Our Mates' Farm

We have found our farm!  That’s right, after some ups and downs and back and forth we finally have had an offer accepted on a farm.  It has involved a lot of looking, and many nights lying awake wondering if we will ever find a place of our own.

The where: Geeveston, Tasmania.  Geeveston is located in the beautiful Huon Valley and is about 50 minutes to the south of Hobart, and just over an hour from Hobart airport.  It doesn’t have the cachet of Cygnet but the soil is good, and property prices a bit more attainable.  The property itself is a few minutes from the centre of Geeveston.

The what: 80 acres of north-facing apple orchard with 4 sheds, a massive dam, a tractor and gear, a stack of apple bins, 7-8 acres of native tall trees….. and no house.  However this is fine as we are now moved into a rental property in the centre of Geeveston, which will do until we build a house on the site.  Plus it gives us a spare bedroom to have people come stay with us straight away.

The why: or more accurately, why the hell have we bought an apple orchard?  There is no money in apples, nearly everyone around the Huon will tell you that, but then we aren’t orchardists and have no intention of producing apples for the supermarkets.  We plan on keeping 20-30 acres of apple trees, picking and selling juicing apples with the help of WWoOFers and the like, and over the course of a number of years turning the rest into pasture where we can run cattle.  Within the orchard itself we plan to run sheep, pigs and poultry.  At some point we will graft some of the varieties over to heritage varieties for ourselves, some cider varieties for juice and just maybe some dessert apples for farm sale.  We will also setup a vegetable garden for ourselves, plant other fruit and nut trees, and eventually setup a couple of cottages for farmstays.  But for now, we are flat out doing all the things we have to do before we settle and complete the purchase in October.

The name: we have decided to name our farm Our Mates’ Farm.  It was something that we have been giving a bit of thought to, and it is because we envisage a place all our friends feel like they can visit and feel a part of.  Also we want anyone who buys anything from us to feel the same.  And in a small way, it is our way of saying thank you to everyone we have met who have supported us in this crazy plan of ours.  We have so many friends who have inspired and encouraged us to follow our dream (and promised that they would visit) that we feel it belongs to them just a bit as well.  Hence: Our Mates’ Farm.

There will probably be some strange conversations because of the name (kind of like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm1bPS3kVpQ), but hopefully most people get it.

So what’s next?  So much I don’t know where to begin.  We have to think about getting some sheep in there now to get the grass under control, we are getting a Maremma sheepdog from the Backfatters crew in Queensland, I have to do some spraying even before we complete to ensure we don’t get disease issues, and all this is without even touching on the business registration stuff we have to do to get setup.  But we have a house, an address, a room for visitors and very soon an internet connection so it is all manageable.  And when Tasmania turns on days like yesterday, all that work feels like a small price to pay for living in one of the most amazing parts of the world.

We will post more photos as soon as we can, but for now here is the link to the agent blurb (not sure how long it will stay up for – we bought both titles) and just a couple of snaps Cor took this afternoon.

The good life - here we come!

Can't wait to get some of these guys!

Tough Decisions

I was out walking the property we are looking after for friends on Saturday morning, and to my surprise one of the ewes had lambed.  I say surprise because the instructions we received when we arrived said they weren’t due for a month, plus there was not one, or two, but three lambs, all belonging to one mother.  All three looked like they were trying to feed from mum, and we brought them into the paddock close to the house so that we could keep an eye on them.  The next morning, however, it became apparent that one of the lambs was not strong enough to feed on his own, and that if left on his own would probably die.  He could barely walk a few feet without laying down, and didn’t have the strength to get to the mother and feed while competing with two siblings for her two udders.

Two of the triplets

We had a tough decision to make.  Learn to bottle feed him, with all the work required in doing it every 4 hours, or leave him to die.  If it was our animal, we would probably have left it to die, as the genetics of the natural survivors are stronger, and the cost of sheep-milk replacer doesn’t really justify it ($60 for the powder, $70 to actually buy a lamb).  Plus the owners of the farm said they were not going to be upset if he died.

Tough decision time for this guy

We decided to bottle feed him.  This isn’t our farm and that is not our animal.  Our job isn’t to make the decision whether to let it die, it is to do our utmost to ensure every single animal is alive when they get back, regardless of how much work is required.  It is our responsibility, nothing less.

