ADVE01Z01WE - V0 SAWEEKEND AUGUST 10-11 2 3

On a bleak night in May 1860,the crew of the Finnish barqueFides found themselves in a se-rious pickle off the northwestcoast of Kangaroo Island. Be-calmed in shifting seas, the

pinewood ship bound from London to PortAdelaide was being pushed by currents to-wards rocks beneath a fearsome cliff.

Unable to steer, its fate was sealed. In thesmall hours, amid heavy seas and thunder-

storms, the Fides and its crew of 15 wereswamped and thrown against the island.In desperation the chief mate jumped intothe sea and swam to the shore; just then, ahuge wave washed over the boat. Only fourothers survived.

I know this because I am also sunk deep– in my extremely dry, warm and cosy bedat the luxurious Southern Ocean Lodge,where I’ve pulled from the bookshelfKangaroo Island Shipwrecks, filled with

tales of the 81 vessels that have come togrief off the shores outside my panoramicwindows. And since my room is namedFides (all the Lodge’s 21 rooms are namedafter wrecks), it seems only right to dis-cover what fate befell its namesake. I hud-dle a bit deeper into the covers.

I’ve kept the shades up, though, so I canstill see the white foam of the SouthernOcean’s rolling breakers as the surf poundsthe cliffs around, throwing spray dozens ofmetres into the air. But it’s the sound thatis most evocative, even with the slidingdoors tightly shut: a deep, percussivethump that you can feel as much as hear.

It’s a night you wouldn’t wish to be on awallowing ship that’s missed its turn intoGulf St Vincent; far better to be tucked uphere against the winter chill, drifting slow-ly off under the spell of the ocean’s song, aKraken’s lullaby.

In daylight, it’s easy to see why this spotwas chosen for a world-beating lodgepromising exclusive, opulent, isolation.

Situated on a cliff overlooking HansonBay, there’s nothing but churning sea be-tween here and Antarctica. Low slung inthe landscape, crouched under the south-westerlies, it’s perfectly situated to takeadvantage of a view that incorporates theelemental beauty and danger that Kanga-roo Island throws up.

Sitting with a coffee in the vast lobbyyou look across kilometres of coastline, thesalt spray misting the horizon, while in-land the dense green mallee and tea treeadvances a ridge at a time to the horizon.That’s the beauty.

John Hird, who manages the Lodge withhis wife Alison Heath, says winter is hisfavourite time of year, a message he sayshe’s succeeding in sharing with the

At exclusive Southern Ocean Lodge, the wild winter weather is a reminder of Kangaroo Island’s stunning beauty – and perilous history

PORT IN A STORMWORDS ROY ECCLESTON

The Great Room at Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island Photograph: Supplied

D'ESTREES BAY

HANSON BAY

ADELAIDE

PENNESHAWKINGSCOTE

SEAL BAY

EMU BAYSTOKES BAY

CAPE JERVIS

Flinders Chase

National Park

Remarkable Rocks

SOUTHERN OCEAN LODGE, KANGAROO ISLAND

Getting there Qantas and Regional Express fly from Adelaide to Kingscote; or drive yourself on SeaLink ferry from Cape Jervis. qantas.com, rex.com.au, sealink.com.au

Staying there Suites start at $1250 per person per night and include all dining, open bar, most wine, mini bar, signature experiences and airport transfers. For South Australian residents, a two-for-one package runs until September

28. Two night minimum at $750 per person per night in Ocean Retreat Suite or higher, with fire and bath overlooking Southern Ocean.To book call 02 9918 4355 or southernoceanlodge.com.au

2 4 SAWEEKEND AUGUST 10-11 ADVE01Z01WE - V0

Lodge’s well-heeled clientele. Summer isstill the most popular time, but he’s con-vincing more guests to experience winter’sbig seas, storms, and cooler weather forlong coastal cliff hikes.

It’s all about perspective. We enjoyed a13km hike on the KI Wilderness Trail alonga clifftop trail, fortified by packed lunchesand bottles of spring water. The Fides sur-vivors also had a coastal hike – but theyhad to climb the 90m cliffs first, at night,in a storm.

Then they pushed through 25km ofscrub, living on a barrel of scavenged her-rings and a sheep that had survived thewreck, to reach the only nearby outpost ofcivilisation, the Cape Borda lighthouse.That’s the danger.

It’s this mix of beauty and peril thatmakes Kangaroo Island so appealing. Andit’s the remoteness of this perch aboveHanson Bay that led owners James andHayley Baillie, with Hayley’s father DickSmith, to choose it for their ambitious pro-ject back in 2002. Initially, they looked atthe northern, calmer part of the island butsoon realised the “wilds of the South Coastwas the place to be”.

