5 luxurious days of Kangaroo Island and Adelaide

After collecting your hire car from Adelaide, make a morning getaway 40 kilometres (25 miles) south to McLaren Vale, a seaside wine region famed for its shiraz. Before reaching the town, follow signs to d’Arenberg winery. It’s home to The Cube, an avant-garde, five-storey structure fashioned after an unfinished Rubik’s, complete with a ‘Museum of Alternate Realities’, a virtual fermenter and a tasting room. Continuing onward, take a 15-minute drive to the ferry terminal at Cape Jervis, in time to make the 3pm car ferry. After the 45-minute crossing to Kangaroo Island, do the one-hour drive to Kingscote. Arriving in the late afternoon, you’ll check into the Aurora Ozone Hotel on the seafront. The island capital is home to 2,000 people and was the first European settlement in South Australia. Take a twilight drive around nearby Reeves Point where you’ll discover relics dating to 1836. Enjoy dinner back at your hotel; the seafood menu includes the local delicacy, marron, a locally farmed freshwater crayfish.

Check out after breakfast and be at the Emu Bay Boat Ramp at 9am for a three-hour marine adventure. Join fifth-generation islander Andrew Neighbour on his high-powered jet boat to swim with dolphins and visit a colony of long-nosed fur seals. Feel free to try a bit of fishing before driving five kilometres (three miles) west towards Cygnet River, stopping for lunch at the quirky Frogs & Roses café, a rustic timber shed set inside a plant nursery that serves pizzas topped with ingredients from the owner’s veggie patch.

Thirty minutes more and you’re at Vivonne Bay, a small coastal community of sandy roads and beach shacks, one that feels like time stood still after 1950. Call into the Vivonne Bay General Store to pick up some barbecue packs of meats and salad, and a bottle of local Bay of Shoals wine or Drunken Drone wheat ale. Check yourself into one of the many self-catering beach shacks available for rent online: charming, comfortable properties like Beonne The Bay and Vivonne on Sunset feature modern amenities, as well as plenty of toys for a beach holiday. You can spend the afternoon on Vivonne Bay – a five-kilometre (three-mile) long curve of white sand that was once voted Australia’s best beach. Alternatively, you can do a sunset quad bike tour with KI Outdoor Action, a great blend of off-road action and spotting the likes of koalas and native KI kangaroos. When the sun is down and the stars are out, those barbecue packs you picked up at the general store will be well appreciated.

Take breakfast at the nearby Rustic Blue café, where wild kangaroos graze in the paddocks. Then do the 10-minute drive to Little Sahara where soaring sand dunes reach 70 metres (230 feet) above sea level. If you’ve got youngsters (or need to unleash your inner child), don’t miss a chance to rent a sand board and surf down the dune. Next, it’s a 15-minute drive to one of KI’s most famous attractions, Seal Bay. You’ll be admitted by park rangers onto a boardwalk that winds down into a steep rocky cove overlooking a stunning cusp of white sand on turquoise waters. It’s home to a colony of endangered Australian sea lions, and best seen on a ‘ranger walk’ among the pups, suckling mothers and fighting bulls. After, check in to Lifetime Private Retreats, a collection of five-star villas and holiday houses. Choose from accommodation with views of sandy beaches, outstretched coastline and rolling hillside. 

Today, indulge in Kangaroo Island’s beautiful, fresh produce. Let Exceptional Kangaroo Island take you on a gourmet journey around the island. You’ll get a taste of everything from olives and oysters to wine and gin.  

As the sun sinks low, sit down and enjoy the hospitality – and gin – on offer at Kangaroo Island Spirits. This boutique distillery crafts award-winning gins that reflect the sights, tastes and smells of Kangaroo Island’s stunning landscapes. After experiencing some of the island’s best artisan goods, your tour will drop you back at your accommodation. 

Enjoy a quiet morning, then set off on the drive back to Penneshaw. Sit down for lunch at the Penneshaw Hotel before setting off for the afternoon ferry and drive back to Adelaide.

Spend another day or two taking in Adelaide's wine regions and restaurants, before heading home.