Getting the lamb used to drinking from the bottle

And the little bastard has responded marvellously.  Some borrowed goat colostrum from Matthew next door (sheep can digest it), fed every 4 hours over Sunday and Monday, and the little guy was running about the house this morning, sprawling all over like Thumper on ice (apparently wooden floors aren’t that grippy for cloven feet).

We gave him a feed in the morning, and then put him in the paddock with mum so he can hang with his siblings.  We didn’t expect the ewe to take him back, and she was knocking him around whenever he tried to follow his instincts and feed from her.  But she must have caved at some point, because we came back in the afternoon and wouldn’t you know it, there he is, drinking from his mum, like nothing at all had happened.  He was a different lamb to the one we brought in on Sunday, running around and playing with the other two.  After a bit more watching it seemed like the ewe wouldn’t always let him feed, so we decided to keep up the bottle feeding.

One of the lambs may still die (they will always grow slower than a single lamb), but it won’t be because we didn’t try to keep them alive.

The other tough decision surrounds the house/land hunt.  So many options, and so many possibilities.  We don’t know what business we would want to setup, which means that we are trying to buy a place that gives us the greatest number of possible businesses.  So do we take a place with an established orchard with some sheds that requires tree removal to create pasture and a house-site, or a blank-slate of pasture with a few sheds that is an hour from Hobart?

Each of these would lend themselves to a great business: the orchard property could support pigs, farmstays and farm gate sales; the blank slate could run pastured beef and poultry and farmstays.  But which would be better?  As I said, tough decisions…..

Cor and the agent walking around the orchard property

Just part of the orchard

The Buff Orpington rooster where we are farm sitting

And finally, a Muscovy drake, a great duck for eating

Ready?

Well we have finished our latest WWoOFing assignment here in Tassie.  And the conclusion?  We are ready.  We may not know everything we need to know, but we know enough to get started, and we know lots of people to call on when we need help.  Our enthusiasm to get started on our own farm is stronger than ever, and the best way for us to learn this stuff is to just get going.

Ready for this everyday!

Ready to go head-to-head with wily animals!

So what are we doing?  We are leaving.

That’s right, tonight we are on the ferry to Melbourne and then over the course of a couple of weeks driving up to North Queensland.  It is time for my sinus surgery.  The doctor is going to drain them and hopefully in a couple of weeks following do the procedure to straighten them out.  It has been a long couple of years living with this and it is going to be great to get to a point where it is all behind me.

But on the flip side, it is a bit sad.  We have great friends down here now and we are sad to be saying goodbye, even if it is only for 6 – 8 weeks.  We really can’t wait to get back to find that place of our own.  We have seen a couple of promising options which we will come back to in July and look at more closely.  We didn’t want to rush the fence before we went away as we don’t know how long all the surgery and stuff will take.

One highlight of the past month was doing a road trip up to Marrawah in the north west with Sadie to buy a couple of cows.  It was a long couple of days driving but it was great to meet dairy farmers Brian and Ros and the Mount Gnomon crew, Guy, Eliza and Dane.  More great people who are happy to share their know-how.

Brian explaining the kelp drying process at Marrawah

The beautiful Guernsey cow we brought back, 880.  I think the name Susan is nicer....

Cor with Susan and 413, the two new dairy cows I picked up with Sadie.

So that is it from Radio Tassie for now, we will keep you all posted on our trip north and the fun and games of my medical dramas.

We are ready!

Moon-set over Stanley

Generous Spirits

I know that as diary-keeper of our journey to “the good life” I have been a bit slack of late.  It hasn’t been a help that the internet in rural Tassie is so dire I can’t just log on and update the blog.    On this note, don’t believe anything you hear about the rollout of the much-touted National Broadband Network (NBN).  It’s not only late but it doesn’t cover most people outside of town and is expensive to connect to even if you can get it.  Be warned – if you are in a rural area don’t expect it to improve your coverage!

So what is happening with us?  Let me explain….. no, is too much, let me sum up.

