The Chestnuts were looking for a small garden to grow vegetables, but that changed when they saw a property with a stunning vista across Tasmania’s North West Bay.
Story + Photos Andrew Bain
When Bill and Margaret Chestnut were searching for a retirement block in Tasmania 24 years ago, they envisaged something small – maybe a couple of hectares – and filled with vegetables. Instead, they were won over by a view, buying a 9ha coastal property outside the southern town of Margate, looking across North West Bay to the tip of North Bruny Island. The only trouble was that the house was ringed by a barbed-wire fence, the land was choked with hawthorn and blackberries, and it was no place to grow veggies.
“It was just jungle,” Bill says. “The barbed-wire fence was originally to keep cattle out, and inside it were weeds of cultivation, and outside were woody weeds.”
On moving in, Bill set out each day with a brush cutter and chainsaw, slowly hacking into the tangle of bush. “We rapidly discovered that you had to plant as you went,” he says. “Otherwise, you just had a small, cleared area and there were fresh weeds growing up behind you.”
This story excerpt is from Issue #159
Outback Magazine: February/March 2025
