Take your pick from 10 of the top luxury stay on Kangaroo Island.
Kangaroo Island (KI) lies just 13 kilometres off the South Australian coast, yet feels like it’s a million miles away. That, along with the incredible luxury accommodation on Kangaroo Island, and a trip here is a dream.
Are you even staying on Kangaroo Island if you don’t have a bathtub with a view? Oceanview Eco Villas does what it says on the tin with picture windows framing the ocean views from almost every room, including the bathroom. Located 50 metres from the ragged red cliffs of Redbanks, which protrude from the beach like bad teeth, the off-grid villas offer a five-star experience where the only passing traffic is from kangaroos.
It doesn’t get more luxurious than this.
2. Cliff House
The view from the Cliff House , perched like an eyrie overlooking the curve of Snelling’s Beach, is everything. After a day spent enjoying superlative food and wine, you can bed down at this architect-designed house on a remote section of KI’s sun-soaked north coast. The Cliff House is a favourite with travellers due to its cliff-edge jacuzzi and cushioned sunken pit, not to mention those unobstructed views of sea and sky.
Cliff House is perched overlooking the curve of Snelling’s Beach.
3. Hamilton House & Dune House
Step into the Hamilton House or Dune House and you will feel like you’ve entered a portal that leads to a Pinterest interiors page. The exclusive lodges overlooking Emu Bay both offer melodramatic ocean views and stylish entertaining areas. Both properties also appeal to intrepid adventurers as well as those seeking solitude. Make the most of being on island time by arranging for an in-house chef.
Enter the Pinterest-worthy interiors.
4. Stowaway Pods
For an island that measures just 145 kilometres long and between 900 metres and 54 kilometres wide, Kangaroo Island packs in a lot. You will be right in position to enjoy all KI has to offer with a stay in one of two Stowaway pods, located on a working farm five minutes away from Stokes Bay. A double-sided wood fire, freestanding bath and sauna are also worthy diversions.
Take in the beauty of KI from a Stowaway pod.
5. Sea Dragon Lodge & Villas
Book a stay at Sea Dragon Lodge & Villas if it’s the local wildlife you’re interested in. While the eco villas are not over-the-top extravagant, the luxury on offer is down to those expansive ocean views and proximity to Pink Bay Beach. Sit on the deck, glass of pinot noir in hand, and try and spot the island’s namesake as well as a supporting cast of possums, wallabies and dolphins.
The majestic views of Sea Dragon from above.
6. One Kangaroo Island
One Kangaroo Island has a freestanding outdoor tub that is made for wallowing in while looking for resident wildlife. Top up the bath with hot water until twilight falls and then sink into the sofa around the gas fireplace while your private chef prepares your dinner. This luxurious property on the north-east coast of Kangaroo Island is just metres away from Brown’s Beach.
One Kangaroo Island is just metres from Browns Beach.
7. The Sky House
Follow Cape du Couedic Road, the ribbon of asphalt that runs toward Admiral’s Arch, to get the obligatory Instagram snaps and then do a hit-and-run of the island’s key attractions so you can isolate in style at The Sky House . The rammed-earth architecture makes this property feel like it fell from the sky, with more of a Moroccan vibe than a KI rhythm. It’s low-fi luxury and one of the best Airbnbs on Kangaroo Island.
The villa is located on the highest point of the property.
8. Ecopia Retreat
Meeting the ‘locals’ when you’re staying at Ecopia Retreat translates to communing with the colony of sea lions at nearby Seal Bay Conservation Park. The experience is so intrinsic to a stay here that a guided tour to see the endangered animals is included when you book a stay of three nights or more. The two contemporary eco villas include floor-to-ceiling windows and a wood fireplace.
Wildlife is intrinsic to a stay at Ecopia Retreat.
9. Copperstone KI
Copperstone KI offers front-row seats to the action in Emu Bay, one of the most coveted spots on the north coast of Kangaroo Island. The four-bedroom architecturally designed beach house blends seamlessly into the landscape and is designed with absolute privacy in mind, which comes in handy when you’re drinking in the breathtaking panorama from the bath.
Unassuming from the outside, delightful on the inside.
10. Wandering Souls
If you’re looking for the best places to camp on Kangaroo Island, why not do so in comfort with Wandering Souls , who invite you to choose your tent, depending on your tribe and vibe. The company can pitch your luxury bell tent according to your whim and where you’d rather be and style it to suit. Stay on brand and order the Matilda, an Australian luxe tent fitted out with stylish throws and 1000-thread count sheets.
Carla Grossetti avoided accruing a HECS debt by accepting a cadetship with News Corp. at the age of 18. After completing her cadetship at The Cairns Post Carla moved south to accept a position at The Canberra Times before heading off on a jaunt around Canada, the US, Mexico and Central America. During her career as a journalist, Carla has successfully combined her two loves – of writing and travel – and has more than two decades experience switch-footing between digital and print media. Carla’s CV also includes stints at delicious., The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian, where she specialises in food and travel. Carla also based herself in the UK where she worked at Conde Nast Traveller, and The Sunday Times’ Travel section before accepting a fulltime role as part of the pioneering digital team at The Guardian UK. Carla and has been freelancing for Australian Traveller for more than a decade, where she works as both a writer and a sub editor.
The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.
There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd . In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.
Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.
‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.
Exchanging city chaos for country calm
The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)
I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.
I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.
The trails and treasures of the Grampians
Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)
Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.
Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles . I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.
Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)
There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail , Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.
Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.
“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.
Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)
We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.
Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)
The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.
What else is on offer in The Grampians?
Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)
You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.
And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region ? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).
Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)
Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.
The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.
Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)
There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.
The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.
Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.
And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.
Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)
You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.
A traveller’s checklist
Staying there
Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity .
