Rarkang, Deep Creek
Kangaroos are the thing guests mention most
On the ground
Mobs of western grey kangaroos, all over the property
They laze in the shade of the old eucalypts and forage through the paddocks, and they are the single thing guests mention most often in their reviews. Short-beaked echidnas amble the same ground looking for ants and termites. The property sits between Deep Creek National Park and Talisker Conservation Park, and the four private trails are the best way to see any of it.
What you are looking at
- Western grey kangaroo ·
- Short-beaked echidna ·
- Goanna ·
- Blue-tongued lizard ·
- Bandicoot
Year round. Spring is when most of the kangaroos have joeys.
In the air
Over a hundred and ten species on one property
Rarkang carries more than 110 species of bird, which is why Naiko turns up on twitchers' lists. A pair of wedge-tailed eagles nest in Campbell Gully and are regularly overhead. Guests are occasionally treated to a white-bellied sea eagle — there is a pair nesting along the Fleurieu cliffs, and their numbers in South Australia are dangerously low.
What you are looking at
- Wedge-tailed eagle ·
- White-bellied sea eagle ·
- Yellow-tailed black cockatoo ·
- Brown falcon ·
- Superb fairywren ·
- Southern emu-wren ·
- New Holland honeyeater ·
- Thornbills and spinebills ·
- Grey currawong ·
- Sooty oystercatcher ·
- Galah ·
- Rosella ·
- Fantail ·
- Willie wagtail
Spring is loudest. The eagles are there all year.
In the water
Whales from May, dolphins into the cove
From May or June through to September or October the retreat has a front-row seat on the southern right whale migration, as they come up from the sub-Antarctic to shelter in the bays and calve. Pods of dolphins are a regular sight along the coastline, and they come right into the cove below the house. The water is thick with fish — shoals dense enough to be mistaken for drifts of seaweed near the rocks, and the King George whiting the Fleurieu is known for.
What you are looking at
- Southern right whale ·
- Bottlenose dolphin ·
- King George whiting
Whales May–October. Dolphins year round.
And the farm itself
Two thousand acres of it, still working
Rarkang is a working sheep farm and has been through every part of this. It is why pets are prohibited outright — particularly during lambing — and it is why the hills change colour so completely between February and September. The Johnson family bought the property in 1998 with the intention of revegetating it and giving the wildlife somewhere to be.
Lambing is winter.
A pair of wedge-tailed eagles nest in Campbell Gully
They are regularly overhead. Less often, and much more remarkably, a white-bellied sea eagle comes along the cliffs — there is a pair nesting on this coast, and their numbers in South Australia are dangerously low. Naiko does not advertise this, because you cannot promise somebody a sea eagle.
Which is also why there is no dog
Both Naiko properties sit on working sheep farms, and pets are prohibited outright — for the pet's safety as much as the flock's, and particularly through lambing in winter. It is the single firmest rule either property has, and it is the same rule that keeps the kangaroos where the reviews say they are.
It is worth saying plainly rather than burying in the terms: if you were hoping to bring a dog, neither property will work, and it is better to know that now.
