Journeys

Sydney, Kangaroo Island and the Hills

Sydney, a clifftop lodge on Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills, for the Australian summer.

  • Nine nights
  • Three stays
  • Australia
  • Island, wildlife, food and wine
Green clifftops above a curved bay of deep blue sea.

Nine nights of the Australian summer, from Sydney Harbour to the clifftops of Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills. Breakfast in the Opera House Green Room at the end of a backstage tour, a walk down to the sea lions of Seal Bay with a guide who studies them, the gates of a private wildlife sanctuary opened at Hanson Bay, and a taste of 100-year-old tawny in a Barossa cellar where a barrel has been laid down every vintage since 1878.

Length
Nine nights
Pace
Three stays
Style
Island, wildlife, food and wine
Route
Sydney to Kangaroo Island to The Adelaide Hills
  1. SydneyThree nights
  2. Kangaroo IslandFour nights
  3. The Adelaide HillsTwo nights
The Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge in silhouette at sunset.

01

Days 1 to 4 · three nights

Sydney

A day with a local guide and a harbour cruise. The Opera House Backstage Tour goes in through the Stage Door to the rehearsal spaces, the orchestra pit and the Green Room, the performers' own, with breakfast there. On request, lunch in a Sydneysider's private home, helping to prepare Australian ingredients and native flavours before sitting down to eat. On request, a helicopter flies you over the harbour and the Hunter Valley to a rewilding sanctuary in the Barrington Tops, to tour it by ATV with its rangers among wildlife that, by season, may include Tasmanian devils, quolls and koalas, then on to a long lunch at a waterside restaurant reached only by air or water, and back to Sydney by seaplane over the Northern Beaches. A free day to fill as you like.

Where you stay

Capella Sydney

Capella Sydney fills the former Department of Education building of 1912 on Loftus Street, with 192 rooms and suites over eight levels. Brasserie 1930 and McRae Bar are on the ground floor, and Auriga Spa has heated indoor pools, a sauna and a steam room.

A low pavilion with lit windows and an outdoor pool on coastal heath at dusk.
Photo: Beckons / George Apostolidis, Social Laundry, Julian Kingma

02

Days 4 to 8 · four nights

Kangaroo Island

A flight to Kingscote and four days with the lodge's guides. A walk through the dunes at Seal Bay to the beach and the endangered Australian sea lions, the gate opened to some 6,000 acres of private wilderness at Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and its night-time wildlife after dark, the lit chambers of Kelly Hill Caves, and the guided hike from Remarkable Rocks back to the lodge. One lunch can be arranged with a leading echidna expert, to learn about the animal over the meal. Quiet hours in between, KI Spirits tasted at the cove and, on a special night, a private dinner in the cellar.

Where you stay

Southern Ocean Lodge

Southern Ocean Lodge runs along the clifftops of Kangaroo Island between Flinders Chase National Park and Seal Bay Conservation Park, with 25 suites and the Baillie Pavilion above the limestone cliffs. The Great Room has floor-to-ceiling windows over the Southern Ocean, and the kitchen cooks local and regional produce.

The lodge's timber and glass suites above the Adelaide Hills at sunset.
Photo: Sequoia Lodge

03

Days 8 to 10 · two nights

The Adelaide Hills

A flight to Adelaide and a private day in the Barossa, with tastings of rare wines and lunch at a winery. At Seppeltsfield, the 1878 Centennial Cellar, where a barrel of the finest wine of each vintage has been laid down every year since, with a taste of the 100-year-old Para Tawny and of your birth year. Back to the hills, then the flight home from Adelaide.

Where you stay

Sequoia Lodge

Sequoia Lodge keeps 14 suites for adults on Mount Lofty, 20 minutes from the centre of Adelaide, built around a sequoia tree some 150 years old. Its 30 acres run into the botanic gardens on one side and national park on the other, with three thermal hot pools and wallabies outside the balconies.

Arranged on request

Breakfast in the Green Room

The Sydney Opera House Backstage Tour enters by the Stage Door for the rehearsal spaces, the orchestra pit and the corridors behind the stage, with breakfast in the Green Room.

Among the sea lions at Seal Bay

A 45-minute walk through the dunes to the beach and the colony of endangered Australian sea lions, with guides who have spent their careers studying them.

The keys to Hanson Bay

With a local guide, Southern Ocean Lodge guests open the gate to Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, some 6,000 acres of privately held wilderness, and can return on a guided evening for its nocturnal wildlife.

The Centennial Cellar

At Seppeltsfield, a barrel of each vintage has been laid down every year since 1878; a visit to the cellar includes a taste of the 100-year-old Para Tawny and of a birth-year vintage.

Lunch with an echidna expert

On Kangaroo Island, lunch can be arranged with a leading expert on the echidna, to learn about the animal over the meal.

Subject to availability.

Ways to make it yours

  1. An Ocean Pavilion at Southern Ocean Lodge, or a suite in Sydney.
  2. Four days of private touring on the Eyre Peninsula, around Port Lincoln, Baird Bay and Coffin Bay, to swim with sea lions and dolphins, see koalas in the wild and cage dive with great white sharks, from October 1 to May 31. Around Port Lincoln, a day can be spent digging for cockles, fishing from a white beach and watching abalone being collected, ending in a seafood feast with local wine.
  3. A morning beach fishing on the Southern Ocean for King George whiting, with the lodge's guides.

This is a sample. The hotels, the pace and the order are where we start, not where we finish: every journey is designed around the people taking it.

Made around you

Most travel is bought. This is designed.

Before anything is booked, we talk: who is travelling, how you like to spend a morning, and the hotel preferences below the obvious, from the kind of bath you like to the time you wake and how much daylight you need in a room. You see options where options matter and clean recommendations where they don't.

The same person remains your point of contact from the first reply to the trip after next. No handovers. No team.

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