The Australian private island with glorious beaches and a new luxury hotel

Times

5 days ago

When my children were small I employed a series of Australian nannies who could not conceal their disdain for the English seaside. They were not impressed by the pebbly shingle, the murky water or that peculiar institution, the windbreak. At the time I felt rather defensive, but having just been to the spectacular Eyre peninsula in South Australia, where the sand is white, the water clear and the only debris on the beach is the odd nautilus shell, I now understand why to an Australian the English seaside doesn't really cut it.
My friend, the writer Miranda Cowley Heller, and I took a propeller plane from Adelaide airport and flew 170 miles west to Port Lincoln, named after the British home of its founder Matthew Flinders, and the biggest town on the Eyre peninsula. It's 40 minutes by plane, seven hours by car. From there we were taken by amphibious vehicle across the bay to Louth Island, where a former sheep station has been turned into a luxury eco hotel called Rumi.
The staff lined up holding welcome cocktails as we arrived and trundled up onto the beach, and it all felt very exclusive. There are only five rooms, though the hotel is planning to build villas all over the carefully landscaped island, including one VIP extravaganza with a private pool and its own dock. For now though, Rumi has the charm of an Australian beach café without the oppressive servility of a high-end resort.
The island is about 2km long and ringed with the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. It reminded me of a Hebridean island — low lying, virtually treeless, with long white beaches — only this one was about 20 degrees warmer. There were also no insects. Everyone had warned me that Australia was full of poisonous spiders, venomous snakes and traffic-dodging kangaroos, not to mention the great white sharks, but I saw no wildlife on the island apart from Wendy the sea eagle, who perches on the only proper tree.
Heroic efforts are being made to restore Louth to its original state after a century of being ravaged by sheep. A party of swagbaggers, working their way across the province and sleeping under the stars, were pulling up thornbushes in return for a free lunch at the hotel. The standard of the food was so good that I think three hours of back-breaking work in the hot sun was probably worth it. The executive chef, Jono Sweet, has just won his second Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, but his food was as charmingly casual as the hotel — tuna tartare and ceviche of local kingfish, served precisely but without pretension (four-course tasting menu £84).
The public rooms — the lobby and café-type restaurant — are plastered in a pinky golden Venetian stucco, and the manager told us that when the owner of the hotel, Che Metcalfe, an Adelaide tech entrepreneur, clapped eyes on his stuccoist, it was love at first sight. The wedding was taking place the following weekend. I can't imagine a more perfect place to get married, particularly when the reception is over and you can have this glorious island to yourself.
The highlight of my visit was getting up before dawn and watching the sun rise over a perfect white sandy beach and picking up nautilus shells.
Back on the mainland we were taken to Mikkira Station, a nature reserve which, like Louth, used to be a sheep station. You can walk through the eucalyptus and gum trees and spot koalas stretched in the forks of the trees, fast asleep. Our guide, Rebecca, told us they were a bit livelier at night, but these guys looked as though they had taken a permanent chill pill. There was a mob of kangaroos as well, including a mother feeding her joey. I hadn't realised until I got close that the kangaroo's tail is like a fifth limb; when the males fight each other they rear up on them, using them like pogo sticks. We looked around the original sheep rancher's hut from the 1840s, with its corrugated iron roof. Some rather incongruous pink nerines were flowering outside the hut, planted perhaps by some long ago rancher's wife, trying to add a little colour to khaki bush.
We visited the oyster farm at Coffin Bay (named after a person not an artefact), where we were taught how to shuck oysters properly, and then ate them with chilli and lime as we drank the local pink sparkling wine — both were delicious (tour, six oysters and glass of wine £31pp; oysterfarmtours.com.au).
In Port Lincoln we had breakfast in one of the town's many cafés, which in London or New York would have had round-the-block queues of hipsters lining up for its astonishing pastry creations. After my 'escargot' croissant filled with praline rather than snails — named for its shape rather than its filling — I needed a swim in the harbour, where a shark net protects you from the beasts of the deep. Port Lincoln is one of the few places in the world where you can commune with great whites underwater by cage diving, which is lovely if you like that sort of thing.
• Read our full guide to Australia
The Eyre peninsula is known as the place where the 'outback meets the sea', and the combination of perfect beach and indigenous wildlife — not to mention the spectacular food and drink — means that you can cover a lot of Australian bases in just a few days.
The first thing that every South Australian tells you about their state is, 'We are free settled, you know.' I confess that before coming here I had no idea what 'free settled' signified in Australia, but now I do. It's a crucial part of this region's identity — that its first European settlers came here out of choice, rather than on convict ships.
The second fact that everyone wants you to know is that the capital of South Australia, Adelaide, is a city of churches. That is pretty much self-evident as there seems to be a place of worship on every block, but perhaps more appealing in a godless age is that Adelaide is placed in the top ten best planned cities in the world according to Architectural Digest.
The centre is laid out on a 2km-wide grid system with broad streets and public squares and is entirely surrounded by parkland, which contains the fabulous Adelaide Botanic Garden and the zoo. Although its founder, Captain William Light, might be surprised by the number of casinos in his city, the centre still has pockets of mid-Victorian charm. As someone who spent five or so years steeped in this period while writing the TV drama Victoria, it was a vibe I recognised.
I was in Adelaide for the Writers' Week, which forms part of the Adelaide Festival — the biggest cultural festival in the southern hemisphere, which takes place in February in the ring of parks that surround the centre of the city. Imagine the buzz of Edinburgh in August except with perfect weather and no tourists — oh, and Adelaide is pretty flat and the trams are free — and you get the idea. Plus the standard of the food and drink is really world class, from the 27-course indigenous tasting menu at Restaurant Botanic (27-course tasting menu from £152; restaurantbotanic.com.au) to the laid-back African/Australian fusion cuisine at Africola served up by the South African chef Duncan Welgemoed (three courses from £41; africola.com.au).
I was there for two weeks and I didn't have a single disappointing meal. The most memorable was a festival pop-up called the Garden of Unearthly Delights which lived up to its name with long tables set up in a grove of eucalyptus trees (gardenofunearthlydelights.com.au). I sat next to some primary school teachers who had made a five-hour drive because they were fans of the chef. 'In SA the chefs are rock stars,' they said. You have only to walk around the covered market in the centre of Adelaide with its panoply of luscious local produce to understand why South Australia is such a foodie paradise.
We stayed at the Eos hotel, which has a magnificent rooftop bar and a cavernous casino. Every morning I would see bleary-eyed men trying to work the lift buttons after a night on what the Australians call the pokies (slot machines). It's also where the stars stay when they do the festival — I spotted Graham Norton. My room was vast with a marble bathroom and a balcony overlooking the cricket ground.
But the high point for me was the incredible crowds at the Writers' Week. All the events are free and I must have had an audience of over 400 people for my talk about Maria Callas. I have never sold so many books. I celebrated afterwards at the Exeter, a traditional Aussie pub which just happens to be the third highest consumer of Krug champagne in the world — they drink it in pint glasses. Perhaps I am biased, but it seems to me that the people of South Australia have very good taste.
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Daisy Goodwin was a guest of the South Australia Tourist Board (southaustralia.com); Rumi on Louth Luxury Eco Resort, which has B&B doubles from £303 (rumionlouth.com.au); Eos by Sky City, which has B&B doubles from £192; and Hotel Indigo, which has B&B doubles from £115 (ihg.com/hotelindigo). Fly to Adelaide