This time, chef and farmer Paul West explores the wild Furneaux
Islands in Bass Strait.
There are over 50 islands in the Furneaux group, dotted around
Bass Strait.
Sculpted by the sea, they boast towering mountains of granite
and deserted beaches, dense bush land and turquoise water.
They're also teeming with wildlife.
You can't help but be blown away by the sheer beauty of this
place.
But it also seems like a really hard place to live.
I want to find out what it takes to call this wild paradise home.
Locals have told me that to survive down here, you need to
rely on your neighbors.
However, I'm on my way to meet an exception to that rule.
I've heard about a man who lives in a very remote corner of the
island.
He's Flinders Island's very own Robinson Crusoe.
G'day Paul.
Nice spot mate.
Did you have a good drive in?
I found it eventually. You're a fair way out here, mate.
Look at this place.
Did you build everything here yourself?
Yes.
So was a lot of this stuff driftwood off the beach?
Yeah.
And what are the materials are you using?
There's a bit of everything, really, in there.
Well a lot comes from the tip, which is everybody's gold mine,
I think
This place is like a driftwood kingdom.
A labyrinth of color and light.
These buildings are incredible, Arne.
Oh, yeah. This is a great room Arne.
Arne tells me he's originally from Sweden.
And that's got me thinking, 'How did he end up here on the other
side of the world?'
Well, I didn't want to become a slave so I ran off to sea when I
was 16.
An uncle got me an apprenticeship on a big tanker.
And in living a lifestyle like this, I mean, some of the other
people on the island might call you a hermit or a loner, how
would you describe yourself?
Well, that's probably correct. Yeah. And a hopeless dreamer.
There's something about this isolated place, which seems to
attract real characters, people who want to live unorthodox
lives.
But beyond the plentiful sea, and the rugged charm of these
islands lies a bloody and violent history.
It began with the invasion of European sealers in the late
18th century.
And some of the sealers, known as straitsman, kidnapped
Aboriginal women for their wives.
Vicki Green is an Aboriginal elder and a direct descendant of
these communities.
I'm six generations from Mannalargenna.
He was the leader of the Northeast people.
A great warrior and a medicine man.
He's buried at Wybalenna, died here is as part of the forced
exodus from Tasmania.
And that was deemed to be the last of the Tasmanian Aborigines
with the exception of Truganini.
Of course, that wasn't so.
There were several of our women living with sealers on Cape
Barren and on the outer islands around Flinders Island.
And they eventually became a community and it is through
those women that our society survives now.
These islands are a place of great contrast.
On one hand, you've got incredible natural beauty.
But on the other, they're a place of great sadness.
Against all the odds, the Aboriginal communities of the
Furneaux Islands have endured.
It really is an amazing story of survival.
The original people that settled would have been the sealers that
came out in the early 1800s.
And they obtained Aboriginal wives.
And from there the descendants were called the straitspeople,
basically, of Bass Strait.
Would you describe yourself as a straitsperson?
I was born here so I'm a straitsperson.
What characteristics define a straitsperson?
Sometimes it's a good sense to humour.
I know most of the rocks around the place because I've hit most
Not today though? Not today.
of them.
Chris Rhodes, or Rockjaw as he is known, navigates these
treacherous seas with ease.
His family have been here for generations making a living from
the sea.
Today he runs fishing and hunting tours on the island.
Here we go. What do we got?
Look at that! Nice little salmon.
Ah ha ha. What a rookie mistake.
I've got my lunch Paul, where's yours?
Rockjaw is taking me to my next destination, Cape Barren Island.
And I've got to say, I was glad to see land when we eventually
arrived.
Cape Baron is the second biggest island in the Furneaux group.
The government handed back the island to the local Aboriginal
community in 2005.
G'day boys.
Now they run the place and about 70 people call the island home.
So where we off too today?
Big Dog Island, mutton bird island.
We're going to go down and check out the shed.
Nice.
Aaron Maynard belongs to one of the oldest families in the
Furneaux Islands.
Yeah, there's one right here actually.
He operates a mutton birding shed here on Big Dog Island.
You got one there?
Yep, got one.
Ah, look at that. So this is the famous mutton bird?
This is the famous mutton bird, mate.
How many mountain birds do you think you hear on the island?
I think the last count on this island, there's about 2 and a
bit million.
Wow.
How nutritious are they as a meat?
Very.
These are absolutely packed with omega-3.
And how do they taste?
Beautiful, mate.
Because I've had they're a little bit of an acquired taste.
They are, you either love them or you don't.
Oh yeah, that's a good tasting bird.
Mate, I could honestly say I've never tasted anything like that.
Yeah, haha. Its its own, that's for sure.
What's amazed me about life here in the Furneaux Islands is how
closely it's tied to the land and the sea.
Like the islands themselves, the individuals that choose to call
this place home are unforgettable.
Despite the stain of the past, the people here are prepared to
stay and tough it out,
to survive in this rugged, but a hingly beautiful part of A
stralia.