Kangaroo Island, AU

A modern Australian degustation room on a steep hillside above American Beach, opened by ex-Southern Ocean Lodge head chef Jack Ingram. Open-fire kitchen, full Kangaroo Island wine list, the view does half the work.

A daytime cafe on Kingscote's main street from Yen Leow and ex-Southern Ocean Lodge chef Louis Lark, doing Mexican-leaning lunches alongside the standard coffee-and-cake routine. Locals' weekday meeting room.

A roadside general store, bottle shop and counter-service kitchen on South Coast Road — and the only food for 30km in any direction. Famous for the KI Whiting Burger, freshly caught King George whiting in a soft bun.

A rustic seasonal cafe in a tin-roof shed at the Stokes Bay carpark, run by the same family for decades and the only place to eat within a half-hour of the rockpool beach. Mediterranean-leaning lunches and good coffee.

A farm-gate cafe at Andermel Marron on Harriet Road, in the middle of the island, serving freshwater marron pulled live from the tanks out back. Now run by chefs applying a light Chinese-Australian hand to the local crayfish.

The 1886 pub on Penneshaw's main road with a veranda looking over Backstairs Passage to the mainland — the ferry-arrival first dinner and a proper old-school South Australian counter meal.

A clifftop cellar door 15 minutes from the Penneshaw ferry, looking over Cuttlefish Bay to the Fleurieu Peninsula on clear days. Wood-fired pizzas, tasting platters, and 100% Kangaroo Island wines on a lawn that runs to the edge.

A vineyard cellar door on the Willson River in Dudley East, with the largest planted vineyard on the island and a relaxed grassed area with a kids' nature playground and farm animals. Small-batch wines, cheese platters, light lunch.

Bordeaux winemaker Jacques Lurton's island project, with an intimate cellar door at Cygnet River pouring French-style Cabernet Franc, Semillon, and the flagship 'The Investigator'. Named Australia's best cellar door tasting by Gourmet Traveller in 2021.

A small family cellar door five minutes north of Kingscote, hand-pruned and hand-picked vineyards above the namesake bay. Known for rose and sparkling rather than the usual KI Shiraz.

A garden cafe and provisions store on Penneshaw's main street, doing all-day breakfast and lunch built around Kangaroo Island producers — local honey, figs, olives, chutneys on the shelves and the plate.

A cafe on a working lavender farm on the hill above Emu Bay, with lavender scones, lavender ice cream, lavender lemonade and a sensory walk through the flowering rows. Lavender flowers December-January.

An all-day Kingscote deli on Dauncey Street since 1946, serving breakfast, sandwiches and pies to locals who've been coming for decades. Indoor and footpath seating, Kangaroo Island Springs Road wines by the glass.

The cafe attached to Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery — toasties, cider tastings, cooked breakfasts in a tin shed with kangaroos, wallabies and emus roaming the paddocks outside. The breakfast pick on the south side.

A working Ligurian-bee honey farm 25 minutes south of Kingscote whose honey ice cream — cream, eggs, honey, no sugar — is the cult treat of the island. Free tastings of the honey range and a tiny shop in a shed.

South Australia's first sheep dairy (1992) at Cygnet River, with a working milking room you can watch from a viewing window and a cheese-and-yoghurt tasting at the counter. Halloumi and feta are the take-home picks.

A 66km, five-day end-to-end coastal trail through Flinders Chase from Flinders Chase visitor centre to Kelly Hill Caves, with five designated overnight campsites along the way. The signature Australian island walk; bookings required.

A short, dramatic clifftop loop linking the 1909 Cape du Couedic lighthouse to Admirals Arch and the fur seal colony at the south-west tip of Flinders Chase. The most-walked half-hour on the island.

A 4km return walk in Flinders Chase from the Snake Lagoon campground through Rocky River paperbarks and grasstrees to a wild surf beach with caves at the rivermouth. The walk most regulars rate above the marquee landmarks.

A 4.5km loop from the Rocky River visitor centre at Flinders Chase, following the river through sheoaks and tea-tree to a series of pools. Platypus were lost in the 2020 fires; the walk is now mostly about the regenerating bush.

A 500-step staircase up the highest hill on Kangaroo Island (named Mount Thisby by Matthew Flinders in 1802), with a 360-degree view from Pelican Lagoon to the Southern Ocean. Twenty minutes up, ten minutes down.

A 2km guided or self-guided trail through manna gum woodland on a 5,000-acre privately-managed sanctuary between Flinders Chase and Kelly Hill — recognised as the island's most-reliable wild koala viewing.

A 1.5km interpretive loop through the narrow-leaved mallee and broombush of Beyeria Conservation Park, with 20 signs explaining 'the many faces of mallee scrub'. The quick botany primer for anyone heading deeper into Flinders Chase.

A 6km loop from the Kingscote foreshore north along the coast to the 1836 first-settlement site at Reeves Point, with the original colonial mulberry tree, settlers' cemetery, and bay views all the way back.