We have finished working with Matthew and Sadie for now, having had a great time, worked hard, shared fantastic food and wine, and learned a lot.  They were both incredibly generous with their knowledge and time and we really appreciate it.  We feel very lucky considering Matthew and Sadie don’t often have the time and resources to have WWoOFers.  And to meet wonderfully generous people through them like Phil and Michelle and Jesse and Dwayne and Joan was humbling.

Thank you to Dwayne and Joan for taking us fishing and being such good neighbours, and thanks for Phil for showing us the way of Fat Pig Farm.

Thanks to Sadie for the stylish red work gloves..... I know, I am a wuss.

So we have now left the cold of the pickers’ hut, and are WWoOFing in relative luxury in Crabtree with Bronte and Jenny and their son Luke.  Bronte and Jenny have over 100 acres, a couple of pigs and some chickens, but interestingly they also have turkeys, rabbits and a meat goat herd.

We have come at a comparatively quiet time of the year, the pigs have been slaughtered, the goat herd has already been culled to winter stocking levels, so there isn’t much to do in relation to the animals.  Despite this, we may be involved in another rabbit and turkey cull.

Heavy going to clear the old fences

There has been a goodly share of old fence removal to do, and that has taken up most of our first week, especially given we are now old hands at using the starpicket-remover.  We have also been taking care of the feeding of the animals, plus treating any goats that have developed sore feet from the damp ground.  Coming up we have some goat shelter work to do, gates to renovate, trees to plant, bird fencing to sort, and a whole host of other tasks.

Burning out a stump with Luke calls for a manly pose.

Quite an odd sight to see looking out the bathroom window in the morning....

It is getting hard to keep a log of what we are picking up, because every day holds a new skill or bit of knowledge that we are “learning by doing”.  And what I am really learning is just how valuable this practical experience is.  Seeing how different people tackle their problems and what they prioritise gives us lots of food for thought.  Coreen and I are constantly discussing the things we would like to try, and chatting about where we would take the same approach as people we have met, and where our needs and approach would differ.

The Great House Hunt…..

So where are we on the search for property?  Well we still have quite a bit of our cash in pounds, so the recent weakening in the Aussie dollar and RBA’s indication of possible interest rate cuts is helping us turn our hard-earned British pounds into more real-estate on the old map of Tassie.  We have been looking at land coming up for sale, and there are a couple of promising areas that we are going to look more closely at this week.  We aren’t in a rush.  We want to get the right block of land, and if this has to wait until July, August or November then so be it.  And when we do get our land, we are reconciled to grabbing a caravan/cabin/storage container for temporary accommodation until we can build our own Bonnie Doon.

I previously mentioned the consequences of searching for a bigger block and the impact of that on our budget.  We are now looking to pay up to $300K for fifty-plus acres, then $200K for our own house (with us managing and doing as much of the build ourselves as we can).  This is more than our original budget where we were looking at 20 acres and some sort of existing house for $300K-$400K. While the expanded amount of land will allow us to develop whatever farm business we want to do, the increased financial burden will also leave us less cash to deal with any problems that arise.  Keep your fingers crossed for us!

That is where we are at the moment, we will keep you updated (as updated as we can with this god-cursed-internet anyway) on how we progress.

We hope you are all doing great, until next time, a toast to the good life…..

"The Gourmet Farmer" meets "The Apprentice"

We have been working with Matthew (the Gourmet Farmer) and Sadie at both their home farm and their new farm for two weeks.  As with all our volunteer work we have learned a lot.  There have been challenges, like helping host 16 corporate people from SBS for a 4-course lunch at the farm, splitting a few tonnes of firewood (if you saw the episode where they built the smoker, we split the parts of that tree they didn’t turn into planks), and holding an ewe that was trying to escape the yard while we were trying to get her onto a trailer.

Our accommodations in the "pickers hut"

And despite my belief to the contrary, getting up on those cold mornings have been challenging.  We are staying in an uninsulated, unpowered, unplumbed and unheated pickers hut, and it has made for interesting night time discussions along the lines of:

“Is it too cold to get up and go pee?”

“I don’t know, how much do you need to go?”

“Quite a bit, I shouldn’t have had that cup of tea after 9pm.”

“You know that always makes you need to pee in the middle of the night.”

