King Island, the little jewel in the Bass Straight...

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It's hard to believe, but this only the third blog about King Island on Travelblog, the last one is not new either, dating from 2008! I had no idea about this place up to recently after sharing some golfing conversations with few Aussies about the best golf courses in Australia. Cape Wickham came in, and I did my homework to find out more about it.

The next step was to organize this little one week trip with my lovely wife to Tasmania. Tanya flew in Melbourne from Bali, an easy short 6 hours direct flight. Mine was a little longer starting in Durban, South Africa. I was more than happy to find a good upgrade by miles deal with Emirates, flying on top of the big bird all the way from Joburg to Melbourne via Dubai. It's impressive how such a long experience can become fun once you fly in style!

The idea was not to miss our short flight to Currie, King Island. This explains our short stay in Melbourne. So next day, early morning flight to the island some 260kms South of Melbourne. Some plane, short ride, and picking up a fully rusted rental car on the tiny airport. Here, you see golf bags and surf boards on the plane, and that's 80% of all the bags!



We are staying 2 nights here before flying South to Tasmania and the small airport of Burnie. King Island is roughly 50% bigger than Singapore. No public transport here, so you need to rent a car. Impressive that this remote place is home to the best golf course in Australia, I name Cape Wickham. The island also host another top 20 course, the none the less impressive Ocean Dunes. I play one round at Ocean Dunes and 2 at Cape Wickham.

We stay for our first night in a cute motel near the main, but very tiny town of Currie, and our second night at the lodge with a superb view at Cape Wickham.

Wildlife is all over the place here, and sadly, hundreds of animals are dead on the side of the roads or even on the middle of them, I name wallabies, possums, etc. I drove one morning before sunrise. This time of the year, the sun set only at 7.40am, so I had no choice to reach the golf course on time. I drove very slowly, but animals were all over the place.

King Island also host a colony of little penguins in the South. They only come at night to sleep on the rocky beach. I gave a pass on this due to the night drive!



On the golf courses, you are also warned that they have lots of tiger snakes as well as copperhead snakes. Both you'd rather not encounter. I didn't see any, but Tany saw a Copperhead snake less than a meter for me while walking Cape Wickham.



Few words of the golf courses. These are simply stunning! I was warned to take tons of balls. I actually may have lost only 3 of them on the 3 rounds! Not bad, but the wind was actually pretty smooth, and we had a lovely autumn sun all our stay with us except once we reached back to the airport!



You do not need to play golf to enjoy those views. It's simply a special place. Impressive to feel so remote, but only 30 minutes by plane form Melbourne. We will be back for sure.

Hope you enjoy the pictures! Next, the fun rides on Tasmania mainland!

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