Bales Cottage

Bales Bay Picnic Area

Bales Cottage

Alfred Bales, one of the last of the Kangaroo Island Pioneers, built this cottage using local materials in the early 1900's.

The cottage was typical of many built by pioneers in outlying areas of Kangaroo Island. It comprised a single room and brush lean-to with an underground tank for water storage.

Bales cleared nearby scrubland for grazing his horses and used a soak behind the foothills at Bales Bay (named after him) for watering his stock. In the dry summers he carted water from Kiora, on the South Coast Road, to his underground tank, as the soak was not suitable for human consumption.

He lived on local wildlife - mostly wallabies and possums - and sold the skins for about a pound for a pound (approx $4 per 1 Kg).

Alfred also did some roadwork for the local council using his own horse and cart. Mostly filling in pot holes and bog holes.

He moved to Kingscote in 1918 and taught Sunday School for one of the local churches. He was taken to Adelaide due to poor health about 1924 and died shortly thereafter.

This information was obtained from Henry Vereyken [sic] who first met Alfred Bales in 1906 and knew him until he moved to Adelaide.