“Yes but it isn’t always this cold!”

And this goes on until the person caves and goes outside to pee.  OK, who am I kidding?  Until I go outside and pee.

But it has been great as well.  We have learned a lot about rare breed pigs, about milking cows, and about rotational grazing (management intensive grazing using electric fences that are moved regularly).

Oh yes, and we have been taking these cute little guys off to the abattoir too

And Chuck the Truck is being used for what he was meant for.  Towing trailers, lugging timber, four-wheel driving across paddocks, carrying fertiliser and straw.  And in one case towing a porta-loo! Which I certainly never anticipated using him for, but he is like Chuck Norris in Walker Texas Ranger, whenever people need him he is there to help.

Meeting some of the people who Matthew works with has been one of the best things that we have experienced.  He has a great network of people and they all have a unique energy and approach to life.  We are very lucky to get to meet some of them, and even more lucky to work with them.

With a work environment like this, it's no wonder we want to be farmers!

Now, onto the property situation.  We started looking in earnest this week.  We have revised our previous plans somewhat.  First, the size.  You see, quite a few people we have met have started with 10 to 20 acres and then had to buy additional land to accommodate new plans when livestock come onto the scene.  The fact is that 10 acres, after putting a house, a garden, some fruit trees, a dam or two and a shed doesn’t leave much space for grazing animals.  Trying to put half a dozen cows or pigs onto the remaining space creates an overgrazing situation and a horrible mess in winter.  So we have upped our planned area to 50 acres, and are struggling slightly with the consequences of this on our initial property budget.  We will keep you posted on how this works out.

Secondly, the house.  We were talking about getting a place with an existing house on it, but this feature appears to add at least $200K to the price of any property.  The problem is that no house we have seen is actually up to scratch in terms of design or insulation.  Most are weatherboard places built in the wrong part of the block with no scope for grey water reclamation or solar energy utilisation.  To retrofit one of these houses even slightly would add significant additional cost and negate the usefulness of paying that $200K premium in the first place.  It would therefore be much better to build a new passive solar, straw bale, double glazed house, despite the significant grief that this would cause us.  And by grief I mean having nowhere to live in addition to the much trickier matter of dealing with Tassie tradies.  Cue a number of late-night conversations regarding whether Cor would be prepared to live in a caravan on a building site or, as Matthew is pushing, a converted shipping container.  This chat is normally over before the peeing conversation starts.

Our source of warmth..... when we can wait for it to get going!

And finally, we have had the surreal experience of watching an episode of the Gourmet Farmer sitting on the couch with the Gourmet Farmer.  Very odd indeed, kind of like turning on the director’s commentary feature while watching a DVD, except this one is brilliantly interactive.

So that is where we are.  We will be back in Queensland in June for my sinus surgery and a biopsy of my cheekbone, but in the meantime we have another couple of weeks of work here, then onto another farm for more learning for May.

Until next time, dream of the Good Life!

The mornings that make it all worthwhile

Holy Hammy Houdinis!

Welcome to another instalment of “Into the Good Life”!  Since we last updated we have been WWoOFing with a fantastic couple, Didier and Mandy, who breed pigs and cows for sale.  In addition to this they grow stacks of their own food, brew their own beer, make salamis and sausages, keep bees, raise chickens and ducks, and are incredibly “plugged in” to the property goings on in and around Huon Valley.  These guys are the sorts of people that everyone should know.

Chuck at work with pigs following along.

So we have been spending a bit of time fencing.  Ah, fencing.  Those little hammy Houdinis will take any opportunity to push their way under a fence and then the next thing you are chasing a bunch of piglets across a neighbour’s paddock looking like a right idiot.  This means that they need Fort Knox standard fencing, and Cor and I have been spending a bit of time so far getting to grips with this and earning blisters swinging a hammer.

Fencing time!

But we have also been pruning the orchard, helping get honey from the bees, spinning it, setting traps for possums, draining a siphon with an air-block, clipping chicken wings, cleaning chickens, feeding pigs, helping make beer and salamis, plus baking bread and gathering stuff from the garden for dinner.  All that and world-beating sunrises from our caravan (the WWoOF accommodation here) and brilliant meals to boot.

