A little over a decade ago, I was living in a small English commuter town, a 40-minute train ride north of London, when my husband was approached about a job in Hobart.
“Hobart?” I said. “Where’s that?”
I fired up my laptop. Google Maps told me that Hobart was the capital of Tasmania, an Australian island state almost 18,000 kilometres away. News headlines were still filled with the bushfire horrors of Dunalley.
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. It’s too far away and it’s on fire.”
“Perhaps …” said my husband. “Perhaps we could take a look?”
We took a look. My husband, me and our four-year-old son. We flew from Heathrow to Hobart and back for a five-day visit. I had no idea you could travel so far, and for so long, without falling off the edge of this lovely earth.
Dizzy and delirious with jet lag, I left my bank card in the Jetstar ticket machine at an airport en route. When we arrived, our hotel room was grubby and noisy, overlooking one of the four-lane roads that punches right through the centre of Hobart. A real estate agent was enlisted to show us around the city, and our four-year-old vomited all over the back of her car.
Wide awake at 1am, I clung on to my phone, messaging friends back home.
“It’s definitely not happening,” I thumbed. “I hate it here.”
By day three, things had started to improve. We moved to a hotel with a view of the waterfront, and I was reminded how proximity to saltwater makes everything better. We discovered some of Hobart’s street art. We found the city’s bookshops, its brilliant little grocery stores and a delicious, locally brewed craft beer that came in a curvy brown bottle – all the things we had felt were missing from our lives in the UK.
Early on day four, I was met at the hotel by a mum and her toddler – a work connection for my husband, and a potential new friend for me. She took us to an incredible park right by the river, a 10-minute drive from the CBD (the Australian term for city centre). She brought tea in a Thermos, laid out a picnic blanket, then sent the kids off to play while she gave me the lowdown on life as a parent in Tasmania.
At one point, my son came running over. “Mummy!’ he shouted. “Come and look, there are parrots!” He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to a flock of eastern rosellas that were cleaning up crumbs from the barbecue area. I was as charmed as he was. Could I really be persuaded to move across the world by the promise of parrots at the park?
Perhaps. Perhaps I could.
On our last morning in Hobart, my husband, son and I went for breakfast before heading back to the airport. When we stepped outside, ready to collect our bags and pile into the back of a taxi, there was a spectacular rainbow arching above kunanyi/Mount Wellington.
We turned to each other and laughed.
“Fine,” I conceded. “Let’s give it a go.”
Ten years later, here we are. Still in lutruwita/Tasmania. Still giving it a go.
We have moved from temporary visa holders to permanent residents to Australian citizens. Our citizenship ceremony in 2019 took place at the same riverside spot where my son first shouted about the rosellas – a place we still refer to as the parrot park.
The warm air that day was thick with smoke from bushfires – down the Huon Valley this time – and the speeches by local politicians were drowned out by raucous squawks from a flock of cockatoos overhead.
There are people we miss, of course. We are a long way from many friends and family members we love, and it would be easier if it didn’t take two full days’ air travel and several months’ salary to visit them.
But this is the choice we made, and there are advantages too. Being far from our original support networks has nudged us to make closer, deeper connections here than we might have done otherwise. Thank goodness for that, because everything on this island relies on word of mouth. From the best firewood to the most reliable plumber, if you don’t know someone who knows someone, you don’t stand a chance.
When my husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, and went through a gruelling seven weeks of radiation treatment, not a single day passed without some gift being quietly dropped on our porch. Soups and smoothies, muffins and doughnuts, books and flowers and cards. We were so kindly, tightly held, we often cried with gratitude for the generous community we joined.
Not long after our big move, we were advised that the best way to approach Tasmania is to live like a tourist – to enjoy the restaurants and beaches and festivals without getting too caught up in the complexities of the place. I can certainly understand that temptation. There are intricate histories here: longstanding allegiances and unseen alliances that are impossible to wrap your head around. Local politics can feel slow-moving, conservative, and frustratingly lacking in transparency. And there is the inescapable fact that Tasmania is small. Very small. If you’re having coffee with a friend, they will always, without exception, check over their shoulder before sharing gossip.
But I think you owe it to a place – especially when you are a guest on the unceded lands of people who have called this island home for at least 30,000 years – to live with more care and respect than a tourist. At the very least you have to remain curious: aware of how little you know and how much there is to learn.
After a decade here, I feel like we have barely scratched the surface of lutruwita/Tasmania’s history, culture or geography. I can take a short walk with the dog around our suburb and see half a dozen species of native plant I don’t yet know the names for. I still stop in my tracks when I see a currawong perched on a branch, or a pademelon peering out of the bush. I’ve rediscovered a sense of wonder here that I haven’t felt since childhood.
My son is now 14 – and delightfully Tasmanian. He wears shorts all winter and loves nothing better than tucking into a Banjo’s sausage roll for his morning snack. For several years, he was a dedicated Sea Shepherd volunteer, spending his weekends helping out on market stalls and beach clean-ups. More recently, he has turned his attention from the sea to the sky, and started taking flying lessons.
lutruwita/Tasmania is not just a backdrop for my family’s story. It is not a backdrop for any individual story. It is a layered, difficult, beautiful place and I know we are mere visitors here, tiny specks on the island’s immense history. Nonetheless, I am so grateful for the past 10 years, for the rainbow and rosellas that guided us here, and for all that is still to come.
