The massive sign that greets disembarking passengers at Adelaide Airport asks: 'What is Australia's deadliest marine creature?' It's illustrated with a terrifying array of teeth-gnashing sharks, sinister- looking stingrays and iridescent, tentacle-trailing, anaphylactic shock-inducing jellyfish. I would soon be swimming in this lethal soup. My editor was clearly trying to kill me.
In at the deep end: Kathy went for a swim with the Great White shark
Then I got to thinking: what's so scary about a state that has world-famous vineyards; a 2,300-mile coastline of golden, empty beaches; a laid-back lifestyle under a big, blue, easy-going sky; unique outback and marine adventures; spectacular sporting events from the Ashes to the Tour Down Under cycling; innovative cuisine and cultural treats such as the annual Arts Festival? All this and more makes South Australia a stimulating destination. Its capital, Adelaide, is the only city in Australia that was pioneered by free settlers.
As a descendent of both the First and Second Fleets that took law-breakers Down Under (my family's the crème de la crim of Australia), I half expected to be clamped in irons at customs. Instead, I was loaded on to a little plane for a half-hour hop to Port Lincoln. The southern hemisphere's biggest fishing port, with an industry worth millions, is situated on the Eyre Peninsula, a place of towering limestone cliffs and ancient granite outcrops. Its pristine waters are home to Australia's 'big five' of the aquatic variety: sharks, whales, tuna, sea lions and dolphins.
Here's looking at you! Kathy dons her snorkel for a closer look underneath the water's surfaceTourists can frolic in the sapphire seas with huge Mick Jagger impersonators (technically known as cleaner wrasse), stingrays with their theatrical capes and stage- villain grins, giant cuttlefish, dolphins, playful sea lions and awesome southern right whales. Having left snowy London the day before, my girlfriend Lisa and I emerged into the dazzling beachside sunshine, blinking like new-born field mice. We were met by Emma Forster, who organises local marine adventures. She's in demand as South Australia is one of only two places in the world where it's possible to dive with Great White sharks. I was feeling quite relaxed about the dive.
I work in publishing, after all, so I'm at home in shark-infested waters. Then Emma nonchalantly let slip that over the years, five of her friends and family have been 'taken'. This could explain why a few minutes later I was clinging to the dock like Robinson Crusoe to his driftwood. The plan was to cruise to the aptly named Shark Bay at N eptune Island, 40 miles south of Port Lincoln and home to a large seal colony. Then we would 'chum up' the water (meaning pouring in bucketfuls of fishy bits), don some scuba gear and descend in a steel cage to come face to face with the 16ft to 18ft predators.
Flying the flag: Kathy is incredibly proud of her home countryI asked what bait was used to lure the sharks. 'Small children,' the skipper grinned. And his top survival tip if you encounter a Great White in the wild? 'Push your friend in front of it.' The laconic local humour is even drier than their wine. As we set off across the deep azure blue of Boston Bay, the skipper became more serious. He told us that more than 100 million sharks are needlessly slaughtered every year. 'For soup,' he explains. 'And the fin doesn't even taste of anything. It has to be flavoured with chicken broth.
Just to satisfy China's rising middle classes at their wedding feasts. It's sharks that should be afraid of us,' he says. I was trying to feel all environmental and Jacques Cousteauesque, but was beginning to fear this could quite possibly be the most nerve-racking event of my life... well, which didn't involve gynaecologists. I found myself plotting ways of sending my editor on a little assignment of his own – say, cordless bungee-jumping. I was just explaining to the skipper how a shark could put a nasty hole in a girl's social life – not to mention her upper torso – when he told us that the sharks were 'not actually nibbling today'. He reckoned it was because he'd forgotten to play any AC/DC music of late.
'A shark's sensitive hearing is compatible with the band's low-frequency music, and through trial and error we know that they particularly like the song Shook Me All Night Long,' he said, straight-faced. I suspect the sharks got wind of the fact that they were about to be in the water with a woman who'd forgotten to pack her HRT patch. Instead we were off to swim with the giant blue fin tuna. Port Lincoln is the only place in the world to offer this experience.
My initial worry was that I'd be accidentally netted by a Japanese trawler and end up diced, spliced, rolled up in rice and placed on a Yo Sushi conveyor belt with a ginger garnishment. (Cue canned laughter – canned tuna laughter.) But the boat then docked at a 'Tuna Pontoon'. This giant fish farm is home to 60 southern blue fin tuna, plus a whole bouillabaisse of local fish including silver trevally, salmon and snapper. The tuna, worth up to £2,000 each, are caught at sea, then penned to be fattened up on pilchard, anchovies, scallop and squid. Basically, these fish eat better than we do.