Our reading has moved on also.  I am still making my way through Peter Bane’s “The Permaculture Handbook” but Cor has read “Farm Animals” by Jeanie Peck Whiting and “Storey’s Guide to Keeping Pigs”.  Courtesy of Mandy and Didier’s library I am also reading Joel Salatin’s “Salad Bar Beef” and “A Practical Manual of Beekeeping” by David Cramp.  I will add all these to our ongoing reading list for reference in future.

It's a pig's life.

We also have some rather exciting news.  As previously posted, on my Dad’s suggestion we contacted Matthew Evans via his website.  Dad was reading that he had taken on new ground and thought he might be looking for help.  Matthew will probably be familiar to most Australians for “The Gourmet Farmer” TV series on SBS.  For those in the UK, think of him as Australia’s answer to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  It transpires that he is based here in Tasmania (right up the road in fact), and he and his lovely partner have agreed to have us volunteer with them for the month of April.  They have some fascinating things going on with management-intensive rotational grazing (of the sort used by Joel Salatin) and a bunch of other interesting things and it will be brilliant to help them in whatever way we can.  It is just a wonderful opportunity and we are very lucky to have it.  I have to thank my Dad for the great idea.  The downside is that we have to leave Mandy and Didier much earlier than we would have liked, but I have the feeling we will be staying in close touch with these guys and continuing to work with them whenever we can.  WWoOFer hosts, not just for Christmas.

Not the Hammy Houdinis, but their irresponsible parents!

We have another idea that we are exploring (thanks to Mandy!), namely the possibility of farm-sitting for people who would like a holiday.  We will be examining this as a way to continue our farming education while we are looking for a property when we return from Queensland in July.

Following up on the end of the previous post, we did go see that property that was privately advertised - owned by a lovely Dutch emigre couple with their two young kids.  It was a great plot of about 17 acres but a bit too small and far away from town for what we (potentially) have in mind.

So during the first draft of this blog I heard a squeal go past the caravan, and what do you know, those Houdini pigs were out again.  There is more work to be done for sure!

Stay tuned! Palya!

A year after it began, it begins again.

And so it begins.  We are going to another WWoOF placement tonight.  This one is will go until the weekend after Easter, when we will start another one a little closer to where we want to look for a place of our own.

So what are we trying to find out?

1.  Is the average annual rainfall here in Huonville of 755mm (30 inches) enough for pasture and vegetable production?

2.  What water retention methods need to be practiced to make it work?

3.  Is the graph below a true picture of normal temperature variations?

4.  Are these temps warm enough to grow the varieties of fruit and vegetables that we want to grow?

5.  What are council rates like (though at first glance for the type of property we are looking at I think we will be hit up for $1500 - $2000 per annum)?

These are just a few of our questions.  We will fill you in on our answers.  Plus of course we want to learn as much as we can about farming techniques, the Huon Valley community and the potential to develop commercially-successful regenerative agriculture in the area.

As an aside we also popped into Matthew Evans' (of the Gourmet Farmer TV show) shop in Hobart.  We have also reached out to him in relation to volunteering at his operation, he has expanded his interests dramatically and sounds like he could use some help.  It seems according to his blog he has had some WWoOF- type help in the past and we could certainly use his knowledge.  Especially as he has run into problems with regulation surrounding small scale food production such as labelling rules, nutrition panels and the like.

He is appearing at the Writer's Festival in Hobart this Saturday, and if we weren't planning to be working we would pop in to hit him up for some info.  C'est la vie, some other time perhaps.

One other little bit of exciting news, we answered an ad in a local cafe for a property for sale not far from here and we are going to check it out on Thursday.  There seems to be quite a bit available around here but we didn't want to start dealing with real estate agents just yet.  As our internet access promises to be sporadic for the next couple weeks it may be hard to keep people posted on what we find out, but we will try.

Wish us luck!  Palya!

Tremendous Tassie

When last we left our unlikely heroes, they were torn between going to work on a farm and travelling around the Apple Isle some more.  How did they get out of this sticky situation?  To find out stay tuned for this week’s thrilling episode of “Into the Good Life”!

