TASMANIA

Southern Tasmania's Huon Valley is blessed with fertile soil, a temperate climate and some of the world's cleanest air — something farmers and growers are harnessing to transform the region into an agritourism hub.

- Sofia Levin

Julie Sade has a unique problem: her Highland cattle are too friendly. People visit her farm stay, Highland Getaway in Ranelagh, for the opportunity to brush the “giant grass puppies”, as she calls them.

“If you brush too softly, they'll go to someone else who brushes harder," she says.

I'm drawn to a shaggy, reddish-coated calf named Jasmine, whose glassy eyes close in delight with each brushstroke. “They're like a two-year-old child; they're gorgeous animals but they'll push the boundaries." True to form, when I stop to take a photo, Jasmine gives me a gentle nudge with her head, urging me to continue.

Ranelagh is located at the gateway to the Huon Valley, a region known for its farms, fruit orchards and cool-climate wines.

This year, the Tasmanian government has injected millions of dollars into developing this sort of agritourism experience, but Julie was ahead of the curve when she started her business in 2018. And it's not a bad place to work. From one of the suites attached to her home, I look out over paddocks sloping gently towards the tannin-brown Huon River. In the distance stands a quaint wooden house on the water's edge, where guests can spot platypus. Not that I can see much of the little cabin this morning, the pine-blanketed view slowly emerging from fairytale-like cloud.

Just across the river, at the bottom of the property is Glen Huon Dairy, where Karen and Richard Butler tend to a different herd.

The couple moved to Tasmania in 2017 after their UK farm tenancy ended. They work for Nick Haddow, who purchased the property a year earlier to better control the quality of the milk going into his Bruny Island Cheese Company products. “This milk has to be used within 24 hours of leaving the farm, and you can see it labelled here," says Karen, pointing to a date on a semi-hard wedge of cheese.