This wild and rugged rock is home to a warm and welcoming community who remain tied to their past while forging new paths into the future.
Over the bonnet of a salt-worn LandRover, the winding tracks of Quoin Farm reveal paddocks dotted with paperbarks that are locked in a dance with the wind. “Living on an island… times get tough,” grazier Tom Youl
says, as he and his young family spill out of the vehicle onto their Killiecrankie property. They’ve called it home for nearly 13 years but their ties run far deeper — woven into a century of history. Flinders Island has a way of keeping those who are meant to stay.
The long strip of rock, part of the Furneaux Group of Islands, is separated from the mainland by a wild stretch of ocean traversed only by ferry or tiny plane. And something happens on that journey over the blustery Bass Strait: self-sufficiency is sharpened, bonds are tightened, and a sense of freedom and opportunity is gained. “We’re all equal here,” Tom says. “It doesn’t matter how much money you earn or what you do.” Isolation is an equaliser among the 1,000 or so islanders — farmers who make a living from the land, who are also friends that show up for each other when they’re needed. Out here, community is everything.
At just 1,300 square kilometres, the whole island is smaller than many mainland stations, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in promise. Thanks to a mild climate and above average rainfall, it’s one of the best places in Australia for beef production. Still, isolation brings its own challenges. “We can run out of feed pretty quickly,” Tom says, “and we don’t have the luxury of having lots of [it] on hand.
There are obviously a few restraints but we embrace most of them and that’s all part of living here.” Right now, he’s in the thick of weaning and has 1200 Angus breeders and their calves in the yards. Their mournful wails catch on the breeze in a reminder that growth often comes from struggle – something the people of Flinders understand well.
Everyone here reinvents themselves to survive. It’s in their DNA — forged during the 1950s Soldier Land Settlement Scheme, which brought WWII veterans and their families to the island. Scott Anderson’s grandfather was among them. “You’ve got to keep evolving, keep moving, keep watching what’s going on,” he says. “That helps us achieve our goals.” He sold the last of his sheep a few years ago and now runs a herd of poll Herefords, which are somewhat of an anomaly among all the black Angus. But in true Flinders style, Scott isn’t afraid to carve his own path.
The island was once predominantly sheep country and down in Lackrana, merinos still graze in hayed-off paddocks. On Babel Farm, the woolshed is bustling and Alan Stackhouse is working the pens in air that’s thick with lanolin. He was born on Flinders, but left as a teenager and spent his early career shearing all over Australia to save enough money to buy his own farm at “the best spot in the world”.
He and his wife Tracey now run 1200 hectares of island pastures framed by weathered granite peaks, along with 4500 merino sheep and 1600 Angus cattle. It’s a legacy for their children and their children’s children too.
Alan’s son Clark has travelled down from another family property in Victoria to man the shearing station, and is skimming a handpiece down the spine of a jittery wether. It’s all hands on deck — even little ones like Alan’s grandson Xander who spends most of the time zipping around the classing table on a plastic tricycle.
Filling the sheds with willing bodies might be easy for the close-knit Stackhouse clan, but getting the wool to market is another thing entirely. After every round of shearing, they load 45 bales into a shipping
container that makes its way by sea to Melbourne, via Bridport and Launceston in Tasmania. “Shipping is a challenge for us,” Alan admits. “It can be a month or six weeks sometimes between the property and the warehouse. But the little bit of isolation — if you call it isolation — has an added bonus because it keeps people closer together.”
His words capture the spirit of Flinders Island and seem to explain why this outpost at the edge of the world continues to prosper. Miles from markets and whipped by winds that turn metal to dust, no one is here because it’s an easy place to live, but the people who do call it home, do so because they yearn for something different. They remain committed to agricultural ingenuity and a vibrant curiosity, and as the future unfolds like the meandering tracks that connect each farm, they draw strength from their close-knit community. And that sets their story apart. “At the end of the day, we all share the same interest,” Tom Youl says, “because we all live on this rock in the middle of the ocean.”