What do you think happened, of course we kept travelling!  We wanted to see what Tasmania had on offer that we hadn’t got around to seeing yet.  Just for the sake of research of course, so we could tell future visitors our honest opinion on planned Tassie itineraries and make useful suggestions.

Cor on the South Cape

So in pretty short order we went to southernmost point of Tasmania at Cockles Creek and walked an overnight to South Cape Bay.  We were rewarded with an echidna snuffling by the trail, some brilliant geological formations and some amazing views south towards Antarctica.  Though again I disturbed TWO tiger snakes, screamed like a girl, hitched up my skirts and legged it, leaving poor Cor trailing in my wake.  Really have to do something about that reaction, it’s getting embarrassing….. but it DID hiss at me!

Our echidna!!

We popped by the Hastings Caves down there as well, very interesting caves, saw a cave cricket, glow worms, a type of cave spider and by the trail outside, two lyrebirds and a platypus paddling away in the creek, bold as brass.  Awesome ornithoryncus anatinus scenes.

Just a tiny bit of the awesome geology on the South Cape coast

We then opened up the throttle on Chuck the truck, heading up to Strahan on the west coast (rainy!) via St Claire Lake (on the south end of the overland track – crowded!), then up to Wynyard and Stanley in the north, and across to Arthur River in the west.

We went for a cruise on the Arthur River up in the Tarkine wilderness.  You may have heard about this as being a bit of a contentious area in relation to planned mining of iron ore in this area.  Some of the people in Arthur River were odd to say the least.  I had a difference of opinion with one of the tour people on the boat.  Credit to him, he was doing a job trying to keep the mystery of the Tarkine wilderness alive by saying that Tasmanian tigers could still be in this pristine wild area, citing unconfirmed sightings in the 70’s.  My thought is that it is this very thinking that allows people to shuffle off responsibility for the man-made extinction of the tigers, right when the Tasmanian devil faces a not-too-dissimilar fate.  Even if there were some tigers left, the same guy then argued AGAINST World Heritage listing for the area.  He suggested that World Heritage status for the Tarkine would stop the locals up at Arthur Creek from “going where they want and doing what they want” and that is why the majority were against it.  To hear one of these locals talking about driving along in a boat shooting cormorants for fun gives you an idea of what he means.  They don’t tell anyone when they find Aboriginal sites, as any outside interest may interfere with (their ideas of) personal freedom.

We then got to experience the opposite personality type in Geoff of Kings Run Wilderness Tours.  Geoff’s family used to run cattle along the coastal heathland near the Tarkine, but when he found it tough going he was a willing audience for a biologist friend who told him he had something special in his section of coastline, and more importantly, there were people who were willing to pay to experience it.  Geoff picks you up in his ute, driving you to a deserted beach shack with a slightly incongruous 3 metre wide double glazed window in the side.  After walking about the beach for a bit Geoff takes us for a walk around the area, showing us the middens left by the original Manegin Aboriginal people, their tool-making areas, places where they hunted seals and their hut depressions.  His property has just been accepted for World Heritage status, and this has allowed him to stop 4wd access to the beach where these sites are, earning him the vitriol of locals who would like to 4wd and ride four-wheelers all over the place.  You can see old tracks nearly running right over 900 year old fur seal hunting pits.  Despite this you can see his pride in being able to share this special place with people.

Kings Run on the West Coast

Around dusk we adjourn to the fishing shack, Geoff breaks out the wine and nibblies and turns on the baby monitor.  You see, just outside that incongruous window, is some roadkill staked to the ground with a light on it and a baby monitor hidden in the grass nearby.  After an hour Geoff hears a noise, and after getting ourselves settled in our seats (with wine in hand of course), turns out the lights in the hut and opens the curtains.  There he is, a beat-up looking Tasmanian devil proceeding to go to town on the possum carcass out there.  We sit and watch this guy munch away, gradually getting fatter and fatter.  He looked like he had already eaten, and was just topping up, but it was great.   We watch this guy for about an hour, before he scarpers and shortly thereafter another male turns up, a bit bigger but with more white on his body.  After an hour of furious demolition the devil manages to get the carcass off the stake and scarpers with it, running straight into another devil out in the dark and proceeding to have a bit of a set to.  That was our cue to go, so we jumped in the back of the truck and spotlighted some animals on the way to the gate.  It really couldn’t have been a better conclusion to the evening, or to one of the best experiences we have had in Tasmania.

