My island home: a double opportunity to live off grid in a pristine environment
If you have ever fancied living in an island paradise surrounded by waters teeming with fish, sealions and crayfish, then Whalers Bay on Thistle Island has not one but two opportunities.
A modern cottage on wild and remote Thistle Island, 28 nautical miles southeast of South Australia’s Port Lincoln, at the foot of Spencer Gulf, is on the market with a price tag of about $1m.
Melbourne agency Castran is selling the fully off-grid property overlooking Whalers Bay, fronting 39 Whalers Drive, in conjunction with Rachel Hawkins of Harris Real Estate.
Agent John Castran says it’s a fisher’s paradise where King George whiting or even the occasional tuna can be caught offshore from the three-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage positioned on a 1721 sqm site.
Sale of the fully furnished cottage includes a 4WD LandCruiser troop carrier and a tender. Open-plan living spills on to a seafront deck, and the property has a three-bay Olympic shed.
There’s a 90,000 litre rainwater tank as well as two connecting tanks and a private mooring. Port Lincoln is a 15 to 20-minute flight from the island which has a runway capable of accommodating jets and lights for night landing.
Castran, in conjunction with local agent Harris Real Estate, is also marketing a second property on the island, 30 Whalers Drive, which is billed as an architecturally designed property built on two separate titles covering 8700 sqm.
About $1.7m is expected for the property – also fully off-grid – which is being sold by Mark Pearson, a former head of the advertising team for the federal Liberal Party.
Mr Pearson said he hired one of Adelaide’s best architects, Rob Williams, to design the home on the island whose coast has 23 beaches and waters rich with pods of whales, sealions, crayfish and dolphins.
“If you go for a walk you won’t see any footprints,” he said. “It has over 10,000 bilby, it is stunning, the views are spectacular. It’s embarrassing the amount of crayfish you can catch.”
Mr Pearson said all the building materials had to be shipped in by tuna boat and there were about 21 houses on the island – most of them holiday houses owned by people living in Adelaide.
“After I retired seven years ago I lived there on Thistle Island for three years full-time, I have now decided to sell for family reasons,” he said.
With a north-facing front deck and wraparound return verandas, polished blackbutt flooring, as well as generators, the three-bedroom and two-bathroom property features a 140,000-litre plumbed rainwater tank, chicken coop, vegetable garden and authentic brick smokehouse.
Inside the property there is a two-way French Cheminees Philippe fireplace between the living areas and the master suite.
Mr Castran says fishers can land anything from southern rock lobster, abalone, squid and whiting to much larger challenges.
The property comes with a Nissan Patrol, two Honda quad bikes and an inflatable tender.
Sea eagles abound on the pristine island, which is 200km west of Adelaide and was named by explorer Matthew Flinders in 1802.
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