From the ashes

Destroyed by bushfire in 2020, Kangaroo Island's Southern Ocean Lodge is having its phoenix moment, writes ANNA MCCOOE.

- ANNA MCCOOE.

Eyes on the horizon (it's visible from every room), you can feel the ascension.

Southern Ocean Lodge 2.0 is early in its relaunch season and the hallowing is taking place in real time. Just over four years ago, the original lodge was a perfectly bucket-listed must-do for those with the means for super-prime travel. But now, off the back of a bar-raising reconstruction, the Kangaroo Island stay is rising to Australian icon status. Adversity has a way of making or breaking that process.

This is a reinvention arc nobody asked for Baillie Lodges founders James and Hayley Baillie certainly could have gotten by without it. James remembers the aftermath of the Black Summer bushfires that took out their flagship property in 2020. "We were immediately met with an outpouring of sympathy. The event really captured the world's attention," he says without reverie.

This was the Australian fire season that, nationwide, claimed at least 34 lives and blazed through 24 million hectares, roughly the land mass of Mexico or Indonesia. The one that brought the nation to its knees, just two months before a pandemic was declared. Still, James says walking away was never an option. "We made the commitment to rebuild just a day or two after the fires, after we'd had a chance to take stock of the loss, and to imagine the task ahead."