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All good things must come to an end and so it is for our time as caretakers of the Maatsuyker Island Lighthouse. Tomorrow is our last day in this beautiful, and sometimes challenging place, and we are all packed and ready for our next exciting adventure.

We truly had no idea what we were signing up for when we submitted our applications all those months ago. It’s been so much more than we could ever have imagined in the best possible way. It’s been hard at times, for sure, the weather’s been a bitch and the isolation has been tough but we’ve had an experience so few get and we feel incredibly fortunate.

On a personal note, I guess the most important thing is that I’ve found the love of my life, my partner, my better half, my soulmate. I’m a sap, I know. In fairness, Harry is one of a kind and I can’t believe how lucky I am that he was still out there, just waiting for me to stumble onto him and snatch him up.

And so for the last time, we’re signing off with lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

Catch you all in the Arctic as our adventure continues!

Hello friends. Well, it’s official. We have less than one month before we depart the island. It’s kinda hard to wrap our heads around, to be honest.

The visit from the Friends of Maatsuyker was a raging success and Harry outdid himself with the spread for the hard workers. Other than that it’s been a fairly uneventful time here so not much to report.

But! We do have some exciting news to share. (Drum roll please…) Harry and I are excited to announce that while our time on Maatsuyker Island might be coming to end, our journey isn’t over. We’ve decided to keep going on this adventure and our application has been accepted for our next posting!

Yup! That’s right. The No Going Back boys will be continuing on this crazy ride and will be heading straight to our next exciting gig, this time just on the outskirts of the 8.2 million-acre Arctic National Park at a place called Cold Foot Camp. Apparently, the camp was so named because explorers got that far, decided it wasn’t a great idea to keep going, and turned back around, getting a case of ‘cold feet’. The camp provides food and lodging to travellers along the Dalton Highway about 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 240 miles south of the Arctic Ocean. So yeah, it’s quite literally in the middle nowhere.

It’ll be pretty different to what we’ve had here at Maatsuyker, for one, we won’t be on our own, but we’re really looking forward to it.

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

Four months! Wow. And as if on cue, we ticked over four thousand subscribers this morning! Amazing. Thank you all for taking an interest in our odd little corner of the web.

Thanks also for all your well wishes. Yes, I’m fully recovered. And no, Harry didn’t wear a nurses uniform (cheeky buggers), although that’s a thought that’ll fester…

Anyway, where was I? Oh! Our veggie garden is fully planted and we should be able to start harvesting in around a month, although some things will take longer and the next caretakers will reap the rewards of our hard work. We’re hopeful that this is something that can continue long after we’re gone and each new couple will plant out for future inhabitants.

We’ve got some visitors coming out in a couple of weeks which should be fun! The Friends of Maatsuyker is a group who monitor migratory birds and other wildlife on the island. They’re going to pop in for lunch so Harry’s going to bake up a storm. He’s already started planning the menu so it should be an event not to be missed 🙂

Catch you all later!

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

Hello, everyone. Yes, we’re still here. Sorry for worrying you all! I got the dreaded triple-lurgy – bronchitis, tonsillitis, and laryngitis. YUCK! Thankfully Harry sidestepped it so he could focus all his attention on keeping things running and lovingly nursing me back to health. He’s been a true angel and I’m now firing on all cylinders once again.

We’re making good progress on some big outdoor jobs. The extension to the storage shed has been a challenge but we’ve worked on it together and it’s nearly finished. Just another couple of fine days and we’ll be done.

The veggie patch is our next target. It’s tough to grow things here, the high winds destroying pretty much anything that peeks above the ground. So we’re planting some carrots, potatoes and onions as well as trying out a patch of pumpkin in the most protected spot. Harry has done all he can to prepare the soil and shore up the earth with wooden sleepers and rock walls for drainage given the relentless rainfall.

I can’t believe we passed the halfway mark on our adventure. Where did the time go? All too soon this adventure will be coming to an end which gives pause for thought….

Anyway, that’s a worry for another day, Harry’s calling me to get my arse into gear while there’s a brief spot of sunshine so I’ll sign off for now.

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

We have babies!!! Well, that’s what young Harold screamed at me this morning when he burst into our bedroom and woke me from my peaceful slumber.

Three pairs of short-tailed shearwaters, also known as Tasmanian Muttonbirds, had built their burrows under the front verandah and laid their eggs. With no foxes or other direct predators on the Island, it makes for a safe place to raise their little families.

Harry had been doing his research and watching them closely, waiting for the day when the chicks would finally hatch, and today was the day. He was like a kid on Christmas morning.

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We’re barreling towards the start of winter here in the Southern Hemisphere on June 1, but it seems like the weatherman in the sky didn’t get the memo. The days are shortening and it barely gets above freezing, add in the wind chill factor and it’s making for a challenging time. Thankfully we’re well-stocked with firewood and brandy and warm cuddles, so we’re doing okay.

