One of the best places in Australia (and without doubt the best place in South Australia) to see Australia's native wildlife and flora. On land there are kangaroos, koalas, echidnas, platypus, goannas and birds of every shape and size (255 species, many rare or endangered); in the surrounding ocean there are seals, sea lions, dolphins, whales (in season) and little penguin. The coastal scenery is superb and the island is big enough to never feel crowded, even in peak holiday season.
Kangaroo Island, which lies across the mouth of Spencer Gulf, is Australia's third largest island (after Tasmania and Melville Island). Separated from Cape Jervis on the mainland by the narrow Backstairs Passage, and from Yorke Peninsula to the north by Investigator Strait, the island is much larger than most visitors expect it to be - it is about 155 km long and 55 km wide at its widest, and those who try to experience in one day all that the island have to offer soon realise it is an impossibility. Kangaroo Island has a rugged and extremely beautiful coastline, particularly at its west end, and the waters around it teem with fish.
It has become a popular holiday place for South Australians and its main settlement, Kingscote, on Nepean Bay, is linked by a regular air service to Adelaide and a vehicle/passenger ferry service to Cape Jervis at the foot of Fleurieu Peninsula.
Location: 110 km south-west of Adelaide; 16 km south west of the tip of Fleurieu Peninsula across Backstairs Passage; 40 km south of Yorke Peninsula across Investigator Strait.
Natural features of interest include:
Flinders Chase National Park, a 54 950 ha. Fauna and flora reserve on the western tip of the island, 101 km from Kingscote.
Seal Bay Conservation Park (750 ha, including both the Seal Bay area and Little Sahara; a breeding ground for sea lions)
Antechamber Bay, with a stand of ancient Yacca trees (Xanthorrhoea Tateana).
The island is well developed with all the modern facilities available elsewhere in Australia. It has four towns - Kingscote, American River, Penneshaw and the inland rural centre Parndana, which are connected by over 1,600 km of roads, many of which are unsealed.
Three magnificent lighthouses were built in 1852, 1858 and 1906, respectively. Cape Willoughby (to the east), Cape Borda (north-west) and Cape Du Couedic (north-south). Over eighty shipwrecks are literally scattered around the island, the largest being the 5865 ton Japanese freighter Portland Maru, lost in 1935. The most famous however are the 1552 ton fully-rigged clipper Loch Vennachar, lost of the far west tip of the island, and the 1280 ton ship Loch Sloy, also lost at the western end of the island, in 1899. In spite of its lighthouses and modern navigational aids, many vessels were lost in the latter half of the 20th century, mainly due to the proliferation of fishing in the islands rich waters.
Old whaling station at Port Tinline, D'Estrees Bay.
History: The island was first settled by Aborigines but their history is scant and complex. It seems they left the island about 3,000 years ago for reasons which remain unknown. Kangaroo Island was explored in detail by Matthew Flinders in March 1802, during his survey of the Australian coast in HMS Investigator. Flinders and his crew killed 31 kangaroos, recording in his journal, "half a hundredweight of heads, forequarters and tails were stewed into soup...and as much steaks given....to both officers and men as they could consume by day and by night.... In gratitude for so seasonable a supply, I named this southern land Kangaroo Island ..." Flinders also named the strait between the island and the mainland declaring "It forms a private entrance, as it were, to the two gulphs; and I named it Backstairs Passage".
Flinders was travelling west to east, unaware that two French ships belonging to an expedition under Nicolas Baudin, were also surveying the southern coast of Australia at that time, but in the opposite direction. They had a chance encounter in Encounter Bay on the Fleurieu Peninsula on 8th April 1802, exchanged pleasantries over afternoon tea, then continued on their respective journeys. A month after Flinders had explored the island, Baudin did the same, also naming its coastal features as he went. Many names were duplicated - in some instances, triplicated, as Baudin's second in command, Freycinet, had a habit of recording different names to Baudin - which explains why a mix of names given by Flinders, Baudin and Freycinet remain in use today. Before the Colony of South Australia was formed, whalers, sealers, kangaroo hunters and escaped convicts frequented Kangaroo Island. A year after Baudin's visit, a group of American sealers, under command of Captain Pemberton, arrived aboard the brig Union and established themselves at what is now known as American River. For many years the island's white beaches were stained with the blood of tens of thousands of whales, seals, kangaroos, wallabies and possums. The island's seals and kangaroos were almost hunted to extinction. During Captain George Sutherland's short stay on the island in 1819, he recorded that more than 4500 seals and 1500 kangaroos were killed for their skins or meat. As late as the 1950s seals were killed for shark bait. When Colonel William Light arrived on the brig Rapid in August 1836, Dr. John Woodforde recorded in his diary 'There must have been a great mortality among the kangaroos on this Isle since Flinders time or he must have mistaken the wallaby for them as we have not seen one and the sealers say there are none'.
Kangaroo Island claims to be the first South Australian settlement, as the first colonists stayed there before moving to the more suitable settlement at Glenelg in 1836. Colonel William Light landed near present day Kingscote, but the scarcity of water in this locality caused him to abandon plans to establish a permanent settlement there and moved on to the mainland.
Nonetheless, Kangaroo Island caught the eye and interest of the Directors of the South Australian Company, a private enterprise established to bring out migrants from Europe and settle them in farming communities in South Australia. In 1836, George Fife Angas, the founder and chairman of the South Australian Company learnt of the plight of Lutherans in the Eastern Provinces of Prussia who were being persecuted by the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III. Angas persuaded their pastor, August Ludwig Christian Kavel, to bring them to South Australia and assisted them with a £8,000 grant. The first of them arrived in 1836 and settled at Kingscote on Kangaroo Island. The settlement was named after Henry Kingscote, a director of the South Australian Company. It has the distinction of being the first town in South Australia. The first school in South Australia was established at Kingscote by Captain Bromley who lived on the island until May 1839. During this time he instructed some twenty children under a tree until he had built a hut for them. Few of the Germans stayed for any length of time and the settlement, which was officially declared an official port to curb smuggling, remained the home of riffraff, runaway convicts and deserters from ships.
Over the years, attempts have been made to establish various industries on the island with limited success. These include salt mining, cattle grazing, eucalyptus oil production and gypsum mining. The island's isolation and poor quality of soils have ensured that Kangaroo Island has remained relatively underdeveloped. Consequently, even today, the island's population is less that 5,000 and its economy is driven by tourism.