Hats off to Oz: Kathy, on the left, and Lisa enjoy a boat trip in AdelaideLisa and I pulled on our wetsuits and goggles and plopped into the vast aquarium. Tuna fish are not only huge (average size 6ft), they are also the Ferraris of the sea, able to accelerate from zero to 70mph in a heartbeat. Doggy-paddling madly, I dangled a herring by the tail and – whoosh – a finned Ferrari zoomed by, gobbling the fish from my outstretched fingers.
Suddenly there were tuna hurtling towards us at breakneck speed from every direction, weaving, ducking, darting and diving. The crew had promised me that tuna are harmless, but no creature gets that big from eating periwinkles, right? Lisa and I were tumbled about as though in a washing machine, but once my goggles had defogged, I could see that the fish were careering about with pinpoint precision.
More... Read more stories on visiting Australia here Sian Lloyd goes gourmet riding Australia's Ghan railway Ready to roar! British rugby coach Warren Gatland on being the Lion King Down UnderMoments earlier, I thought I'd be exiting the water faster than you could say 'mouth-to-mouth resuscitation', but the experience was exhilarating. The rest of the day I spent in the aquatic petting zoo, handling lobsters, blue swimmer crabs, sea horses and even kissing a small leopard skin shark – sadly it didn't turn into a prince. On that theme, ladies take note. Port Lincoln has more millionaires per capita than any other Australian city. The bars are chock-ablock with wealthy fishermen who are footloose and fiancee-free.
Big country: Gum trees in a billabong at Flinders Range National ParkI was tempted to trawl through town with a net to bring home a nice, juicy catch for my single gal pals. But it was time to don my intellectual scuba gear and dive into a different kind of deep end – the Adelaide Festival. There's a presumption in Britain that an Australian's opening conversational gambit is to crush a beer can on his or her forehead. In reality, Australians attend more cultural events and read more books per head of population than anywhere else in the world – and the Adelaide Arts Festival is world famous.
Stirring: Flamenco at the Adelaide FestivalBy day I lay on the eucalyptus-shaded grass of the Writers Festival listening to words of authorial wisdom from more than 80 scribes. By night I plucked my highbrows, devouring everything from Beowulf to Aboriginal song lines, and ricocheted from the gravity-defying, airborne origami of one of the greatest ballerinas of our time, Sylvie Guillem, to the loin-stirring flamenco of Carlos Saura. Soo n I had only two days left and didn't know how I was going to fit in everything on offer.
More... Read more stories on visiting Australia here Sian Lloyd goes gourmet riding Australia's Ghan railway Ready to roar! British rugby coach Warren Gatland on being the Lion King Down UnderShould I go to Tunarama's seafood and wine festival and take part in a tuna-tossing competition or head off on wilderness safari? Hot-air ballooning over the Flinders Ranges, Cooper's Creek and Lake Eyre, with its flocks of pelicans, cormorants and wedgetailed eagles, sounded irresistible, as did whale-watching in the Great Australian Bight Marine Park. I wanted to grab a meal at Adelaide's 'worst vegetarian restaurant...steaks half price', see the Maslin Beach Nude Olympics and have a putt on the world's longest golf course, an 18-hole par-72 course stretching 850 miles from Kalgoorlie to Ceduna, with a hole in each participating town.
I'd arrived in Adelaide terrified something was going to bite me, but in the end I was the one who bit off more than I could chew. P.S. The most lethal marine creature is the box jelly fish – if you don't count Australia's opposition leader Tony Abbott, who likes to bodysurf in his budgie smugglers.
Travel factsAustravel (0800 988 4834, austravel.com) offers a two-week South Australia itinerary from £2,375 per person. Based on departures on September 19, 2013, it includes return flights from Gatwick with Emirates, 11 days' car hire and eight nights' accommodation. For further information, visit southaustralia.com.
A one-day shark diving experience costs from £256 per adult and £128 per child under 16. For more details, go to sharkcagediving.com.au. A three-hour excursion to swim with and hand-feed blue-fin tuna costs from £58 per adult and £39 per child under 16. Visit swimwiththetuna.com.au.
