My wife Ann and Myself
were looking for a nice place to start another life. To help us find this beautiful place we did a lot of sailing around Sydney and offshore as well. These skills were to prove very useful when we went exploring. In 1990 we set sail from Sydney and sailed as far north as Mooloolaba,Queeensland looking for our dreamplace. Although the north coast of Australia was very beautiful we thought it might be too hot in summer. So turning around we headed south and crossed Bass Straight for Tasmania, arriving in St. Helens on Easter Friday 1991. I think right from the start we thought this would be a good place to settle down.
This led to our next challenge. What could we do to make a living? Whilst this is a most beautiful place to live it didn’t seem to have much in the way of employment for someone with my qualifications. So it was with these thoughts in our mind that we decided to go into farming. At the time we only had city perceptions as to what this could mean but optimism and naivety have in our case gone a long way to making us overcome many obstacles.
me:Denis Buchanan
me:Denis BuchananOnce upon a time I was a Chemical Engineer now I am a born again Farmer. The transition was really quite easy with the major change being that my recent professional life which seemed to be mainly feasibility studies had ended and any experiment that I wish to undertake was now at my peril.
Ann Calder (alias Ann Buchanan)
Ann Calder (alias Ann Buchanan)has been my partner for nearly 30 years. In Sydney she had worked in a variety of professions ranging from Real Estate agent, chef and managing various hospitality businesses. She has always had a love of cooking and her specialty would have to be cake making which can still be evidenced by trying one of her great desserts. Ann has always insisted that what she makes is of the highest quality and generally made using one of her special recipes.
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It is good to see another re-purposed chemical engineer! I wound up after a few years at Chevron Chemical going back for degrees in biology and ecology, and spent 30 years working for California Fish and Game, Water Quality Board and Water Resources Department. I’m looking forward to a visit to Sydney to visit a distant cousin I got in touch with through genealogy, and have always wanted to visit Tasmania, and compare the fruit there to our part of Northern California. I’m hoping to find a few plums and peaches still available in late February to early March, and thought I’d check with a local to see if I have the season totally wrong.
Yes we will have plums in february and possibly canning peaches plus apples and pears. Please drop in as it is a beautiful part of the world.
sorry but all work has finished. sorry also about the delay in replying as I didn’t see your note til now.
always looking for good pickers. contact us at [email protected]
, Kiora Dennis and Anne, remember me John Hamilton from ‘Forever Young’? Caught up with Boyd recently and he told us u are still in Tassie. I am in Carlton, Tassie until late tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to catch up somewhere?
My phone 0418 207 892
good to hear from you John. Long time , too long.
We await your next visit. Our farm is on the East Coast near St. Helens.
Hi, where in melbourne can we buy these fresh black currents? Thanks
Not sure where you would get fresh blackcurrants as it is not the season. We do however have frozen black currants which we can send to Melbourne by air express. there was some problems with freight during covid but should be ok now and you will receive the next day. Frozen blackcurrants still can be used for more apps as you would use the fresh ones.