Saturday 21st March 2026

Kangaroo Island was fabulous!! This was a real splurge for us. We stayed at Southern Ocean Lodge that had all inclusive food, drinks and tours and, happily, we do not have buyers remorse.

We flew to Adelaide on Friday afternoon and stayed at the airport hotel, then caught the early flight into Kingscote Airport on Kangaroo Island. We wanted to have almost full days on the island for the nights we stayed to make full use of the facilities. We were picked up and driven to the Lodge along with the other guests that arrived on our flight. During the hour long drive we learned a little bit about the island. Approximately 48% of the island was burnt during the 2019-2020 bush fires and we could clearly see were the fires had burnt to by the still bare crowns of the trees. Eucalyptus sprout new foliage from the bottom up after a fire and that new growth is still working its way up, but the recovery is pretty amazing. The Lodge was also rebuilt after being burnt down in the fires.

We were welcomed to the Lodge with refreshments, then enjoyed the views from the guest lounge. Soon an employee came to run through our itinerary for our stay and tell us all about the lodge facilities. The itinerary they’d prepared for us had a good mix of activity and downtime. For breakfast and lunch we could come anytime in the 2.5 hour window allocated. Dinner they liked to know what time you wanted to dine, which just involved letting your server at lunch know. Soon it was time for lunch and we headed into the dining room and a beautiful table by the window, looking out at the amazing view.

After lunch our room was ready. The rooms are just as amazing as everything else. After poking round and checking it all out we unpacked and got changed into some clothes suitable for hiking. Our plan was to do a short 7 km loop down to Hanson’s Bay and back through the bush.

The rooms all stretch out in a long line down the slope along the cliff edge and a boardwalk leads away through the scrub towards the long sandy bay we could see from the lounge room. At the end of the boardwalk is a little set of table and stools and the choice to either head right down into the little cove underneath the cliff or left onto the long sandy beach. We were headed left. The beach is a pristine white sand beach. There was an Sooty Oyster Catcher doing it’s thing and a couple of Hooded Plovers. At Point Lonsdale, the beach is often half-roped off during the Hooded Plover breeding season because they nest on the ground, but I’ve never seen them there. At least now I’ll know what to look for.

At the end of the beach we headed up onto the headland to continue over the cliff tops. The path was through rocky, low scrub and it kept dispersing into multiple possibilities. This bit was tricky as the path has no markers to look ahead to help you choose the correct path. Numerous times we had to head back towards the cliff top. At some points we had good views of the extreme weathering of the cliffs.

Eventually we could see Hanson Bay, we just had to navigate the area around a house that was surrounded by “Revegetation Area” signs. We picked out one of many faint paths, keeping ourselves between the cliff and the house. We bumped into a fisherman who wanted to know if the path was any easier to follow further along—that would be a no.

Hanson Bay was gorgeous. There was one person swimming but we dipped our feet in and were not disappointed that we didn’t have our bathers. The Southern Ocean is cold (well technically Kangaroo Island is still just in the Indian Ocean, but it is still cold there.) We enjoyed the beach for a while then headed to the opposite headland to continue our hike.

Up on the headland we ran into two girls who were partway through the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail, a five day walk starting the the Flinders Chase National Park. This part of our walk followed the trail, so was easier to find and also marked at intervals as required. The girls were heading to camp but we were heading in the reverse direction, but first we had to cross the Hanson River which involved a little boat you pulled yourself across in, which was fun.

Shortly after the river crossing we crossed Hanson Bay road and kept walking straight along the track, unfortunately the actual path turned off just after we crossed the road and we were walking along the dirt path that followed Hanson Bay road which we couldn’t see because of the thick scrub next to us. We got to the Lodge’s driveway and thought something wasn’t quite, but continued walking until I spotted Hanson Bay road through a break in the scrub. I knew that wasn’t right so we backtracked and decided to walk down the driveway, hoping to find where the correct path crossed that, or if we missed that just follow the driveway all the way home. It was bit a of a navigation fail for us. As we walked down the road we noticed these amazing puffball fungi that are able to grow through the bitumen on the side of the road.

We managed to find the path we were supposed to be on as it crossed the driveway further along. I’m glad we got back on it because it wound through some lovely bushland, and we saw some a Rosenberg’s Goanna that was about 75 cm long, with something in its mouth.

We managed to get back to the Lodge without any further detours. We were pretty hot and sweaty when we arrived back at the Lodge at about 4:30 pm so we hit the shower straight away—well after checking out the fully stocked bar which we decided to explore more fully once we were clean. Showers done we headed back and I used the cocktail book to make myself a Gimlet. We took up a lovely seat overlooking the water and watched the waves roll in and out until dinner time. Dinners are a four course degustation menu, which seems a lot, but each dish was small so we didn’t feel stuffed at the end. For each meal (except breakfast) the sommelier picked a South Australian wine to showcase so I went with those picks for each meal. I enjoyed trying a number of new to me wines over the course of the long weekend.

Meanwhile back in the room the staff had lit an oil burner, provided a carafe of water with clean glasses for the night and left a little treat on our pillow. Each night came with its own quote card which was a lovely touch.

Once it was fully dark we were blown away by the stars, which were amazing. There is nothing between here and Antarctica which is over 3000 km away so the skies are super dark. We could see the Milky Way which we hardly ever get to see because we are usually around too many lights. We slept with the blinds open so each time I woke during the night I could have a little look at the stars before dropping back off to sleep. The sliding doors had flyscreens so we also left the glass sliding door open so we could hear the waves crashing on the cliffs below.