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

Hello lovely people. We’ve made it to the two-month mark! Can you believe it? Thank you for everyone’s comments on the last post, the movie night was certainly a special one for us both.

The weather has been quite shit and our progress on the remaining big outdoor jobs has been slow but we’re plugging away regardless. 

We had a chopper drop yesterday and a visit from the peeps at Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Remote Management Team to check on how things were going and to make sure we weren’t ready to murder each other. We received a gold star rating for our work so far and Alex and Grant left happy that we were coping well. We’ve got four more months on the island but I suspect that will go fast. 

And yes, in response to all your questions, Harry and I did finally have that scrabble match and I won, of course, but we had some fun with the rules and let’s just say we both came out winners in the end 😉

Anyway, not much else to report so we’ll catch you all later.

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

Hello, fans and friends. I see a lot of you have been eagerly awaiting an update on our date night and we’re sorry to have kept you all in suspense. (Not really, but Harry said I had to apologize.)

Did the weather hold off? Did I manage to keep it a secret from Harry? Did he enjoy it? Well, as you can see from the picture, I can happily report that the answers to those questions are yes, yes, and yes!

Harry sneakily tried to extract information from me but I held firm and it was definitely worth it. It also provided the perfect opportunity to tell him that I loved him (cue the swoons) and I felt like the luckiest man alive when he told me he loved me right back. 

Of course, that might all come to a screeching halt when we finally crack open the scrabble board… so hopefully this won’t be the last update 😉

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

Hello fans and new friends! Well, well, well. Our little corner of the Internet has certainly been buzzing since our last post. Thanks for all the lovely messages and oddly keen interest in mine and Harry’s relationship. Not sure why you’re so invested but it’s been very sweet of you all. We’re doing well, still in our little bubble or ‘honeymoon phase’ as some of you have been calling it.

Needless to say Harry did see the last blog post so the cats out of the bag on the whole date night thing and it’s been a source of endless questions ever since. But I’m staying tight-lipped no matter what underhanded methods he tries to get me to give it up. Short-sheeting the bed? Really Haz? The big dufus perhaps forgot that he sleeps in the same bed. Threatening to withhold his cooking was another failed attempt which was simply countered by me threatening to withhold something else… I’m quite sure I don’t need to spell that one out. Needless to say, our hunger has been well satisfied on all fronts.

We’re nearing the end of our first month on the island and what an amazing experience it’s been. Every day presents new challenges and joys. Just yesterday, we were visited by a Peregrine Falcon, stopping by to shelter from the weather on our verandah. Today, the storms abated enough for us to trek down to a small inlet to watch a parade of Little Penguins over the smooth rocks and up onto the sand. It was really quite something.

We received our first supply drop from the mainland, Grant flying over with Alex in tow for a visit and to check-in on how we were going. We got a tick of approval for all the work we’d managed to get done which was nice too. It was great to see other humans after so long, but weirdly both Harry and I were relieved when they left and it was just the two of us again. We’ve become quite accustomed to our little bubble and so the intrusion was a bit of a shock to the system. God knows how we’re going to be in another five months from now!

The forecast for tomorrow is for… wait for it… clear skies! I’m hopeful that I’ll finally be able to treat Harry to that special date night, so stay tuned 😉

Until next time…

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!

Hello world! Louis here. Yes, Harry and I are now doing this blog thingy together. He’d kept it a secret from me, the little minx, but I caught him out last week and sat on him until he agreed I could do it with him. Alright, that’s not exactly how it happened, but I’m a sucker for the dramatics as you’ll no doubt discover. So, from here on I’ll be writing most of these posts and Harry will focus on making them beautiful with his gorgeous photography. How talented is my boyfriend? 

In case I was being too subtle there, go back and read that last sentence again… Yes, young Harold and I are now officially together. (Gives a satisfied sigh.) And all it took was being isolated on an island for two weeks and a broken bar heater to force us into sharing a bed. But based on the comments on Harry’s last post it seems that some of you may have suspected that’s where we’d ended up, so I figured why not shout it out to the world!

Right. What have we been up to? Uhm… we’ve been keeping ourselves busy indoors (stop it right now, get your minds out of the gutter!) while we wait for small breaks in the weather that allow us to tend to things outside. They’ve been few and far between, but we’ve made the most of them when they present themselves. I’ve finished the maintenance on the lighthouse and Harry has completed the refit of the boards on the verandah. Next up I’ll be doing a swap out of the solar panels and Haz will start the extension on the storage unit. They’re both huge jobs and will take us each the better part of the next month given how limited our working windows are.

I have a special date night planned for us once we get an evening with clear skies but don’t tell Haz! I’ll report back next time to let you all know how it went. Now, how does he sign these things off…?

Lots of love from the arse end of the Earth!