When I visited for the first time on a work trip three weeks ago, I found it to be quite different to what I’d expected.

For some reason I thought it would be quite flat and not as picturesque landscape-wise as the other main Bass Strait isle I’d recently spent time on, Flinders Island.

But I was wrong, this lush, wild place is surprisingly beautiful.

Parts of King Island, located about 80km off the North-West Coast of mainland Tasmania, are very similar to the rugged West Coast of Tassie with huge sand dunes and rocky, rugged coastal landscapes and wild weather.

King Island’s west coast features spectacular places like Seal Rocks with sheer cliffs and huge rolling seas and then 30 minutes away there are tranquil beaches with big orange lichen-covered boulders and crystal-clear, turquoise-coloured waters that remind you of being in Bicheno or Coles Bay, except that you have it all to yourself without the crush of all the tourists.

It really is possible to go for a walk on a beach and be the only people there. King Island is like what it was like holidaying in Tasmania about 20 to 30 years ago before the rest of Australia, and indeed the world, discovered us.

The other thing that really stood out for me was the clean, fresh air and how everything was so green.

Even the cows on King Island seem pretty relaxed and chilled out.

Given the ideal growing conditions of high rainfall, lack of drought and frost, clean water and lack of pollution, it’s no wonder the island is able to produce some of the world’s finest cheese, beef and crayfish.

And now for the first time Hobartians, looking to satisfy that travel fix they’ve been craving since our borders closed, can fly there directly.

Last month, Premier Peter Gutwein announced that direct flights from the state’s capital to the Bass Strait isle’s main township of Currie, would be available three times a week from September 30.

The flights, which start at $230 one-way for adults, take about one hour and 15 minutes from Hobart to Currie, are being underwritten by the State Government and are being offered on a four-month trial.

Long-time King Island resident, artist and creator Caroline Kininmonth said the news of the direct flights had already created a huge buzz about the island.

“My phone’s been running hot, as I have Devil’s Gap accommodation,” Caroline says.

“My phone has been constantly ringing, with people wanting to come over and I think it’s probably a combination of the direct flights and also people on the mainland getting very restless.”

Caroline who owns and operates several King Island properties including the eclectic, colourful boathouse called the Restaurant with No Food, on the Currie Harbour, has been coming and going from the island for the past 30 years.

She says she was first fell in love with King Island when she was wanting to escape drought-ridden and bushfire-prone Gippsland, in Victoria.

“It’s the old story I went for a weekend and then stayed,” she said.

“I feel very possessive about King Island _ it has a certain X-factor about it and I can’t quite put my finger on it but it’s a magic spot.”

Caroline says one of the things that makes their island, which is home to about 1500 residents, special is that it is not overrun by too many people.

“I’ve been involved with the island now for 30 years and I would say it’s probably like what Tasmania was like a long, long time ago … it’s got a real rawness to it,” she says.

“It is still a place where you can walk along a beach and it’s all yours and you’re living very close to nature. For instance the little penguins will come up very close to you _ and I think we have to be very, very careful with how we handle tourism here, we need to be protective about what we’ve got, we don’t want it to be like Phillip Island for instance, where it’s wall-to-wall people.”

Having said that, she says still loves to share this special place that captured her heart with visitors.

However, people coming to the island need to appreciate it’s still a wild and remote place that is not full of high-end restaurants with cafes on every corner, but instead has a unique, untouched quality that people will love.

“People coming to King Island for the weekend should bring a pair of bathers, a parker, a woolly hat, and get out there with the car and just go with the flow,” she says.

“Sometimes you wake up in the morning and it will be pouring with rain and in an hour it will be totally different weather. I must admit I do really love the south, exploring right down to the bottom is amazing, but having said that Naracoopa is beautiful, and then you get up to Yellow Rock and it has a different feel again. You have to embrace what it is.”

Caroline says another “magic thing to do” on the island is to grab a picnic hamper from FoodWorks, in Currie, and then take that to wherever the weather dictates.

“If it’s really wild and woolly, you get out of the weather. But there’s nothing better than sitting on a salt bush at Seal Rocks, or somewhere like that, with one of our excellent King Island hampers and enjoying some of our finest cheese and wine.”

Another sea changer, Aaron Suine, who made the move to the island from Sydney a few years ago to build and operate one of the island’s luxury accommodation offerings, Kittawa Lodge, is equally enamoured with the place.

Aaron, a construction lawyer by trade, said he and his organisational psychologist partner Nick Stead immediately fell in love with the island after visiting about four years ago.

