King Island

• The home of King Island Dairy.
• Creamy or sharp - choose your cheeses.
• A haven for diving - more than 70 shipwrecks.
• Excellent fishing opportunities.

There are around 1,000 people on the island, and they are proud of their independence and resourcefulness. Their history and livelihood are linked with Bass Strait: the island’s kelpies gather bull kelp tossed on shore by storms, while cray fishermen and abalone divers harvest rich catches from beneath the surface.

On King Island’s flat farmlands, beef and dairy cattle shelter behind thick ti-tree hedges - the lush grass is the secret to the succulent local beef, rich cream and wonderful hand-made cheeses. The island produces Cloud Juice - bottled water from the unpolluted rains that fall.

How to get to King Island.

More local information on King Island.

You can visit the King Island Dairy shop next to the cheese factory, taste the cheeses and select your favourites to take home.

Wallabies and peacocks abound so be careful driving at dusk. Shearwater rookeries cover tussocky coastal hillsides, and you may sight albatrosses and mighty sea eagles riding the updraughts. The orange bellied parrot stops here on its annual migratory journey to Tasmania’s south-west wilderness.

The island has thriving wildlife, including platypuses, especially in the 6,800-hectare (16,800 acre) Lavinia Nature Reserve in the north-east. You’ll also find heath, dunes and wonderful beaches in the reserve and a world-renowned wetland bird habitat. In the south of the island there’s an ancient calcified forest and a little further round the coast, at Grassy, you can see fairy penguins returning in the evening to their burrows.

Reid Rocks, 12kilometres (7.5 miles) offshore, is home to a major breeding colony of Australian fur seals. King Island’s wildlife, both native and exotic, can sometimes surprise - yes that was a pheasant you saw in the roadside hedge. And yes, it is a paddock of grazing turkeys.

King Islanders are a friendly bunch. Everyone has time to chat - in Currie’s motel and friendly pub, in Grassy’s local store and craft shop, in cottages and bed and breakfast accommodation. When you pass anyone on the road, remember to raise your hand in the King Island wave.

Australia’s worst maritime disaster occurred here in 1845, when the Cataraqui grounded. Today, Cape Wickham lighthouse - the tallest lighthouse in the southern hemisphere - guides mariners safely into Bass Strait but you can still explore the island’s most important historic sites on the Shipwreck Trail.

In 1802 the British sent Lieutenant Charles Robbins to claim King Island and Tasmania, after Captain Nicholas Baudin visited Sydney Town and told of his explorations of Tasmania’s east coast.

• King Island Museum
• King Island Dive Charter
• King Island Coach
• More local information

How to Get There

You can fly to King Island directly from Devonport or Burnie, Tasmania or from mainland Australia.

Car Hire Options on King Island

P&A Car Rentals

Howells Auto Rent