Oh you devil!

After Arthur River we trucked across the country, and spent a couple of nights around Launceston, catching up with some people my sister Elisa introduced us to, Kate and Amy.  These two have been travelling and working around Tasmania for a few months and had some great stories to tell, and some great advice too.  Check out their blog at www.wrightemery.wordpress.com.

The world's largest motorboat at the Cherry Shed

We now find ourselves in the Bay of Fires in the north east.  We are going to do some walking and camp overnight out there tomorrow, with a view to making our way back down to Hobart and start WWoOFing next week (if someone will have us).

I promise to be more regular with this blogging thing, the only problem has been that despite supposedly having Australia’s fastest internet with the National Broadband Network, no bloody place we stay is actually connected to it!  Plus the fact that this travel shit keeps you pretty busy.

Palya peeps!

On a clear day you can see Antartica (no, not really)

I could live like this. Wait a minute, I am!

Palya!

What. An. Inspiration.  Joel Salatin’s course was an intriguing mix of motivational speaking and useful facts, all designed to make you want to jump out of your chair and start farming not tomorrow, or even later today, but in the next 10 minutes.  Joel gave us the benefit of over 40 years of experimentation and observation over the course of 3 days, and it was brilliant.

I know people tend to see what they want, but in Joel I saw the true son of an accountant.  He can give you the cost of every chicken, half of beef, leg of pork or egg leaving his farm.  He puts a price on his time and can quote you exactly how much time he puts into every part of his farm, and knows where the “leaks” are.  He can tell you what store-bought lumber costs, and how much he saves by cutting his own.  It was an impressive thing to watch.

But more than that, he gave us the belief that we can be profitable as a farming venture.  You see, we didn’t really believe, it.  Not deep down.  Instead I have been carrying around lots of baggage from my history, all those years talking to farmers whose kids don’t want to farm, who say there is no money in it.  The most I was hoping for was to not have to do too much “off farm work” to keep us afloat.  But Joel convinced us that with a scientific business approach and by embracing niche polyculture (instead of industrial monoculture) we could not only be profitable, but with hard work we could earn white-collar salaries.  It is not often you hear that from a farmer!

The other interesting thing about Joel’s approach is that it is management intensive.  He is a meticulous observer and recorder of information, but he is doing stuff like moving all his chickens and cows once a day.  Most farmers would have cardiac arrest at the thought of an intensive approach like that, but in his course he showed how it works.

The other key thing we learned is that we may need to be located a little closer to town than we first imagined.  To utilise the benefits of a direct-marketing approach like Joel’s we should be within half an hour of a town with at least 25,000 people.  There aren’t many of these in Tassie!  This puts the mockers on my dreams of a remote paradise, but we will search for somewhere that walks the line between solitude and saleability.

So what we learned in that 3 days was immense.  I can’t even begin to sum it up, but our greatest gain was certainly motivation and inspiration.

The beautiful Kiama, south of Sydney, where the course was held.

Since the course we spent some time with my sister and my niece, who seems to get cuter by the day, before hitting Melbourne for the ferry over to Tasmania.  Fortunately for me, the ride was as smooth as a veal cutlet.

We have now spent the last couple weeks travelling about Tasmania.  We have been hanging with Todd, a fellow diver we met in Chu’uk (Truk Lagoon) and another friend.  We were doing some touristy stuff before beginning the WWOOFing and farm hunt in earnest.

See?  She just keeps getting cuter (but appears to be dumbfounded here!)

We visited the Museum of Old And New Art (MONA) and it was, well, I guess the word is interesting?  There was some stuff I liked, some stuff I hated, and I certainly in parts I felt like my entry fee was supporting the lifestyles of some seriously twisted individuals.  The Lark Distillery in Hobart was more my style, with some excellent single malts being produced there, and a useful source for anyone in Tassie looking for the more obscure Scottish drams unavailable elsewhere.

We also hiked the Organ Pipes trail on Mt Wellington, and checked out the great views over Hobart.  I recommend it to anyone visiting the city.