Aaron says it was not a hard decision to make the move and leave the pressures of inner-city life behind.

“We were both at the top of our game in terms of our careers,” Aaron says. “But long working hours meant we had limited time to connect as a family and enjoy the rewards of our hard work. We started questioning what success really meant to us, and after staying at some incredible places around the world we decided that what we really wanted was to create something special in a spectacularly remote and beautiful place for people to enjoy, while creating a new life for us and our son.”

And although Kittawa Lodge has only been open since last year and the couple has found operating through COVID challenging, they are extremely positive about the future of tourism on the island. Especially since the announcement of direct flights from Hobart.

“If this is a new community that you’re yet to explore or haven’t explored for a while or you’ve only come here with your golfing mates now is the time to rediscover King Island,” Aaron says.

“You can come here with your significant other or loved one _ whatever it is you’re looking for we now have it in spades, if you’re prepared to drive to the Pump House, Stillwater Seven or the Ship Inn, in Stanley, then why not consider hopping on a plane from Hobart to King Island? In many cases it’s less travelling time.

“And yes, it is an additional cost and we absolutely appreciate that, but I’m yet to have a guest say that they felt they didn’t get value for money. I’ve had a lot of guests say the complete opposite and that we under-price ourselves.”

Aaron says there are a lot of people who were meant to be going travelling overseas to Europe or going skiing in New Zealand at this time and because they can’t do that now _ he suggests why not consider King Island instead?

“For Tasmanians what we’d love to be able to do is show off King Island in a new light,” he says.

“Tasmanians particularly Hobartians would see King Island in a certain way … they know us for our world-class golf courses, they know we’ve got amazing home stays, and we do that incredibly well, but they might not know of King Island as a luxury couples getaway where you can be pampered with on-site staff and with personalised daily turndown service.

“We’re the new kids on the block and we’re not a Saffire, we don’t have that sort of money behind us, but we’ve got a story to tell and we’ve got generous hospitality, amazing products and an incredible community to show off.”

One such couple that Aaron and Nick are particularly keen for visitors to discover are artists Di and Andrew Blake who are the creators of several of the paintings and works that hang on the walls at Kittawa.

The Blakes, who previously worked as arts coordinators in Arnhem Land were drawn to King Island after they discovered the community to be so welcoming and the landscape to be so evocative and inspiring for their creative minds.

They then spent a few summers camping on their property while they were building their home, Whale Tail House, which has been showcased on an episode of Grand Designs Australia, and is now a popular place for visiting resident artists and tourists alike.

“Time and time again we say, three quarters of the reason we are here is because of the community,” Di says.

Andrew agreed that the warmth of the King Island locals was what really won them over.

“We got all sorts of wonderful support from the community when we arrived,” Di says. “For instance one of our wonderful neighbours helped us put in one of the roads on our property and when we tried to pay him but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said: ‘this is an island, we don’t charge each other, it will come back, everyone helps each other out here, it’s just what we do’.”

Di says it was this kind of generosity of the King Island people that really won them over.

“Even when you first get off the plane people are so friendly and happy to see you and then they all wave at you as you drive in,” she says. “We’re so pleased we’re here.”

“Porky Beach is lovely location and Kittawa adds that extra element for people coming here wanting that luxury experience. And it’s just a great place for people who really want to get away from things.”

Then of course there are the island’s renowned golf courses, Cape Wickham Golf Links and Ocean Dunes, which are rated as some of the best in the world.

On our trip we took a tour of Cape Wickham, located about 40-minutes drive north of Currie, which is positioned in what is arguably one of the best locations for golfing in the world on the edge of the wild ocean, with the heritage-listed lighthouse of the same name as its stunning backdrop.

History buffs will be interested to know the magnificent Cape Wickham Lighthouse, the tallest in Australia at 48m, was built in 1861 as a monument to multiple shipwrecks on the island including Australia’s worst civil maritime disaster. In 1845, the Cataraqui, a ship carrying emigrants from England to NSW failed to see the only guiding light at the time, the Cape Otway lighthouse, on the Victorian coast. She sailed too far south and struck the jagged rocks off King Island’s west coast and sunk, claiming 402 lives, 173 of which were under 15.

After a quick visit to the base of the lighthouse my husband and I met up with Cape Wickham Links’ course superintendent John Geary. Neither of us play golf but after taking a trip with John around all 18 holes of the impressive location in a cart, we felt like taking it up.

