KING ISLAND

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KING ISLAND

Picture an elegant green platter edged with lacy white, and filled with everything you could want to eat; all of it top quality, all of it fresh today; set on a brilliant blue cloth.

Imagine this and you have King Island, a tiny dot in Bass Strait that on the map, appears to swing Tasmania like a pendant from Australia's south-eastern tip. This island, just sixty-four kilometres long and twenty-four kilometres wide, has perhaps one of the richest and most diverse food selections in the world: many varieties of fish and seafood that includes abalone, scallops, prawns, crayfish, huge king-sized oysters and rock lobsters, breads, pies, biscuits and cakes, a dozen or more types of cheese, and cream so rich you almost need a knife for it, milk, butter and yoghurt. Then there's honey produced by bees drunk from feasting on white clover and some of the world's best beef, free-range pork, game birds, wild wallaby and smallgoods; even some local wine.

The island was named in 1801 after King, an early governor of the infant New South Wales colony, yet interestingly so much of the produce is also king-sized. The kelp is gigantic, the bulls are enormous. Even the crabs, crayfish and oysters, although delicate in flavour, are huge, too big for many Asian markets, we are told, where small is often more desirable.

Take your bathers to the Reef and your sunscreen to Perth, but remember to pack a shopping bag for King Island.

FLINDERS ISLAND

FLINDERS ISLAND

This small island is packed full of surprises. Mainly agricultural, yet with a variety of activities, this is a must-visit dot in Bass Strait.

Flinders Island Quality Meats, John and Anne Chapman, 429 Lackrana Rd, Flinders Island TAS 7255 (Ph: 03 6359 6532 Fax: 03 6359 6532 or 03 6359 2193). Although only begun in October 1998, these abattoirs are busy already slaughtering island-grown beef and lamb, as well as wild grass-fed wallaby, shot according to quota. They do wallaby cuts, as well as wallaby pickled in brine, and wallaby salami, sold locally on the island in the supermarket. They are reopening the butcher's shop in Whitemark soon, along with a smokehouse. Locals can get licenses to collect Cape Barren goose eggs, raise them, then have them slaughtered commercially at the flapper stage - just before they fly at around two kilograms - a gourmet addition to mainland menus. Not open to the public.

Heather and Frank Willis (Ph: 03 6359 4520) are experts on yolla, or muttonbirds. Frank has been clambering cliffs and hunting them for seventy years and has never missed the season which lasts from March 27th to the end of April. Harvested to the National Parks and Wildlife quota, on the outer island, Great Dog Island, the birds (young ones, ten weeks old and onwards) are processed by first extracting the prized mutton bird oil. The Willis's then skin them and pack them in boxes, or pluck, salt and pickle them. They will do orders, and have set up a historical museum at Emita - a replica of their muttonbird shed on the island - in Flinders Island's original schoolhouse. Phone for an appointment.