Controversial plans for a $4 million eco-lodge development along the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail in Flinders Chase National Park have been scrapped by the Australian Walking Company (AWC).

 

The plan included two accommodation lodges along the trail including 20 buildings, such as two-person sleeping pods, for walkers on high-end tours, which faced much backlash from the public, environmental groups, and The Greens.

 

 

Kangaroo Island Mayor, Michael Pengilly, welcomed the news.

’I think they’re a good company and the walking side of it is fine, but why would any company want to put in a development there?’, Mr Pengilly said.

AWC’s plan was approved in 2019 after being selected by the South Australian Government as a private developer to invest in tourism projects on Kangaroo Island, a process the public was excluded from having a say on.

Since 2019, advocacy groups have held public protests and launched legal proceedings in the Supreme Court against the development. This was settled in 2021 with a compromise to relocate the lodges closer to the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail and away from Sandy Beach and Sanderson Bay, which park volunteers say would degrade the coastal location and native vegetation.

 

 

Environmental advocates are ‘very, very happy’ at the news that the plan has been abandoned.

‘If that could have been built on wild untouched areas of Flinders Chase – so often held up as the jewel in the crown of national parks – then no park is safe in South Australia’, Friends of National Parks KI Western Districts branch spokesperson, Bev Maxwell, told The Advertiser.

A spokeswoman for the South Australia Department of Environment and Water (DEW) said that in 2022, AWC entered into an agreement to construct the accommodation, but no work on the ground had begun in the required time frame.

‘Following this lapse, conversations were held between the developer and DEW which resulted in a formal letter issued in October 2025, confirming the expiration of the agreement’, said the spokeswoman.

AWC still has a licence to lead four-day tours along the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail.

 

Images supplied by AWC

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