Honest to goodness

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This was published 13 years ago

Honest to goodness

The Boathouse on King Island is a local favourite.

The Boathouse on King Island is a local favourite.Credit: Lee Atkinson

In a place plump with gourmet promise, Lee Atkinson puts her trust in a restaurant with no food.

KING ISLAND'S best restaurant has no food. No chef or waiters, either, or anyone to wash the dishes. But don't let these trifling matters put you off the Boathouse - it's the best spot on the island for a long lunch or candle-lit dinner for two.

It's strictly BYO at the Boathouse, tucked under the shadow of the lighthouse on the southern side of Currie Harbour - BYO drinks and BYO food. Not that sourcing your own food on King Island is a problem. This windswept and sometimes storm-lashed island in the western waters of Bass Strait halfway between Tasmania and Victoria is famous for its gourmet produce. Its melt-in-your-mouth beef and sinfully rich cream and cheeses are a perennial favourite on restaurant menus across the country, as are its crayfish, scallops and oysters when they are in season. With ingredients this good, you don't need to be a Michelin-starred chef to whip up a good meal. All you need to do is crack a few shells, heat up the barbecue, unwrap the cheese and pop a cork.

The Boathouse is the perfect place to do it. There's a barbecue, outdoor tables and chairs and several tables inside the colourful art-filled room with floor-to-ceiling harbour views. Anyone is free to use the space and cooking facilities, as long as you clean up after yourself - and drop a few dollars in the donation box.

The original boathouse was built in 1871 to store the lighthouse keeper's boat. Over the years it's had various reincarnations as a schoolhouse and a place to store munitions during World War II. It was derelict for a quarter of a century before local artist Caroline Kininmonth gave it a makeover, filled it with her vibrant art and transformed it into a community eating and meeting place in the early 1990s. At the time, it was the only waterfront restaurant on the island and it soon became a hit with locals and visitors alike, operating on a user-pays honesty system for 18 years until disaster struck in February 2009, when it was burnt to the ground.

"It wasn't until it was gone that we realised how much we used it," Kininmonth says over a cup of tea in one of her wacky handmade cups that fill the cupboards in the Boathouse. "The locals really missed it. So we rebuilt it. We did it with no money and lots of people helped. You would have done the same," she says.

The new boathouse opened last August and is just as popular as the old one. It still operates on a BYO, clean-up-after-yourself-and-put-your-money-in-the box basis.

"People really appreciate the honesty system," Kininmonth says. "They pay what they can. People respond to the concept of trust."

King Island is a trusting kind of place. Like the Boathouse, Caroline's art gallery in the main street also operates with an honesty box - if you like the art on the walls, help yourself and leave the $200 asking price in the box. When I hire a car on arrival at the airport, I'm told to leave the keys in the ignition when I drop it off; someone will be around in a day or two to pick up the car. After all, on a 64-kilometre-long and 27-kilometre-wide island with no ferries for vehicles, where are you going to go if you do steal it?

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You definitely need a car, though. There's no public transport on the island and there's much more to the place than just its gourmet produce.

As I drive up to the northern tip to Cape Wickham to see the tallest lighthouse in the southern hemisphere, I pass beach after beach named for the ships that were wrecked there. Hundreds of ships - and more than 1000 lives - have been lost in the waters around King Island and there's no escaping the legacy of the wrecks on the island.

The museum in Currie has hundreds of relics brought up from the bottom of the sea on display. On Yellow Rock beach, the rusting remains of the Shannon, a paddle steamer that was driven ashore by wild weather in 1906, are exposed at low tide just metres from the shore.

If you're willing to believe the legend, the shipwrecks are also to thank for the rich pastures that produce the island's famous beef and cheese - the result of grass seeds in straw mattresses washed ashore.

Whatever the reason, the lush grasses certainly produce milk sweet enough that you don't need sugar in your tea, milkshakes good enough to convince you to embrace teetotalism and yoghurts and creams so thick, rich and decadent they'll transport you to heaven. With their high fat content, that's probably exactly what they will do if you eat too much. Nice way to go, though.

The writer was a guest of Tourism Tasmania and King Island Tourism.

Trip notes

Getting there

Regional Express connects Melbourne with King Island daily. 13 17 13, rex.com.au.

Getting around

King Island Car Rental, 1800 777 282, kingisland.org.au.

Staying there

Shannon Coastal Cottages have great views over Currie Harbour — but the lighthouse shines directly in the bedroom window, so make sure you pull the curtains shut at night. Doubles $150-$160. (03) 6461 1074, shannoncoastalcottages.com.au.

See + do

The Boathouse is at the end of Lighthouse Road, Currie. Open daily; if locked, phone Caroline Kininmonth,0429 621 180.

King Island Dairy Fromagerie, North Road, Loorana. Open Sunday-Friday, noon-4.30pm (closed Saturdays). (03) 6462 0947, kidairy.com.au.

You can order crayfish a day ahead from the FoodWorks supermarket in Currie (mid November to mid January); hampers of local produce are also available. (03) 6462 1144.

More information

kingisland.org.au.

Three things to do

Seal Rocks and the Calcified Forest On the southern tip of the island, you'll find a long line of towering cliffs at Seal Rocks (keep an eye out for nesting penguins underneath the boardwalk). Nearby is the Calcified Forest, the stumpy remains of a 7000-year-old forest that have been preserved by the lime-laden sand.

Penny's Lagoon and Martha Lavinia beach One of the most beautiful spots on the island, Penny's Lagoon is an unusual perched freshwater lake (a perched lake is one that is above the groundwater table). It's a good place for a swim, a walk and a picnic or barbecue. Nearby is Martha Lavinia beach, a popular surfing and shell-hunting spot.

Currie Lighthouse The Currie Harbour lighthouse is one of the few lighthouses in Australia that was turned off (in 1989) only to be recommissioned in 1995. It was shipped over from England in 312 pieces and was first lit in 1880. You can climb the 20-metre spiral staircase (pictured) on a guided tour, Wednesday and Saturday, 3.30pm, adults $15. 0439 705 610.

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