A week? In Stanley? The locals we meet in the historic cottage that serves as a bar are disbelieving. Most people only come to the whole of Tassie for a week, they say.

Well, those people don’t know what they’re missing.

A week in Stanley sees us visit Australia’s largest dairying operation; walk the site of a grim massacre – same farm in fact; stare at a wind farm – again, the same farm; take a long drive through a temperate rainforest; take a chairlift up a steep bluff; visit an historic house; fish off the jetty; bike along the long beach; go to a whisky distillery; eat scallop pies; wait for little penguins to come ashore at dusk, get cold and bored waiting and go home; see marsupials we haven’t seen before, (pademelons); eat local oysters; and see a highly venomous black tiger snake. Try doing all that in less than a week. And that doesn’t count a day in the caravan sheltering from the rain.

Yes, the weather is variable.

In 1824, The Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) Company established its headquarters at Stanley to manage the 250,000 acres it was “granted” by King George IV on the north west coast of Tasmania. Needless to say, no-one asked the Aboriginal people who already lived there, and had done so for thousands of years. VDL was established and stocked with sheep to supply cheap wool to British factories. Although imported stock bloodlines were a success, failure to recognise and adapt to different conditions in the Southern Hemisphere meant wool production was a failure. Further problems arose when the manager of VDL, Edward Curr – by name and by nature – allowed convict shepherds free rein to “deal with” the Aboriginal people, which resulted in violent acts, culminating in the Cape Grim massacre. The details are disputed, but what is fact is about 30 Aboriginal men, women and children were murdered on and under the the cliffs at Cape Grim, and no-one was ever held to account. You can read more of the history here.

We take a tour out over the Woolnorth farms: Woolnorth Dairy Farm , Australia’s largest dairy farm running a dozen different herds and milking sheds with around 15,000 cows, and Woolnorth Wind Farm. Modern times see modern solutions, and as the wind rarely falls below 20 kph in the area the resource is readily available. In an interesting twist, until 2016 the owner of the Van Diemen’s Land Company, was, you’ll never guess, the New Plymouth City Council.  In 2016, Moon Lake Investments, controlled by Lu Xianfeng, purchased it for $280 million AUD. In cash. Those of you in Taranaki may wish to ask the Council where the money went.

If there is a more attractive. well kept, small town in Australia, I’d like to know where it is. Stanley, on the north west coast of Tasmania is a gem. In 1826 the aforementioned VDL Company chose Stanley for the first European settlement in the north-west, largely for its sheltered, deep water anchorage. Cottages from the mid 1800s have been well preserved or renovated with concern for original features and a street of these charming buildings sit against the backdrop of the Nut, a sheer bluff that is the remains of an ancient volcanic plug.

Why is it called the Nut? I’m glad you asked – To create rubble to build a new breakwater the bright idea was to blast rock from the bluff. A 12 metre deep tunnel was excavated, at the end of which a cross chamber was driven for 20 metres, and the whole thing packed with 2,000 kilograms of dynamite. As there was no Occupational Health and Safety, people came from miles around to enjoy the spectacle, and possibly lose their hearing. Theoretically, the explosion would remove a mass of granite. When the dust settled, they realised this was a hard nut to crack – the explosion was a complete failure.