Tourism revival: Kangaroo Island makes a stunning comeback

Should you have time for a yarn with a local, you'll hear stories about the bushfires of December 2019 and January 2020 that'll break your heart. Nearly half of Kangaroo Island burnt to embers - and that's about 200,000 hectares. Odd though that every tale tends to end on a positive note. Kangaroo Islanders, you see, are a resilient bunch.

"Yeah, 42 per cent got burnt," tour operator Craig Wickham says. "So 58 per cent is okay."

Long-time local Ro Horbelt spent 26 days fighting flames to protect her home. "We might've lost half the island ... but you should see the regrowth," she says. "Nature isn't tougher anywhere in Australia than it is on Kangaroo Island."

It's not till I'm weaving my way by 4WD across red dusty dirt roads from one coastline to the next without passing a single vehicle that I begin to understand Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, is as vast and wild as anywhere in the outback. Wedge-tailed eagles patrol the skies above, kangaroos and wallabies feed by the roadside... and you don't want to break down.

But lodges and hotels can't grow back like the wilderness does. And Kangaroo Island lost some of its best, including one of Australia's most prestigious luxury accommodations, Southern Ocean Lodge. That I'm here to test-drive the first new luxury accommodation to open since the fires - locals tell me - is a sign 2023 is going to be a big year for Kangaroo Island.

It's a 50-minute drive from the airport to Wander on Kangaroo Island, most of it along red dirt track. The last part of it is a steep climb up a sandstone bluff where four luxury eco-pods face out across the Great Australian Bight. There's a two-person bath on a timber deck outside, surrounded by a mob of kangaroos. Below, I spot pods of dolphins off a white-sand horseshoe-shaped beach; had I come a few weeks earlier, I'd have seen humpback and southern right whales only a little further out.

The windows inside are of the floor-to-ceiling variety; beyond the ocean, I see all the way to Yorke Peninsula, my horizon for four days. These pods were constructed in Adelaide and shipped across by ferry on the back of a truck, then installed using a crane, leaving the earth untouched below.

Taking a long bath seems a bona-fide excursion right now, but there's much to see and do along this far less visited north-west coast. I'm booked on a zodiac boat tour leaving from a bay only 20 minutes away which will take me along coastline more than 550 million years old and home to plants you won't find anywhere else on Earth.

"See those pebbles on the beach," tour guide Phil Smith asks. "They came from the bottom of a glacier when this was part of Gondwana." The water's as clear as glass, so when pods of 20-or-so bottlenose dolphins surf the bow waves of the zodiac, I could reach out and touch them.

RADKI Eco-Tours have a permit allowing passengers to get in and swim with Australian sea lions, fur seals and dolphins. It's been a quiet few years for Smith and co-owner Ro Horbelt - the fires were followed immediately by the COVID-19 pandemic - but they're seeing a resurgence in tourist numbers.

"People know Kangaroo Island's unique," Horbelt says. "Everything we think Australia should be - sharks, snakes, beaches, outback, kangaroos, wilderness - it's all condensed on one island, 200 kilometres from Adelaide. That's always going to get tourists."

In the evening I make my way down the hill from my pod to Kangaroo Island's newest eating experience, Sensorium. Wander doesn't own the land its pods are built on, it leases it from a third-generation Kangaroo Islander. That's Nick Hannaford, who greets me by the bar inside an old shearing shed his grandfather bought in the 1940s. He's transformed it into an eight-course degustation experience. "After the fires and COVID, I felt like people wanted something different," he says. Each course is cooked over flames, coal or the smoke of an open fire pit as I watch from a table for a maximum of 20 guests, beneath antique glass chandeliers, in a room lit entirely by candlelight. (Hannaford also operates The Enchanted Fig Tree next door, where I dine between the limbs of a 120-year-old fig tree).

At night I leave my blinds open and fall asleep as planets shine down and stars shoot across the clear night sky. I watch sunrise from my bath-tub across rolling calico-coloured hills shrouded in morning fog as kangaroos box each other on the grass beside my pod.

Exceptional Kangaroo Island managing director Craig Wickham arrives after a breakfast I cook for myself on the barbecue outside; he's carrying a four-week-old Tamar wallaby he rescued, in a canvas shopping bag hanging off his neck. His company specialises in high-end day tours across the island. Up until the pandemic, 97 per cent of his guests came from overseas.

"We've been in survival mode since December 2019," he says. "But we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel. With Wander At Kangaroo Island opening and Southern Ocean Lodge opening again by October, that's huge. We've had to change the perception that the whole place went up in smoke."

He stops his 4WD where eucalyptus trees form a cathedral over the roadway. He points up into the trees, but I can't see anything but leaves. Then, with a shock, I see the trees are full of koalas.

"That's Kangaroo Island for you," he says. "Around every corner you'll find another creature, you'll find marine parks where they've found things they've never seen before on the planet. You just have to take the time to look."

Craig Tansley travelled courtesy of Wander On Kangaroo Island and SATC.

Getting there: Fly to Adelaide, then fly Qantas to Kangaroo Island, or hire a car and drive 90 minutes to the car ferry at Cape Jervis.

Staying there: Wander on Kangaroo Island offers four luxury eco-pods with cooking facilities (a Tastes of the Island pantry box is available at extra cost). Visit wander.com.au

Eating there: Enjoy an eight-course meal inside a 19th-century shearing shed, or dine within a 120-year-old fig tree. Visit gastronomodining.com.au

Playing there: Choose from a variety of boat tours along KI's north-west coast. Visit radki.com.au. Or choose the day tour that best suits you. Visit exceptionalkangarooisland.com

Explore more: southaustralia.com