I’m a Tasmanian. Fifth generation, so everything I know and love is Tasmanian. I’ve always wanted the opposing outcomes…. To promote Tasmania to the rooftops so everyone knows what a wonderful place it is…and keeping silent so we get to keep it as our precious secret.
I live in despair that Tasmania is not valued, that the very isolation and “non-progressive” nature of its people has resulted in the continuation of a very-outdated and impossibly destructive rape and pillage mentality towards our natural resources. Our forests still hold ancient giant trees, our mountains harbour some of the most ancient living plant forms on the planet, some of our invertebrates haven’t been classified, yet we are still escalating the extinction of our flora and fauna.
Education and knowledge are powerful tools. We can only appreciate and value what we know. We can only conserve what we appreciate. We will only nurture what we value.
I’ve been lucky enough to live most of my life with the land. My first 8 years were spent in a little township in southern Tasmanian on an acre of land. We had pigeons that we ate, goats milk to drink, chooks, pet cats, dogs and guinea pigs… and many weekends were spent bushwalking the coast line of the Huon valley where I learnt to appreciate native cherry (exocarpus) fruit, how to cook periwinkles on a fire and how to treat a jackjumper bite.
My teenage years were largely spent on the back of my pony as I explored my north west tasmanian environment. It was here I learnt to lick the nectar from the waratah blooms in the early morning, and how to catch garfish in a fish trap. For a couple of years I lived as a complete hippy with Ron, using bracken fern to soften my sleep, tickling native trout, making goats milk cheese.
I have been blessed with four beautiful children. My first daughter Niko was born while I was still just 19 so she was at my side while I grew up. We bred rabbits for meat, had ponies for fun, kept chooks and pigs, shared our homes with dogs and cats. And gardens….always gardens. Foraged for fruit from neighbours and strangers who let it fall and rot. Then after Rin was born, and we’d recovered from the trauma of a car accident…we moved to another life, with Julian, at Lapoinya, then Ridgley; where Jessie, then Havenview where Loki were born. Always gardens full of peas and corn, pumpkins and carrots, lettuce and cabbage. Children in bare feet, grubby hands and happy smiles.
Years passed, as years do. I had a wonderful job in adult literacy that enabled me to share the education and growing up of my family. Some bad times, lots of good ones. Finished marriages, a damaged back, my dream of a farm to call my own and all the animals and heartache that comes with it. Kids moved on and out on their own, and started their own families. The blessing of grandchildren. We bought a holiday house at Montagu, a piece of this island that was to shape my future.
I self published my first book “A Thousand Pleasures, A Million Treasures” in 2006. I have always written. My first attempt at fiction was in a Penguin competition when I was seven years old, and some of my poetry was published in my teens…but now I had time to write, and research. The teeming life on the beach, in the water and in the bush at Montagu captivated me, but I couldn’t find any texts on the shells and crabs of this region…so I wrote it. At first, just for the grandchildren and myself – but it grew.
In 2008 my life changed yet again. Julian and I split up and my mother died. A hard year. My second book, The Legacy was written and published in 2009… and I met Col.
Col and I bought “Tiabunna” a fabulous wetland property in Somerset. 12 acres of rundown house, dishevelled garden and bush infiltrated with weeds – but we were in love with each other and the property. For three years we worked incredibly hard and transformed the place into a wetland and bush sanctuary. Our enviro work was centred here, and we learnt so much. We systematically eradicated the plethora of weeds in the lake and the bush. The frogs came back, we recorded 80 species of birds, platypus bred in the lake, and healthy Tasmanian devils argued in the bush. It was as close to paradise as we’ll ever get. We were married by the lake with 160 friends blessing us. “Brazenly Pure” a celebration of all wild Tasmania has to offer was published.
Col and also relished doing environmental work on Three Hummock and Howie Islands. But then, my health, which had been deteriorating… broke down. I was unable to continue work as a TAFE teacher to fund our project…so we sold Tiabunna to people with environmental heart.
And moved to suburban Wynyard, to a little brick house…that had two huge eucalypts guarding the gate, Dead Horse Creek as one boundary, and almost ¾ of an acre of black sandy soil to grow things in. And “Eat Wild Tasmanian” was conceived. My interest in functional and edible native plants, Col’s with native and habitat plants; and our joint love of Tasmania meant we started seriously researching, tasting, experimenting and cooking with our Tasmanian edible native plants.
We have scoured Tasmania’s bush for berries and bulbs, climbers and blossom. We have picked more than a peck of peppers, nibbled leaves and blossom, delighted in snotty dodder and despaired of processing snowberries. Because my walking is severely limited, Col has been the hunter/gatherer and I have been the experimenter in the kitchen…working out complementary tastes.
We named our property in Wynyard “Murnong Wild Food Garden” after the yam daisy Microseris lanceolata, which has just about disappeared from the Australian landscape – but was a staple carbohydrate for the first Australians. We have so far established 110 species with over 300 specimens of edible native Tasmanian plants – largely thanks to Jim Mcleod and Oldina Nursery. I now make preserves, jams, chutneys, dukkas etc from native and introduced ingredients and I have written “Eat Wild Tasmanian” which explains 138 edible Tasmanian native plants and includes 400+ photos and 100+ recipes.
And now we are here. 2017.