The signed 100m boulder-tunnel passage at the eastern end of the Stokes Bay carpark beach — a low rock corridor that opens onto the hidden main beach and its natural rockpool. Australia's strangest 5-minute walk.

Australia's first dedicated gin distillery (since 2006) and still the island's most-decorated cellar door, at Cygnet River. Sarah and Jon Lark's wild-gin, native botanicals and a Gin Garden with food-van pairings.

A small craft brewery in a black tin shed on the road north out of Kingscote, brewing on-site and pouring tasting paddles in a yard that runs to a view of Nepean Bay. Locals' weekend spot, with pizza on Fridays-Sundays.

South Australia's only remaining commercial eucalyptus oil distillery, in a 1990s shed on the Wilson Road south of Kingscote. Working distillery tours, free roaming wildlife on the property, plus the cafe and gift shop.

An evening boardwalk-and-guide tour above Penneshaw's little penguin rookery — the only species of penguin breeding in Australia. Run by the local community since the closure of the original interpretive centre.

A bird-of-prey rescue and education park near Seal Bay, running a daily 'Birds of Prey' show — wedge-tailed eagles, barn owls, kookaburras flying over the seated audience and occasionally onto your glove.

A privately-run native wildlife park near Parndana with koalas, kangaroos, dingos, wombats and reptiles — many rescued or born here after the 2020 fires. The interactive option for people who don't see enough animals in the wild.

A working honey factory and shop on Kingscote's edge, the larger of the island's two famous honey producers and the source of much of Australia's commercial Ligurian honey. Free tasting bar, daily honey-extraction window.

A small National Trust folk museum in an 1850s settler cottage above Kingscote, run by volunteers with a tight collection on the early island colony, the Cape Borda lighthouse archive, and a working flagpole.

A daily late-afternoon pelican feeding session at the Kingscote wharf, run by the town's resident pelican-keeper for decades. A flock of 20+ Australian pelicans arrives within minutes of the bucket appearing.

A producers' collective shopfront on Penneshaw's main street stocking honey, oils, smallgoods, wines and preserves from a couple of dozen small KI growers under one roof. The single best souvenir-shopping stop.

A cluster of weather-sculpted granite boulders balanced on a coastal dome at the south-western tip of Flinders Chase National Park, orange-lichened and shaped over 500 million years. The single most-photographed landmark on the island.

A wave-cut limestone arch at Cape du Couedic, fringed with stalactites and looking out over a permanent colony of long-nosed fur seals on the rocks below. The boardwalk down to the platform is part of the same Flinders Chase loop as Remarkable Rocks.

The only place in the world where you can walk on the sand among a wild colony of endangered Australian sea lions, with about 800 animals using the beach as a haul-out. Run by SA Parks with strict guided-only beach access.

South Australia's oldest lighthouse (1852), a 27m sandstone tower on the easternmost cape of Kangaroo Island, guarding Backstairs Passage to the mainland. The keepers' cottages are now heritage accommodation; the tower runs daily climbing tours.

A 1909 limestone lighthouse on the wild south-west tip of Flinders Chase, built after a string of shipwrecks on the cape. Keepers were resupplied by sea via a precarious flying fox until the 1960s; the three cottages now operate as park accommodation.

A north-coast beach hidden behind a wall of boulders — squeeze through the 100m rock-tunnel walk and a long crescent of white sand and a sheltered natural rockpool open up. Voted Australia's Best Beach in 2023.

A 5km arc of white sand on the south coast with a small fishing jetty at the eastern end — quieter than the marquee beaches and rated by a Sydney Uni geomorphologist in 2003 as the best beach in Australia. Surf, swim, fish from the jetty.

An 8km north-coast sweep where you can legally drive the family car onto the sand, plus a small jetty, calm shallows, and a fossilised Cambrian seabed site on the western headland. The closest swimmable beach to Kingscote (15 minutes).

A 660m crescent of sheltered shallows on the north coast, tucked between two big headlands and accessed via the dramatic Constellation Drive — the road descent itself is the photograph. Often glass-flat when Stokes Bay is rough.

A wild south-coast surf beach about 15 minutes from Kingscote and American River, with dunes, white sand and a consistent break that's the island's main surf spot. Locals' summer-afternoon swim when the wind is off the north.

A dry limestone cave system in the karst country between Flinders Chase and Vivonne Bay, with a 90-minute show-cave tour reopened in 2023 with a new lighting and audio walk-through. Steady 16C inside year-round.

A small foreshore monument at Penneshaw marking where a crewman from Nicolas Baudin's 1803 French expedition carved the visit into the rock — the original is now in the visitor centre, a replica stands in place. The plaque takes 5 minutes, the cove view 30.

The 1836 first-settlement site at the northern end of Kingscote, where South Australia's earliest colonial mulberry tree (planted that year, still fruiting) and the early settlers' cemetery sit on a quiet headland above the bay.