Todd checking out the organ pipes on Mt Wellington

Following this we visited Port Arthur, home of the notorious convict settlement and the tragic 1996 massacre.  It was a great day and a really fascinating insight into an aspect of Australian history that I didn’t know a heck of a lot about.  The conditions that the prisoners’ and the soldiers faced were incredibly tough, and the sentences for those sent here even tougher.  We spent a day here but it could have been two and we still wouldn’t have scratched the surface of the experience.

The old church at the atmospheric Port Arthur

After our history lesson we went in search of more nature and so we hiked to Cape Raoul south of Port Arthur.  It was a fantastic walk that we took nice and slow over the course of 6 hours.  There were myriad beautiful outlooks over cliffs and the southern ocean.  At the end of the cape there were amazing dolorite columns jutting out above the sea, with a colony of elephant seals at the bottom.  These columns were similar to the “organ pipes” up on Mount Wellington, but on a much grander scale with the waves coming up from the Antarctic to crash into them.  On the walk back we saw a couple of black tiger snakes on the trail, getting some sun late on a cool day.  It was pretty freaky for me as someone who hates the snakes but useful practice in managing my phobia.  We also saw a pademelon (think wallaby-possum hybrid cuteness), which was kind enough to hang out for Todd for a couple of photos.

Cape Raoul, with Todd atop the dororite columns.

After relocating ourselves up to the Freycinet peninsular on the east coast of Tasmania, we went to check out some of the little/fairy/blue penguins coming ashore and breeding.  They were really cool little guys, and it is amazing to think of each of them bombing around the southern ocean on their own, coming ashore occasionally.  They have had a stonking breeding season with the warmer water experienced this year, with some pairs having two clutches of chicks over the course of the summer.  Fluffy scenes.

We spent a day paddling sea kayaks around Coles Bay, finding a secluded little section of beach to pull up the kayaks, have lunch and play a little Frisbee.  Life really doesn’t get much better than a glassy day, a kayak, your own beach, a little lunch and then (after getting back) a scallop pie and a Cooper’s Pale Ale in the sun.  True heaven.

I think Cor said it best:  “I could live like this.  Wait a minute - I am!”

Paddling paradise!

The siren call of the Freycinet peninsula and Wineglass Bay led to an interesting decision to do a couple of nights hiking and camping out in the wilderness.  I say interesting because the most that Todd had ever travelled from a car to camp was 200 yards, but he didn’t mention this to us and we proceeded to undertake an ambitious 6-hour hike into Cook’s Bay on the peninsula, carrying 3 days’ worth of food.  By the time we got there he was most relieved to be off his feet and into the ice-cool waters of the bay.

Cook's Bay

That night commenced the first instalment of “the Possum Wars”.  Unfortunately some idiots have been feeding the wildlife down in Freycinet on account of these critters being so cute.  The downside of this is apparent at 2 am when one discovers a possum sitting on your backpack inside the tent vestibule, having eaten its way through the lid and one of the shoulder straps in its search for food.

The Possum Wars culminated at Wineglass Bay on the second night with Todd standing under a tree at 3 am futilely throwing sticks at a possum in the upper branches.  In his words: “That possum took my sunglasses!”  I had to tell him that I had in fact moved his sunglasses earlier in the night in my own instalment of the Possum Wars revolving around the location of our rubbish bag.  Cue much hysterical laughter by all except old man Emmons who still wanted to shake his fist at the treed possum.

Possum wars notwithstanding, we did have some close encounters with Bennett’s wallabies, and the views that greeted us every morning from our tents were sensational.  All agreed it was a very special place.

Good morning!

Hanging with the locals.

So now after many kilometres, 5 dozen fresh oysters, 3 kg of mussels, 1 kg of scallops, countless scallop pies (really!), tonnes of cheese, a bottle of gin and lots of beers, the Salamanca markets, 4 separate hikes, some sea kayaking, and just a little Star Wars geek talk (does anyone else know what an IG-88 droid looks like?  Todd does) we have waved goodbye to our travel companions and are making our way forward on our own.  We may continue to do the touristy Tasmania, or we may jump into the WWOOFing.  Either way we will keep you all posted!

Palya!

And beware giant car-wrecking kangaroos!