But no! Here I am again in 2026 – I can’t believe it’s been 9 years since I wrote that piece! In 2017 I had Eat Wild Tasmanian published, which ended up being Fuller’s best selling non-fiction. Wow!
It was a wonderful time, we travelled all around Tasmania giving presentations to various groups on Tasmania’s wild food. We’ve had a fantastic reception and met so many wonderful humans along the way. We conduct garden walks through our own wild food garden followed by wild food morning or afternoon teas to demonstrate the amazing flavours in our edible native plants.
In 2018, Col and I purchased a 50 acre conservation property at Moina with another couple. This beautiful bush block we named Blackjack Falls had been owned by conservation minded folk for 75 years, so didn’t have any of those common environmental weeds! For the next 8 years, this property gave us enormous pleasure and we learnt more about the alpine and sub-alpine flora and fauna. There was a quoll who lived under the shack, all 4 species of robins and lots of currawongs and wombats. We celebrated Christmas there one year with 29 extended family staying. One of the highlights of the property was a 50+m undercut waterfall; so standing on the lip of that gave you a panoramic view over the Iris River valley and Stormont beyond.
2021 didn’t start brilliantly when I was dumped bodysurfing a wave at Cremorne, and managed to break 2 vertebrae and a facet joint – but luckily the fractures were stable so didn’t affect me too much. ABC journalist Sarah Abbott did a great video focussing on eating Guinea Pigs as sustainable and humane backyardmeat production. The video was played on ABC News Breakfast and had over 1 million views on YouTube. Of all the things I don’t want to be famous for, it has to be eating guinea pigs – but it was incredible the interest there was. Even now (2026) I still regularly get emails from all over the world enquiring about how to farm them. If you want to watch, the link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0rK-lc7eis
The writing bug hasn’t gone away; and in 2021 my collection of poetry Pointing the Way Home was published by Ginninderra Press. Poetry is my main writing love, but the non-fiction about Tasmania is also important. Eat Wild Tasmanian was basically sold out by this time, so instead of re-printing again; I re-wrote and expanded the text. I added a few more edible native plants I’d learnt about, and added a whole new section on weeds. The dilemma of encouraging people to eat our wild plants, but discourage them from foraging has been present throughout the whole journey; so hopefully people will concentrate on foraging just our weeds.
Fuller’s was keen to publish again, so in 2022 Eat MORE Wild Tasmanian was released. This was also a best seller, and the interest just seems to get greater and greater. We did loads of workshops, talks, presentations and the garden tours.
2022 was also the year of another fabulous environmental project. With a team of volunteers, and the partnership by Wynyard/Waratah council we saved an entire little heathland from devastation. Praympi heathland was a tiny remnant wet heathland in a vacant block in Wynyard which held 65+ species of delicate heathland plants – some of which were the last specimen of their species in the whole Wynyard area. So – long story short – we translocated the entire area; plants, soil and all in a tasmanian, if not Australian, environmental first! The area is now in a little reserve, fenced, boardwalked and there for the future.
In 2023, I self-published a small guide on Tasmania’s edible seaweeds, The Seaweed Supplement. This was to complement the wild foods books, as seaweed is a free, foragable food source. This book was also really well received, and I now added beachwalks and seaweed workshops to the CV. Life is just getting better, even if my skeleton isn’t.
Col and I had also been exploring more of our island, and some of the myriad of off-shore islands too; (and I’d been planning another book on those). In 2023, we went on a pelagic bird trip on a chartered crayfishing boat to those mystical southern islands of Pedra Branca, Mewstone and Maatsyker. The image of Pedra Branca just emerging form the southern ocean is unforgettable.
We visited Bruny Island for the nth time, which is always a delightful experience; and in 2024, Maria Island for a geological adventure with grandson Thorin. By this time, our family has kept growing and there are now 13 grandchildren between us. No great grandkids yet 🙂
In 2024, I was a finalist for the Tasmanian Australian of the Year for my work advocating for Tasmania’s natural environment. It was a huge honour to be a finalist, and so good to see wild food getting so much attention.
We kept exploring islands as fun research for the next book, and 2025 saw us on Flinders and some of the outlying islands in that group; including a rather delightful trip around Truwana, although the weather was unreasonably dreadful. We also chartered a light plane trip over and around the NW tip islands, including the spectacular Black Pyramid. I was inducted onto the Tasmanian Women’s Honour roll for my work in education, environment and advocacy. Wild Food is definitely on the main stage now.
In 2026, I resigned from presidency of U3AWynyard after 9 fulfilling and interesting years, which gave me much more free time. Fuller’s decided not to publish my islands book, so after looking for an alternative publisher; I decided to self-publish again. This time though, I wanted a more coffee-table look… so taught myself graphic design 101. I did everything – photos, layout and format as well as the text. It’s quite a steep learning curve, but I really enjoyed the challenge. Unfortunately my skeleton has been playing fair, and the left shoulder tendons I tore 2 years ago have wrosened. I damaged the right shoulder, this time when I cut through a pumpkin!!! Grr, no working shoulders, and every joint hurting.
Anyway, in August, the Islands of the Island State was published, and a fine looking book it is too. An exploration and celebration of 40 of Tasmania’s off-shore islands.
Feisty Tasmanian - the home of Tasmanian edible native plants 