A brief introduction...

In all the excitement of breaking ground, setting up a blog and getting something out there, I forgot to introduce ourselves. In this episode, we rectify this and take a brief look at how we came to be here, doing this, right now…

Kirsty and I are both Tasmanian raised and educated. As is fairly typical of these parts, we left Tasmania post-University to find work and have spent the past 30 odd years on the mainland - primarily in Sydney - working and raising a family. In this time we have been fortunate to have many opportunities to broaden our horizons and follow our dreams. We have travelled, played a bit of golf, and enjoyed many of the finer things in life.

We have also taken on a range of hobbies, with some of these having been taken a little too seriously. Kirsty has achieved a lifelong goal and fully retrained as a chef, whilst I have undertaken a range of culinary, butchery and brewing courses - and continued to enjoy my golf, as bad as it may be.

We had often joked about what we would do if things took a turn and we found ourselves out of work. A plan B existed in many forms over the years, but all were centred on a return to Tasmania and something centred on food.

While Plan B’s tend to remain just that, a number of events over 2024 presented a fortuitous set of circumstances that allowed us both the opportunity and means to make this particular Plan B happen. Having been made redundant once more (gotta love working in finance), and with the kids now both at university and arguably old enough to fend for themselves, we decided to chuck it all in and return to Tasmania with the aim of setting up a bed and breakfast.

We have been coming to the north of the state to play golf at the iconic Barnbougle once or twice a year since it opened and had fallen in love with this pocket of paradise. So when we were looking around and stumbled onto a fantastic block of land in North-Eastern Tasmania, a very short distance from Bridport, Barnbougle and Tasmania's sparkling wine district we jumped at it.

Our aim: to to build a bed and breakfast based Lodge to cater to small groups of golf/food/wine based travellers. Mountain bikers and bushwalkers are also more than welcome with the world class bike trails of Derby not too far away and plenty of local walks and other attractions.

Here goes nothing...

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Oh, and as far as the build is going it has been a very memorable week, with the house slab being poured despite yet another bout of wet weather early in the week. Things are indeed progressing quickly and it is great to wander around the open floorspace and finally be able to feel our design taking on a real physical shape.

There is definitely no turning back now!