Flinders Baudin Challenge Nautical Trail: The Coastal Regions of South Australia

The South Australian coastline has long been shrouded in mystery. The Dutchman Pieter Nuyts sailed as far as the islands off the coast of Ceduna in 1627 and his early maps created a great deal of interest back home.

For Europeans this coastline literally was the end of the earth - the bottom of the world. It so intrigued writers like Jonathon Swift that he chose one of the islands off the South Australian coast as the location for Lilliput, the island of the Little People in his famous tale, Gulliver's Travels.

Now the mystery and savage beauty of much of our coastline provides the impetus for a nautical trail called the Flinders Baudin Challenge.

”This is a challenge we put together that involves forty one coastal island destinations around the coast of South Australia from the far west coast at Nuyts Archipelago all the way through to Robe in the Southeast.”

The marine trail is the brainchild of yachtsmen Andrew Saies and Evan Hiscock and links islands and other features along the length of the State's three and a half thousand kilometres of coastline. Sailors can drop into points of historical interest like Memory Cove. The replica plaque near the beach is inscribed with the Latin warning ‘Nautici Cavete’ - sailors beware. The original was placed there by Matthew Flinders in February 1802 after a cutter went missing with eight men on board.

“One of the major things that affected Flinders in those waters was the loss of that cutter crew and so we've visited Memory Cove. Of course a lot of the islands around that area are named after the crew of that cutter - Hopkins Island, Taylor Island and so on. And we visited those and we structured this challenge in such a way that when you visit any island you need to actually take a photograph and maybe sketch where you've been. If there's a lighthouse you try and visit that. You try and get to the high point of the island and we're also encouraging people to have a look at various flora and fauna of the island.”

That means you may come across the Australian Sea Lions on Olive Island, northwest of Streaky Bay. Flinders named it after the Investigator's clerk John Olive.

And when looking for a high point on Kangaroo Island there's none higher than Prospect Hill as Keith discovered on a recent Postcards trip. Flinders took his bearings from up here. It was the only part of the South Coast of KI that he would chart. The rest of this rugged and dangerous coastline was mapped by the French navigator Nicholas Baudin along with his Lieutenant Louis Freycinet. It too forms part of the Flinders Baudin Challenge - the ocean going yachties' equivalent to the Heysen Trial. For details contact Andrew Saies on 8362 7788. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards.sa.com.au