Li Du had originally estimated that Seagull Island was 50 to 60 square kilometers. In fact, his estimate was a bit conservative. It was a medium-sized island with a total area of 88 square kilometers.
However, this price was already very high for the area.
On the island sale website in Australia, there was a large island of 250 square kilometers priced at 150 million Australian dollars.
Li Du had questioned why it was more expensive to buy an island that was more marginal and smaller in size.
The governor's answer to him was: First, this island of 250 square kilometers was called Basel Island. It was barren, so no one was willing to buy it for ten years.
Second, the price was ten years ago. If someone came to buy it now, they would renegotiate the price, which would be at least 300 million Australian dollars.
However, Basel Island was probably not going to sell. No one came to inquire about it even when they put the price at 150 million, let alone 300 million.
In addition, Seagull Island was still valuable in terms of its location.
It was located at the southeast end of Australia, and although it was still far from the South Pole, there were no other large islands along its route to the South Pole.
Therefore, Seagull Island could be developed as a supply station to Antarctica.
Now the world's major powers were ambitious in developing Antarctica, sending research ships to Antarctica every year.
Due to the climate and geography of Antarctica, ships had to go through several specific routes to enter Antarctica.
Among these routes, there were two routes from the west to Antarctica. One was from Cape Town, South Africa, to Bouvet Island, and the other was from Port Elizabeth to Antarctica via the Prince Edward Archipelago.
To go to Antarctica from the east, if one did not take the New Zealand route but the Australian route, it was usually from Hobart to Macquarie Island and then into Antarctica.
Seagull Island was located northeast of Hobart, and ships had to pass through it to reach Hobart. Therefore, if Li Du developed the island, this route could be changed. Research ships would not have to detour to Hobart, which would save more time.
However, this was a long time coming. Li Du now had to find a way to settle down on the island and then develop the opal mine.
This would require a huge sum of money. Seagull Island was hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest city, Herrick. He needed planes and ships to resupply.
For planes, his Mi-8 was enough for the time being. Now he needed a cargo ship to transport some building materials to the island.
That was the main point of Li Du's negotiations. He had asked for Tasmania's support.
Brusno agreed and allocated a thousand-ton freighter for his use. For the next year, he would be able to use this freighter free of charge.
The Tasmanian and Australian governments were happy to help him develop Seagull Island. They needed a role model. The global real estate market was booming, but the island market had always been dominated by the cold.
At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, there was a global craze to buy islands. Many rich people were interested in islands and wanted to be the owner of an island.
Later, with the Mexican financial crisis, the Asian financial crisis, and the American subprime mortgage crisis, the tycoons began to be careful and stopped spending money recklessly. The island trading business gradually cooled down.
Li Du's Seagull Island was the largest island sold in the global island trade in the past decade. It was also the island with the highest price.
If Seagull Island was built well, it might attract some rich people to revisit the island.
After all, it had been ten years since the subprime mortgage crisis, and the rich had become bolder.
The biggest problem with Seagull Island was the large number of sea snakes. Of course, this was also because of the island's rich opal deposits.
Li Du did not like snakes. He did not want to spend a lot of money to buy an island, only to see snakes crawling all over it when it was developed.
Australia paid great attention to environmental protection. Economic development required harmony with the natural environment.
However, Seagull Island was far from the mainland and Tasmania. It was rarely visited, and no one would pay attention to it. Therefore, if he only wanted to expel the snakes, the government would not object.
The Tasmanian government was willing to help in this regard. They were worried that Li Du would take drastic measures to purify the island by killing the snakes.
There were snakes everywhere in Australia. People had been fighting with snakes for hundreds of years, and they had accumulated a lot of experience and a lot of methods.
The Tasmanian government arranged for the Department of Zoology and the Reptile Protection Society to help Li Du expel the sea snakes through biological and sonic methods.
The biological method was to plant a lot of castor-like plants on the island. The sea snakes hated the smell of these plants and would leave.
The sonic method was to choose some places on the island to install sound waves. Snakes were far more sensitive to sound waves than humans, and could continuously emit sound waves that humans could not feel and expel them into the sea.
Another method was to soak bird eggs in a large area with a drug. Because sea snakes also swallowed food in one gulp, an Australian research institute invented this method to deal with poisonous snakes.
The bird eggs were soaked in a medicinal solution. The solution was not poison, but a drug rich in progesterone and male hormones. After the snakes ate it, they would lose their ability to produce.
This was a method that the Australian government was promoting to deal with poisonous snakes. However, it was criticized by the Reptile Protection Society and nature conservation groups in the mainland.
This was because the drug mainly worked on female snakes by inhibiting ovulation and changing the mucus of the snakes' gonads, making the female snakes lose their desire to mate.
Even if they mated, because of the large amount of progesterone left in the body, the blastocyst would not survive. It could also change the way the female snake's fallopian tubes moved, hindering the delivery of fertilized eggs.
This method was very powerful. It could wipe out the snakes in an area so that they would not be able to reproduce.
Some groups thought it was inhumane, so they criticized the government for using it. No one cared about Li Du, so he could use it as he pleased.
In this way, he took his men on a yacht to Seagull Island. Behind him, a large number of construction tools and snake repellent supplies were delivered to the island.
After buying Seagull Island, Li Du called Steve. After all, Steve had helped him a lot in this matter.
After the call was dialed, a gentle female voice answered and said, "Mr. Tussenberg has left the United States. If you have anything, please leave me a message and I will pass it on to you."
Li Du wondered where the man had gone. He had nothing important to do, so he casually explained his situation and hung up the phone.
When they arrived at Seagull Island, the satellite phone on the ship rang. Steve called back and shocked Li Du. "Hello, Li, I'm in the Antarctic …"
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