Deep Creek
No power line runs to this building
How it runs
Five systems, and none of them plugged into anything
Its own power
Solar and battery storage, with a backup generator behind it. There is no grid connection at Deep Creek and never has been. It is also why there is no EV charger here — every kilowatt in the building was made on site.
Its own water
Rain off the roof into tanks, filtered, and safe to drink straight from the tap. Nothing is trucked in.
One fire, the whole building
An Invictus low-emission wood heater, ducted through to all three bedrooms. There is no other heating in the house, and on most winter nights it does not need any. Wood is supplied.
What leaves
A biocycle septic system, a compost bin and worm farms. The glass down both sides of the building is double glazed and argon filled, which is the reason one fire is enough.
The land, since 1998
The Johnsons bought Rarkang to preserve and revegetate it — for future generations, and to give Australia's wildlife somewhere to live. The retreat came twenty-one years later, and it was built to sit on the land rather than in it.
Accredited from the day it opened
Naiko Retreat took Bronze in Ecotourism at the 2021 South Australian Tourism Awards, in the same year it won its category outright for the first time. It has held eco accreditation since it opened.
Accreditations held
- EcoStar Accredited Business
- Quality Tourism Accredited Business
- Five-star Accredited Self Catering
- Well Traveller Partner
Two hundred and twenty years
The land was here a long time before the house was
The retreat takes its name from the inlet below. What follows is the published European record, which is short; any longer cultural history should only be told with the appropriate authority and permission.
- 1802
Two navigators, one coastline
Matthew Flinders and his French counterpart Nicolas Baudin charted this coast. Baudin named the peninsula for Charles, Count of Fleurieu. Whalers and sealers — mostly American — worked these waters for decades afterwards and several made fortunes in them.
- 1862
Talisker of Scotland
The McLeod brothers, prospecting for gold, found an outcrop of silver-lead ore instead. They named the lode after their home town on the Isle of Skye. The Talisker Mining Company formed the same year and brought in Cornish miners, who built the town of Silverton beside it — around three hundred people, a Cobb & Co stagecoach post, a post office, a hotel, an eating house and a school that doubled as a chapel.
- 1872
And then it stopped
The mine ran ten years. The ruins are still standing in Talisker Conservation Park, near the boundary with Rarkang, and there are exploratory shafts and tunnels on Naiko's own land that you pass on the Talisker Mine Walk.
- 1998
The Johnsons buy Rarkang
Two thousand acres, bought to be preserved and revegetated — for the generations after, and as habitat for Australian wildlife. The more time they spent on it, the more they wanted to show it to other people.
- 2019
Naiko opens
The retreat opens above the inlet from which it takes its name.
- August 2025
Naiko at the Bluff
The Villa opens at Encounter Bay — Stage 1 of a second property, on a working sheep and cropping farm above Victor Harbor.