Island With Sea Eagles A Millionaire's Haven
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday January 13, 1998
Aaah. A seven-kilogram Atlantic salmon, escaped from a farm and caught on the hook. A few freshly shucked shellfish off your own rocks to precede it. And a wild local ambience. Dinner at Tasmania's Garden Island.
This is the life that drew the island's present owner, Mr Robert Barr, and his family out of Melbourne and down to the estuary of the Huon River when he sold his suburban brassworks and looked for something different.
"It's very peaceful. You haven't got neighbours to worry you," he said.
"What you have got is a nest of sea eagles up one side of the island, and loads of natural beauty. It's pretty hard to take."
Got a spare $1 million to $1.5 million? It could be yours. The 54-hectare island, about 750 metres offshore from mainland Tasmania, is for sale by tender with its three houses, workshops, tractors and work boats.
Mr Barr said the isolation that he so much enjoyed was posing a problem for some of the family, who wanted to be closer to schools and relations.
Island life attracts colourful people, and Garden Island has had its share. A local sawmiller gave it to his daughter as a wedding present in 1913. A member of London's Tussaud family bought it in the 1950s. Inventors have come and gone.Owners have raised chinchilla rabbits, kept a small local lighthouse and built a music recording studio. The Barrs bought it nine years ago and settled in to enjoy life. An oyster and mussel lease is under development, they cruise local waters in a vintage wooden yacht and do what Mr Barr describes as "quite a lot" of fishing - the kind that recently yielded the salmon.
He insisted that there were few drawbacks to the life. "You have to watch out for snakes, but then, you have to do that anywhere in Tasmania."
A bushfire that swept over the island eight years ago brought home the reality of their isolation. So they installed a reticulated firefighting system.
Rising 40 metres above sea level, the island is partly bush covered, and a grove of fruit trees has been planted in an area that Mr Barr thinks might make a nice nine-hole golf course. There are no roads for cars, but a gravel track and jetties at each end of the island.
Winter would bring cold Southern Ocean weather, but on a recent warm summer's day, the Barrs were out enjoying themselves.
And if maintaining Garden Island sounds a bit too much, there is a resident caretaker. "He knows where everything is," Mr Barr said. "He's pretty handy with outboard motors. And he would be pretty pleased to go with the place."
© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald
