Painting vacation in Tasmania, Seascapes

Planet

You will be staying in the cottages we built on our 36 Acre property in North East Tasmania. Our cottages were crafted using timber felled and milled on our property and stone reclaimed from local roadworks. The gardens surrounding the cottages are maintained by native marsupials!

Through supporting our local stream-care project with the planting over around 2000 endemic trees and management of invasive weeds we actively maintain the riparian reserve that surrounds our property.

We embrace a carbon-negative goal. We are achieving this by tree-planting and only using renewable power. We generate electricity from micro-hydro and solar PV, with battery and grid back-up—exporting an average of 85 kWh into the grid per day. We provide three-phase EV chargers for guests (and others by appointment).

Currently (2022) there are few options for visitors to Tasmania to hire electric cars. But we are hopeful this situation will improve. This year we applied for Government funding to import an electric passenger vehicle for our tour guests. Tasmania is considered to be a carbon-negative destination because most power is renewable.

But for the moment we will be driving our guests in a diesel mini-bus.

We are registered with the Land for Wildlife program in Tasmania (now Tasmanian land Conservancy inc; member no 440). By planting endemic shrubs and grasses, we are proud protect a small colony of endangered marsupials, including quolls and bandicoots.

Our guests are encouraged to use less disposable plastic, recycle and compost their waste. We also provide packaging-free toiletries which are made in Australia by an equal access employer. Because of these small changes about 2,700 kg of waste doesn’t go to local land-fill each year. The compost is great for our small vegetable garden, too! In 2017 we won a Northern Tasmania Councils’ “waste Not” award for these small changes.

When visiting our wild natural beaches, John Gibb and your guide (James) will remind you of the importance of not disturbing the habitat of our coastal birds. Of course, the only thing you will leave behind will be your foot prints on the sand, and the only thing you will take with you will be your memories.

People

We are a family-owned and operated business employing local people. Our employees and regular contractors are all long-term local residents in our community.

Where possible we avoid using online-travel agents that send profits outside our community and don’t pay taxes within Australia
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Through our art retreats we support local artists and photographers.

This art retreat lead by John Gibb will introduce you to our Tasmanian culture. John will show you some lesser-known secluded beaches which have been important to his creative experience.

Our region and our property has an interesting Chinese tin-mining history. On your first day here, Graham will show you our sculpture walk through an abandoned alluvial tin-mine and share some of this history with you.

The menu hasn’t been forgotten either! We will make sure you taste the best of the local produce from our seas and paddocks. If the possums and pademelons don’t get there first, you may even eat some of our home garden vegetables. We include a vegetarian choice with all meals served, and can cater for a vegan diet, too.

If you decide to extend your stay before or after your painting vacation we can recommend an amazing local wildlife adventure tour company – another all family-owned and operated tourism business.