Australia from England as part of a
recruitment campaign to fill a skills
shortage in the NSW Department
of Education.
With a background in secondary
mathematics and psychology, Charlotte’s
work in education and health has taken
her across Australia to many rural and
remote areas of NSW, WA and, since
2005, Tasmania.
‘My slice of the Island’
It is a well-kept secret that Tasmania’s North West Coast produces around 80% of our island’s food produce. With this in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why a former restaurateur and passionate foodie from a family of very good cooks who love to entertain has made the small historic fishing port of Stanley, her home.
Stanley’s deep-water fishing port lands and processes locally-caught crayfish, scallops and octopus as well as a wide range of other fresh fish. The wharf is one of my favourite places to hang out on a Sunday afternoon, watching the locals fish for flathead with hand lines for a feed that night. With the right equipment (a screwdriver works well) oysters are also available from the rocks at low tide. As a child I used to holiday with my grandmother in Donaghadee, a small fishing port in County Down, Northern Ireland, about 18 miles from Belfast and six miles south-east of Bangor. Living in Stanley gives me a strong connection with how childhood holidays used to be. In the summertime down at Godfreys Beach, families barbecue, play cricket in the park and kids walk across the street in their bathers, wrapped in towels as they head home for a shower. The accents are different, but everyone knows everyone else and there’s a shared sense of community as people have fun together, look out and care for one another.
As part of the Get Walking Tasmania campaign, locals and visitors alike enjoy the scenic route of the Green Hills around Stanley. The seven kilometre lap includes a steep slope (good for calf muscle development) that leads up to the convict ruins and the story of Highfield, original home of the Van Diemen Land Company, which was established to open up north-west grazing lands under a Royal Charter in 1825. Inclement weather sometimes proves challenging, but not many days go by when at least someone isn’t walking their dog, pushing a pram, jogging around or cycling the Green Hills. The views are amazing – eastward to Rocky Cape and Port Latta, westward to Three Hummock Island. Bass Strait provides an ever-changing scene – sometimes wild and woolly with white caps, sometimes a beautiful deep-blue millpond.
The Green Hills are also the best source of Tasmanian natural grass-fed Cape Grim beef, lamb and a variety of vegetable crops, with usually at least one poppy field a bright splash of colour in summer. With everything we need right here on our doorstep in Stanley, it’s hard to understand why anyone would ever leave – and in fact there are some locals who rarely pass the turnoff, just 14 km away onto the Bass Highway!