For us highlights included the 10th hole, which John refers to as the “OMG corner” as everyone who gets here goes “OMG” and immediately whips out their phones to take photos of the green which is literally metres from the ocean.

No. 17 was pretty spectacular as well, as the beach is in play, and then No. 18 located to the right-hand side of the lighthouse would have to be one of the most visually impressive finishing holes on a golf course anywhere in the world.

And even though it’s his job to show off the course and its fairways are his office it’s clear that John is as big a fan of the place, as anyone visiting for the first time.

“Much has been said about Cape Wickham Links on King Island, within months of opening five years ago, it had debuted at No. 3 in the Australian Golf Digest’s top-100 courses and has been since rated No. 2 behind Royal Melbourne, now I know I am a golf nerd but in golfing terms that’s a huge coup,” John says.

“The buzz heightened when it was named No. 24 in the world’s 100 greatest golf courses, in the US edition of Golf Digest, which for golfers is THE bible.

“They talk about signature holes in golf and we’ve probably got about 10 or 11 out here but the one that everyone talks about_ the par-4, 18th has been described as the most glorious natural setting of any finishing hole in Australia.

“I have been lucky enough to go all over the world playing, and looking at golf courses in particular, and I truly believe we have something that is absolutely world-class.”

John says from an Australian perspective what sets Cape Wickham and the other King Island courses apart is that they’re links course and links golf is the oldest form of the sport.

“The term links golf refers to the link of land between the ocean and the more arable farm land and generally that is really sandy, undulating topography and what we have here is probably more like what you’d find in Ireland and Scotland with its rugged sand dunes. But links courses in Australia are relatively rare. But all of a sudden now you’ve got three genuine links courses on King Island which sets us apart.

“I’ve been lucky enough go to the British Open a couple of times and play at St Andrews and been lucky enough to play at a lot of those courses and I think we’re just as good.”

After a busy day touring around we visited another of the island’s hidden gems for dinner that night, the Oleada restaurant. The Oleada is a small, intimate 10-seat restaurant located on the road going down to the Currie Harbour. We enjoyed seared scallops for entrée and their signature dish of a succulent King Island steak with blue-cheese sauce, topped with locally grown vegetables and onion rings really hit the spot. And after a quick look at TripAdvisor’s reviews of this spot I think if you choose to dine here you would need to book in advance. And although we didn’t get there we were told Wild Harvest is also a great spot to eat out. Again, it sounds like a wise idea to make a booking.

During our time on the island we weren’t able to visit the King Island Dairy Cheese Store as it is currently closed due to COVID restrictions. However, since our visit the dairy is putting on free cheese tastings on Friday afternoons at the King Island Cultural Centre, at Currie Harbour, where visitors will be offered a free tasting tray of a selection of their finest produce. I am also reliably told that the Currie IGA and FoodWorks stores both stock a good selection of their cheese which is sold at “good island prices”.

Caroline Kininmonth’s own special place the Restaurant With No Food, a quirky, hard-to-miss boathouse with its canary yellow exterior, is also well worth a visit. This place, where locals and tourists alike are encouraged to bring their own food and drinks or something to throw on the barbie, is an ideal spot to enjoy some of the island’s produce in a warm, cosy spot overlooking the harbour.

So in a nut shell not only does King Island offer travellers the best in food, several luxury accommodation options, the chance to tee off on two of the best golf links courses in the country, as well as access to some of the country’s top surfing spots such as Martha Lavinia and Phoques Bay, the real beauty of King is that you’ve got it to yourself.

For now anyway, but my advice is head on up before everyone else discovers the secret.

MAKE A NOTE

Sharp Airlines flies to King Island from mainland Tasmania from Hobart, Launceston and Burnie-Wynyard airports several times a week.

From Hobart flights to King Island depart on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and start from $230 (subject to conditions), one-way, for adults. From Hobart to Currie flights take 1 hour and 15 mins.

For more information visit sharpairlines.com

King Island Car Rental is located at the King Island Airport in Currie,

Phone 6462 1282 or 6462 1603

www.kingisland.org.au

Cape Wickham Golf Links green fees are $170 per day, which allows you unlimited golf all day. Carts are $45.

For more information go to www.capewickham.com.au

Ocean Dunes

Green fees: $65 (nine holes); $100 (all-day rate)

www.oceandunes.com.au

Whale Tail House and Art Tour by appointment. Phone 0407 499 491 or 0419 092 021