Fit for a king?

“ King Island: one of the best places in Australia that no-one visits”, screams the News.com headline.

A place called King Island surely deserves attention.

And if its capital is Currie – close enough to curry! – it must worthy of exploration.

And as it’s renowned across Australia for top-quality cheese, there’s no stopping me.

King Island is located in the Bass Strait between the Australian states of Victoria and Tasmania.  

It’s as though the island continually moves its head back and forth between these two much bigger places, unsure with which to align. Technically it’s part of Tasmania, but this may change. 

Islanders are cheesed off.

King Island is a place of yesteryear and almost other-worldliness. As Lonely Planet puts it:

“King Island is the kind of place where the only traffic control is a leisurely wave of the hand from a local as you pass by.”

I confirm that everyone really does wave at you when you’re driving! It doesn’t take long not to feel stupid doing it to complete strangers.

King Island has a population of around 2,000 across its 1,100km2 area. 

Yet some of its people are clearly a little bit eccentric, and amusingly so.

Its 2,000 people pales against its 150,000 cattle. In fact, there are more cattle here than I’ve seen anywhere so far in Australia. (I chose a nice cattle-and-field shot here.)

King Island is known for many things:

• Golf – two courses are in the top-50 worldwide
• Surfing – top-10 place globally
• Shipwrecks – over 60 known, killing over 2,000 people
• Lighthouses – including the tallest in the southern hemisphere 

“You’ll find yourself transported back to the days when travel by ship was a risky and dangerous adventure”

“People have romantic notions about lighthouse keepers, but there’s nothing romantic about it. It’s a long way up that light at 2am.”

King Island is also really well known for food – especially cheese, crayfish, crab (up to 8kg), abalone, and grass-fed beef.

King Island is an Australian foodie gem.  

Yet there’s a place on the island called Egg Lagoon which amusingly goes against the (whole) grain. 

And there’s also Grassy, giving a nod to the island’s bovine. You can drive between them via Porky Beach and Currie. I can’t imagine it’d go Pearshape. (Sorry.)

And there are two fantastically named bays: in the north, Disappointment Bay; in the south, Surprise Bay.

It’s like this unintentionally humorous slogan on the Visit King Island website given King Island is a small isle that gets windy – and it was going to be the location for Australia’s largest wind farm. 

(Of course, we know what they really mean.)

But it’s not just food, golf, or surfing – or funny names. 

King Island is also the home of little fairy penguins – yep, penguins – that come out of the water at night and waddle to their borrows.

And it’s also the home of bottled “supremely pure rainwater” – more imaginatively titled ‘cloud juice’ – that’s collected, packaged, and shipped off to high-end places like the Four Seasons and Claridge’s. (I got some for the novelty value. I’m sure it’ll go well with cheese.)

It’s also renowned for a problem of the hopping kind: 500,000+ wallabies. 

Well, you have to get there

Surprisingly, King Island is also exciting for the airlines that serve it:

• King Island Air (naturally)
• Regional Express (Rex)
• Sharp Airlines  

These 3 carriers operate 4 routes from the isle. Melbourne is the main receiver with 4 to 5 daily flights each way depending on the day.

Unusually for Australia - let alone for a thin city-pair – three airports in the Melbourne area have flights to King Island, about 250km away, each with a different operator:

• Tullamarine (the main airport) is served by Rex
• Essendon (the old main airport) by Sharp
• Moorabbin (21km away)by King Island Air

King Island Air and Sharp are interesting niche operators providing key services to and from the island for both passengers and freight.

I was pleased to try them both – and also Moorabbin and Essendon airports – on my recent trip to King Island. 

Moorabbin Airport

Moorabbin is known for flight training and general aviation. Its sole scheduled service is its 12-weekly operation to King Island.

King Island Air has its own terminal at the airport. And despite only around 34 seats there and back each day, it has a surprisingly functional terminal that is more than fit for its limited purpose. 

King Island Air

Airlines named after islands are pretty common in Australia: Air Whitsunday, Air Frasier Island, Fly Tiwi, King Island Air. Airlines whose names conjure exoticism, excitement, and adventure. 

