In typical Australian style, Kangaroo Island is enormous. At 4416 sq km and 155km from end to end, it’s the third-biggest island in the country. Overrun with native wildlife (plenty of kangaroos) and laced with superb beaches and rock formations, it’s a low-key haven for hikers, surfers, campers, foodies and nature-lovers.
Kangaroos, Stokes Bay, Kangaroo Island. Photo by: Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock
Adelaide – South Australia’s capital and home to 1.26 million prospective visitors – is just a couple of hours away. But the problem for tourism on ‘KI’ has always been access. Traditionally, travellers have either had to roll onto a slow, expensive car ferry and chug 13km across Backstairs Passage, or brave the dodgy runway and dinky little airport near Kingscote, the island’s main town.
But now, thanks to an AU$21-million upgrade, Kangaroo Island Airport is no longer a tin shed in a paddock. Jointly funded by federal, state and local governments, the slick new facility is entirely befitting of the island’s natural beauty and tourist appeal.
Designed by Adelaide company Ashley Halliday Architects, the airport features a longer runway (bigger planes, from bigger places), new check-in, arrival and departure areas, vamped-up security screening, a retail section (‘Hey, Kangaroo Island honey!’), car-hire offices…even an electric-vehicle charging point.
Seals on the white sands of a Kangaroo Island beach. Photo by: Rodrigo Lourezini/Shutterstock
Improved car-hire offerings, in particular, are a major boon for KI: Adelaide rental companies have long been reluctant to allow their vehicles onto KI’s many unsealed roads.
Cutting the ribbon at the airport’s official opening ceremony on 4 July, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said the upgrade would ‘attract 25,000 new tourists and boost the Kangaroo Island economy by $29.8 million annually.’ Sweet news for islanders, but not a forecast that bolstered Mr Turnbull’s flagging political prospects: just a month later he was ousted as prime minister by his treasurer Scott Morrison. Opening KI’s new airport proved to be one of Turnbull’s final acts in the top job.
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