South Australia & Kangaroo Island

Meet your Ross Tour Leader at Sydney Domestic Airport for your flight to Adelaide, or join us in Adelaide. Explore Adelaide Botanic Gardens this afternoon. Settle in to our hotel, then meet up with your travel companions for our Welcome Dinner this evening in the hotel restaurant.

We are heading to the northern end of the Barossa Valley this morning to Anlaby Station, the oldest Merino stud in South Australia. Established in 1839, this grand pastoral estate once employed 14 gardeners! Anlaby continues today as a working property breeding stud sheep and producing pure merino wool.

Sheep are at the centre of everything at Anlaby; the current flock is directly descended from those that Frederick Dutton walked overland from NSW. The historically listed garden is a work in progress. Our private tour includes the shade house, glasshouse, walled garden, rose garden and terraced lawns. Soak up life on this fascinating property at lunch.

We are heading through the Barossa Valley  this afternoon to Maggie Beer’s famous Pheasant Farm at Nurioopta. Taste Maggie’s famous gourmet products. Travel back to Adelaide with the evening at leisure for you to explore the many restaurants near our hotel.

No photos could ever fully capture the wonder and whimsy of Irene Pearce’s ‘Tickle Tank’. Every inch is filled with colour and form, mosaics and sculptures; with careful planting to create a series of vignettes.

Next a large country garden that was rescued from a cow paddock! Hundreds of roses, iris, perennials, woodland with spring bulbs and a ‘picking’ garden.

Finish off the day at a family-owned winery with a passion for sustainable, cool-climate winemaking and a show stopper garden that was proudly named South Australian ‘Garden of the Year’ in 2024.

Al-Ru Farm at One Tree Hill is the legacy of Ruth Irving, a clever and passionate gardener. The garden is an exuberance of poppies, iris, perennials and roses. Walk through a wisteria arbour into a restrained formal white garden. We will have lunch in this beautiful setting.

Next up is the garden by Aleisha Lynch, a third-generation Barossa horticulturist. Her 1 acre country garden has beautifully colour-coordinated perennial borders, areas for growing Australian natives, succulents and cut flowers, a greenhouse with an aquaponic vegetable garden and a productive patch with wicking beds and fruit trees. Running purely on harvested rainwater, this garden is a master piece of sustainable planting.

Carrick Hill is first this morning, a grand Tudor style house built in 1930 by Sir Edward Hayward and bequeathed to the people of South Australia. See the private collection of two perceptive art connoisseurs, Ursula and Bill Hayward. Roses play a large part in this historic garden with formal rose beds, and three separate rose gardens, one for Old Garden Roses, one for modern Hybrid Teas and the third is devoted to Alister Clark roses. We’ll enjoy a tour of the house and garden.

Next ‘The Cedars’, the home for more than 50 years of the Heysen family. We will start the afternoon with a high tea. Our host will then take us on a tour to discover the chalet-style studio where Hans Heysen painted many of his famous landscapes. See the studio of Nora Heysen, daughter of Hans Heysen, the only one of the Heysen children to become an artist. The garden has been recreated with the roses, zinnias and many of the flowers that both Heysens loved to paint. See the eucalypts, River Red Gums and white gums that Hans Heysen painted and that surround his home.

Head south this morning to Cape Jervis and take the Sealink ferry across to Kangaroo Island, an unspoiled refuge, internationally famous for its pristine wilderness and wildlife. Kangaroos and Tammar wallabies wander across the island. Echidnas and goannas scuttle in the undergrowth and koalas doze in the trees. Lunch at Emu Bay Lavender.

Check-in to the Aurora Ozone Hotel overlooking Nepean Bay at Kingscote.

We cross the island to the rugged wilderness of the iconic Flinders Chase National Park. Spend the afternoon exploring the stunning coastal park with special note of the bush regeneration.

The spectacular Admirals Arch & wind-sculpted Remarkable Rocks are two of the outstanding landmarks we see today.

Begin the day at Seal Bay with incredible views of the extraordinary coastline and sea lion colony. This is the only place in the world where you can see these Australian sea lions at close quarters. You’ll be given unique insights into how these endangered animals fish, surf, rest, interact with their pups and defend their territory.

Lunch included today at Rockpool Cafe.

We are heading back on the ferry to Cape Jervis, then on to Victor Harbour with time for lunch (own expense).

An afternoon cruise from Goolwa to discover the Spirit of the Coorong, a magnificent wetland at the mouth of the Murray River. The long narrow Coorong Wetland Lagoon complex stretches 100 kms from the Murray Mouth, separated from the Southern Ocean by a series of enormous sand dunes.

Farewell Dinner included tonight.

After breakfast, we will leave Victor Harbour to travel to Adelaide airport for our homeward flight this afternoon.