So, with KI-born SA architect Max Prit-chard, the low-impact design was drawnup, with its enormous circular lobby andrestaurant just below the top of the ridge,and the 21 suites flowing down the slope ina single 300m corridor, each room withocean views. It has just been named byTravel + Leisure magazine the top hotel inAustralia and New Zealand, and number21 in the world.

But when your standard tariff starts at$1250 per person a night twin share, for aminimum of two nights, it’s not all aboutthe views or the history.

For a start, the rooms also need to be ter-rific. Which they are. In my standard Flin-ders suite, the decor is modern with richtimber highlights and carpet or heatedlimestone underfoot. The walk-in robe hasa minibar in which everything is compli-mentary, including the four or five tea va-rieties all loose-leafed for a teapot.

There’s a bathroom with both rain-shower and wall shower; and for entertain-ment a Bose sound system. There’s no TV –if you want something to watch, sit in thesunken lounge and enjoy that view, or inwarmer weather laze on the covered patio.

Then it needs to feel magnificent. Themain lobby, or Great Room, delivers. Itsvast windows frame a panorama that ex-tends from bush in the north to cliffs andbeaches in the east, and white-cappedocean to the south. Inside, a long, curvingwall of white limestone braces the roomlike a cliff.

The space looks big enough for a hotelcatering for hundreds of people; the Lodgehas, at most, around 50 guests, which isfewer than the number of staff.

The atmosphere is relaxed and informal.Guests are addressed by their first name,and you can serve yourself from the well-stocked bar as you kick back with a cock-tail or wine in front of the fireplace at thecentre of the Great Room. There’s even acellar from which you can pull a nice red,all included in the tariff. A separate spa sitsatop the cliff (there’s no gym).

The restaurant is first class. Chef AsherBlackford says nobody comes to the Lodgejust to eat his food – but at the same timehis regionally-focused menu must hit themark for guests used to luxury hotel fare.The focus is local. The barramundi, for ex-ample, is farmed by students at the localParndana High school; the partridge andquail are hand-delivered by a local couple;the chicken is from Saskia Beer in the Bar-

ossa Valley; native plants like the slenderhoney myrtle make their way into thedishes as do foraged mushrooms.

The staff are young and enthusiastic forKI’s fauna and flora. On a nature tourto Seal Bay, Flinders University

graduate Ashleigh Wycherley guides ourwalk among the Australian sea lions (earedseals), some of them extremely cranky.When the males weigh 400kg and run asfast as we do, nobody argues when Ash-leigh advises we bunch together “becauseit will make us seem bigger”. The truth, though, is we’re the realthreat. Sea lions are no longer hunted fortheir blubber, but plastic rubbish andocean debris, along with an endemic hook-worm, are forcing this endangered speciesinto decline – unlike the smaller long-nosed fur seals we see near Admiral’s Archat Cape de Couedic, which are thriving.

At nearby Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctu-ary, we find the koalas are, similarly,booming. They came in 1923 when a far-mer’s wife introduced 18 of them to herTasmanian blue gums. There are now50,000. Less successful was the introduc-tion of wombats – two males, unsurpris-ingly, failed to produce any offspring, sothe island has none. The kangaroos, ofcourse, were already here, and the reasonMatthew Flinders (who feasted on them)named it “Kanguroo Island”.

Our flora lessons come on that 13km hikealong a section of the KI Wilderness Trail,

from the oddly-shaped granites of Re-markable Rocks to the Lodge, mostly alongclifftops. With small limestone outcropsunderfoot, you need to watch your step.It’s a sporadically sunny July day in whicha few showers in no way spoil the enjoy-ment – but do provide a spate of rainbows.

One of the Lodge’s guides, “nature nerd”Kelly Gledhill, provides fun facts along theway: here’s a southern coastal mallee (veryadaptable; might be scrub here and 12mtrees inland), there a xanthorrhoea (ayakka or grasstree, which loves bushfiresbut explodes if it gets too hot), and underour feet the edible succulent pigface (or iceplant, which sacrifices some leaves by fill-ing them with salt, turning them red).

This natural world was much on theminds of the resort owners when they weremulling what to name the rooms. But sixweeks before the opening they still hadn’tcome up with something they liked.

Hayley Baillie was thinking about link-ing the suites to local wildlife, but thenchanged tack.

All suites looked over the SouthernOcean, so why not name them after theships that met their fate out there? Itwould be an evocative connection to boththe island’s history and the wildness thatdictated the resort be built there in the firstplace.

And just so curious guests could learnthe stories behind the names beside theirfront doors, she hunted down enough cop-ies of Gifford D. Chapman’s Kangaroo Is-land Shipwrecks to add to the mini libraryin each suite.

On a wild night with a pounding surf,they certainly tell a bedtime story with adifference.

The author was a guest of Southern Ocean Lodge.

Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island, top, and the Flinders suite, above Photographs: Supplied

“KI’s appeal is a mixture of beauty and danger