A few years later we decided that Tassie was where we wanted to eventually end up, and we travelled down in August 2007 with our shortlist of potential land to purchase. The choice became easy when we visited the Huon Valley (45km south-west of Hobart) and inspected 15 acres at 99 Jacksons Road, Franklin. The block is 900m off the Huon Highway, and 90m above sea level overlooking the river. Only about 3 of the 15 acres have been cleared, which you can see from the top of the driveway.
Part of this clearing exposes the spectaluar view to the South-East.
The rest of the property is forest, which wraps itself around the cleared section and contains magnificent trees that we will protect for as long as we live.
Part of this clearing exposes the spectaluar view to the South-East.
The rest of the property is forest, which wraps itself around the cleared section and contains magnificent trees that we will protect for as long as we live.
A lovely walk track takes you down to the creek, where we were lucky enough to see a Platypus and a wombat burrow on the way (which pretty much sealed the deal).
Of course at this point we hadn’t started studying Permaculture yet, we bought this property because of the privacy, the view and the relaxed feeling of the local community. It doesn’t have the perfect aspect (sloping away from the North), however the cleared section is large and flat enough for the sun to hit our proposed food production areas (phew!!!).
The owner was living on the land in sea containers at the time, and since we were not ready to move we negotiated $25k off the asking price in exchange for him being able to continue living there for another two years. This really benefited both parties, and offered us extra security knowing that the land would be secure while we were still across the Tasman.
