King Island - Our visit
Adrian is a local farmer, and also tour coach operator on the island. He has lived on the island for many years. His local knowledge was indeed indepth, and what he didn’t know about the island wasn’t worth knowing! We all crammed into this bus and left the airport for a short bus ride to a local restaurant for lunch. Along the way, Adrian was giving a very detailed commentary as he was driving the bus on the history and geography of the island. It was a short drive when we went through the township of Currie, essentially the ‘capital’, or Administrative Centre of King Island that has about half of the island’s population.
We went through there then onto the restaurant (And hotel), called “Boomerang by the Sea”. Part of the tour was a great seafood buffet lunch, and this venue is one of the finest restaurants on the Island and serving the best of Tasmanian Seafood and other produce of the island.
Aside from the fresh and delicious food, was this breathtakingly spectacular 180 degree view of Bass Strait from the restaurant! By this stage I was in a Nirvana, having flown on a nice vintage aircraft here and now having the best food with the best views, if we got stranded here, I would be fine with that! The buffet served up the finest in smoke salmon, oysters, beef, and other delicacies. A cheesecake was served up for desert, and that too was as quality as the main course.
Once lunch was over, we all went out onto the balcony to savour all the senses of the coastal view of the King Island’s coastline facing Bass Strait, with clear sunny skies, it couldn’t have gotten better. The food here is close to being ‘bliss’, and I would come all the way back down there just to have it all again. One day!
Once everyone was satisfied with their lunch, we made our way back onto the bus to continue our tour of King Island. We went through Currie again, and over to the local Kelp factory.
King Island Kelp Industries is one of the main products to come from the island, it’s a retrieval of sea kelp out of Bass Strait, and pretty much drying and refining to gradular form, for export to both local markets as well as overseas, Scotland and Norway being the main buyers of the product. The factory was a ginormous set-up of racks and hooks which had seaweed hung off them to be dried spanning over a wide acre.
And the open nature of the island had our tour bus driving into the premises, driving around and stopping at some of the racks and hooks while our tour guide Adrian explained how it worked and the significance of the Kelp factory to the Island’s economy. We then left the Kelp factory bound for Currie again, but taking a nice detour on some roads, which went alongside the rocky coastline of the island.
The roads then lead past the island’s main Golf Course, located downhill from our restaurant, is a spectacular, yet extremely challenging 9 hole course that hugs the coastline, completely exposed to the elements with very few trees and plenty of places to lose your ball (Like, I don’t know, the ocean!). Nonetheless, for the golfing members of the group, there are weekend packages here that you should indeed have a go at one day!
Once passed all them, we made our way into town, where we were given an hour to freely roam Currie and check out the shops, all of which were closed, except the IGA, and small art and craft establishments also in Currie, all of which were also closed, except one. I took this time to wonder around, went past the offices of Tasair/King Island Airlines, which shared the same building (And of course, also closed), popped by some arts/craft stores, and continued wondering around.
I stopped by the IGA, where we were told we could buy most of the locally produced King Island beef, seafood and dairy at. As I was travelling around at the time and not immediately going home, I couldn’t indulge in this as much as I wanted to!
Once our stop into town was complete, we all gathered on the bus again and continued to our next stop, taking the ‘scenic route’ through the island’s interior, we made our way to King Island Dairy, very famous across Australia and overseas for their quality cheese products, as well as other dairy products like their King Island Mousse (Which I’m consuming some of while I write this Trip Report!).
We got there, and all of us crammed inside, we split into two separate groups to take turns going round robin around the cheese tasting sample tables. We were given a slip and a pencil to mark the names of cheeses that took our fancy. Even though I couldn’t buy any at the time, I kept a note for it for when I return to the mainland and come across the cheese at my local Woolies (Although sadly, it’ll be a lot marked up compared to buying direct from them on King Island).
We were here for about half an hour while other members of the tour group stocked up, and once that was over, back on the bus, and now back to the airport! We made our way back there, and in the distance I could see a Regional Express SAAB 340 taxiing to depart for Melbourne.