style manchego and, best of all, haloumi, which had been lightly grilled to bring out its salty flavour.

A few kilometres to the south, Cliffords Honey Farm nestles in a grove of gum trees which provide thousands of bees with the raw materials for making a dozen varieties of honey. Owners Jenny and Dave Clifford started with just one hive 35 years ago but now have more than 300. An attractive old grain shed houses a gift shop full of jars of honey, honeycomb, honey-flavoured ice cream and beeswax candles.

The dairy and honey farm are just two of the many boutique food-producing ventures which dot Kangaroo Island and which make exploring such a pleasure.  There are also wineries - more than 80 hectares of vineyard produce some excellent shiraz and chardonnay.

It is Kangaroo Island's landscapes, though, which are truly memorable. I drove to Pennington Bay, one of the island's many unspoilt beaches. A pod of eight dolphins suddenly appeared and, in a rare and extraordinary sight, proceeded to surf the jade green breakers rolling into shore.

An hour's drive through picturesque sheep country brought us to another isolated spot, Western River Cove, on Kangaroo Island's northern coast.

We climbed aboard the Wind Cheetah, a 15-metre-long catamaran, crewed by Jim Thiselton who doubles as  a fisherman and dive master and his deckieā 24-year-old James Marshall. Jim's speciality is providing divers with close encounters with one of the most decorative and bizarre looking marine creatures, the leafy sea dragon, a relative of the sea horse.

The animals we had come to see, however, were bigger and less delicate. Kangaroo Island is home to thousands of Australian sea lions and New Zealand fur seals, and as we cruised along the base of 300-metre-high cliffs, we came across small groups of them basking on rocks and rolling about in the surf. And you don't just get to look at them: you can actually join them for a swim too. 

I struggled into a full-length black wetsuit, pulled on a mask and snorkel, and jumped off the back of the boat into the surprisingly warm water.

I swam towards a group of fur seals lolling in a narrow channel between the cliffs and an outcrop of rock. "Let them come to you," Jim yelled. "And keep your arms in. If you look threatening they may take a bite out of you."

Looking through my mask, I saw sleek dark shapes emerge from deep down in the gloom, heading towards me with astonishing speed. The seals twisted and turned all around me, peering up with great saucer-shaped eyes. It was an extraordinary experience.

Back on dry land, we spent the night at the recently-built King Island Wilderness Resort, a sensitively designed timber and glass building, before continuing the next day into Flinders Chase National Park. A great green-grey blanket of bushland, the park is bigger than Singapore but has a permanent population of just 14.

There were more seals and sea lions at Cape Couedic, which is Kangaroo Island's most south-westerly point. A winding gravel path leads to a series of viewing platforms, the last of which opens onto the great limestone cave of Admiral's Arch. Dozens of fur seals lazed on rocks or bobbed up and down in the milky white surf, as the pungent smell of dung and sea salt drifted over us. It must be one of the most photogenic seal colonies anywhere in the world. 

Further along the coast lies another much photographed site, the Remarkable Rocks. A great tumble of weather-eroded rocks sit on top of a smooth granite dome which slopes right down to the sea, hundreds of metres below.

The curiously sculpted boulders are covered in bright red lichen - they look like they've been dusted with paprika.

On my final day we drove past Vivonne Bay, yet another stunning white sand beach which was deserted but for a couple of fishermen, and on to Little Sahara, an area of shifting sand dunes rising above great swathes of dense mallee scrub.

A little further on was Seal Bay, perhaps the island's most famous attraction. A protected area, it is home to more than 600 Australian sea lions. They were everywhere - lying on the beach, wallowing in the shallows and wiggling their way in an ungainly fashion through the sand dunes.

Accompanied by a national park ranger, we walked slowly along the beach, keeping a safe distance from the animals. The males, which can weigh up to 350 kilograms, must be treated with particular respect, and can move with a speed which belies their impressive and considerable bulk.

As we watched liquid-eyed pups suckling from their mothers, it was hard to imagine that more than 100,000 fur seals and seal lions were slaughtered in the early part of the 19th century. Those days, thankfully, are long gone. Kangaroo Island's wildlife is well on the way to recovery. And in the years to come, it's only going to get better.

Visiting Kangaroo Island
Total distance of the drive: 559 kilometres

Adventure Charters of Kangaroo Island
Phone: (08) 8553 9119

Cape Willoughby Lighthouse cottages,
Phone: (08) 8559 7235 Jim Thiselton,

Kangaroo Island Diving Safaris
Phone: (08) 8559 3225

Kangaroo Island Wilderness Resort
Phone: (08) 8559 7275

Clifford's Honey Farm
Kingscote
Phone: (08) 8553 8295 

Nick Squires travelled courtesy of the Australian Tourist Commission and the South Australian Tourist Commission.