I first arrived in Hobart in 1996 in October to volunteer at the Wilderness Society for a few weeks, and it snowed in November!, which my warm Kimberley WA blood did not cope with! I was fascinated to meet a tribe of like-minded people at the coldest beach party I had ever experienced and I saw snow on the Mountain for the first time (I had to go out and buy my first pair of rainbow thermals!) – And I began to fall in love with Tassie, her wild beings and her wild people! I was 24!
When it got to June 1997, I just couldn’t cope with winter in a freezing cold sharehouse so I escaped to work in Broome, back up to the Kimberleys WA – but the pull of Tassie and her people was so strong, I came back for a holiday on Flinders Island, January 1998 and by April 1998 I’d moved back to Hobart!
This is where I reconnected with Phil, my soon-to-be partner in life, and by April 1999 we were living in our first house on Romilly St South Hobart, expecting our first child! We stayed in Hobart for 10 years, loving exploring Tassie with our 4 kids, but the pull to explore the Mainland drew us first to desert life in Alice Springs for 6 years and then to ocean life in Port Macquarie NSW for 10 years, even though we returned to Tassie often for holidays and to see family!
In 2023 all our kids left home, and I experienced such empty nest grief (postnestal depression) it felt important that we left the family nest too and begin our own new adventure…..and the pull to move back to my Soul Home, Hobart, was so strong, to plant roots in Tassie, on the foothills of Kunanyi, to care for the country that had so deeply cared for me for years! I had always felt that Tassie was my home even after all that time travelling!
So here I am planting roots in Winter 2024, loving revisiting all my favourite places on Kunanyi and around Nipaluna and reconnecting with such like-minded people, my tribe, my community. Even if it is feeling a bit cold! And I’m missing the warm beaches of Port Mac!