King Island Air’s slogan is: “The Only Airline That Specialises In Servicing King Island.” This is completely accurate.

Alongside its charter operations, its sole scheduled route is its Moorabbin-King Island service.

Freight is very important to King Island Air to the extent it almost felt like passengers were an afterthought despite a functional and bright terminal.

King Island Air promotes its freight capability – including for bulk cargo – widely. It carries pretty much whatever freight it can, and it has cold storage and short-term storage at Moorabbin. 

When I arrived at Moorabbin, a man was busy receiving freight from a van – clearly food – and then multi-tasking by checking me in and loading the aircraft.

Boy, was it fun:

• The check-in taking 20 seconds, writing my name on a piece of paper
• The personalisation – everyone kept saying my name
• Operating Chieftains – highly unusual for a scheduled service
• Talking face-to-face with the pilot a metre away
• Cruising at 150 knots and 2,000 feet (!!!) for 45 minutes
• De-boarding by sliding down over the wing

I was one of just two passengers on my flight with King Island Air. The rest of the aircraft was taken up by dozens of boxes (one an awkward shape) and big tubes. The tubes were destined, I was told by my fellow passenger, to King Island Diary, the island’s no.1 employer. This passenger travels weekly to the island.

I enjoyed watching them rearrange the cabin configuration to enable the freight – and us passengers! – to be carried. A really flexible operation.

King Island Air promotes its experience with the island and its ability to ensure everything runs “without fuss”, which I can completely understand.

King Island Airport

On arrival, I was greeted by two Sharp Metroliners on the apron, one with engines on and ready to taxi once we were on stand. And an almost-new and pleasantly bright and light terminal building.

The ‘almost new’ bit is correct. It opened less than 2 years ago at a cost of about $1.8m. I especially liked reading this bit of the press release:

“Locally, at least three jobs will be created as a direct result of the project.”

It puts things into perspective.

The baggage collection area – even for hand baggage if flying on the Chieftain – was an amusing garage-like area.

I collected my hire car and the friendly lady commented: ‘Do be careful on the road. We have a lot of wildlife.’ I saw quite a lot, including 2 snakes.

The terminal’s café offered something unusual for sale alongside cappuccino, cakes, and cold drinks: live lobsters.  

Sharp Airlines

Sharp Airlines began operating 27 years’ ago and it mainly uses Metroliners.  

It markets itself as “Southern Australia’s Regional Airline” and it operates a small network in Victoria and Tasmania and between the two states.

You can even fly twice-daily from Launceston to Burnie/Wynyard, with a 30-minute block time, for about $60 one-way – even for the next day. This service then continues to King Island.

My flight to Essendon was aboard the following 19-seat Metro. There were just 5 fare-paying passengers on-board.

As we climbed over the sea, on a beautifully sunny and calm evening, we hit a bird and so returned to King Island for an engine inspection. 

We disembarked and re-entered the then-empty terminal, which had shut for the day.  

As we taxiied back to our stand, I saw a Vortex Air Caravan unloading planks of wood (!), a reminder of how crucial freight is to isolated island communities. Vortex Air is a charter operator for freight and passengers.

The captain dutifully kept us updated. His ‘We’ll be ready to board in another 10 minutes’ was pretty much spot-on, too.

With power applied with brakes on and then released – always fun! – we were soon heading back to Melbourne. As the sun set, we cruised at 13,000ft.  

We touched down into Essendon about 1h 30m late. Clearly the bird strike could have been much worse!

Essendon Airport

Formerly Melbourne’s main airport, Essendon now primarily focuses on bizjets and is the closest facility to Melbourne’s CBD.  We flew over the docklands and near the city centre.

Essendon also has an increasing number of thin scheduled services to the likes of Dubbo, Flinders Island, Merimbula, Orange, Portland, and Wollongong. These are operated by a cool selection of tiny airlines that unfortunately are almost never mentioned: Fly Corporate, Free Spirit, Jetgo, and Sharp.  

King Island has rich history, much beauty, white sandy beaches, fantastic coastal scenery, and excellent golf, surfing, food, and penguins. It’s surprising that very few people visit the place.

This is at once a travesty and a blessing. 

Contact me! [email protected]