Tino Carnevale
Ah, we came down here, we were coming down here for the Koonya Garlic Festival. We were looking at other places to buy. We wanted land. And we realised that this place ticked all the boxes. And since we’ve moved down here, more like you want good land, you want good water, you want access to services, schools, etc. We have two young daughters. You look at the community that surrounds you, and the community here is quite amazing. It’s such a wonderful, eclectic mix of people.
Joel Rheinberger
Let’s talk about your actual property. What were you looking for in an individual property?
Tino Carnevale
We actually only really wanted five to 10 acres. We ended up with 50. We’ve got a lot of bush. And that was something that I thought would be lovely to have, but it was kind of aspirational and sort of, I never thought I’d get it. So to have that, and then to have a lovely little sort of 10 acre area that’s cleared and some of the nicest land I could have hoped for. We have a lovely deep soil. We have plenty of water. We have gravity fed dams, so I have no need for a pump. We’ve got all the wildlife you could hope for. We’ve got a pair of eagles that live up in the back of the hill, which I name Hillary. I think that’s a bit boring, but you know, I’ve been trying to find all the hill names around the peninsula. And my little hill, although it’s part of another hill, doesn’t have a name. So I’ve decided to name her Hillary.
Joel Rheinberger
Originally, I think you were talking about having a market garden and then surrounding it with some olive trees, something like that?
Tino Carnevale
Well, now it’s just going to be all olives. No, there will be some grapes as we originally wanted as well, but now it’s pretty much going to be all olives. So we’ll plant the whole hillside out with olives. We’ll have about an acre of grapes. We’ve got a lovely vineyard next door and a wine cellar.
Joel Rheinberger
So a neighbour is happy for you to bring your grapes over and work there?
Tino Carnevale
Yeah, yeah. So we can go and take our grapes over there and get them all bottled up. And so Premaydena Hill will hopefully be our winemakers in the future.
Joel Rheinberger
Chateau du Tino.
Tino Carnevale
Well, you know, it’s Tino vino. And if I grow pinot, well, you can make the other, the next part of that rhyme. But yeah, that’s the plan. The 40 acres out the back is all going to be bush and it can stay bush, and I’m very happy about that. It is in some ways less work for me, but the 10 acres here, we’re really hoping to get to the late autumn of our lives and be picking olives. And it’d be lovely. And it’s all on a slope, so you kind of shake all the trees and they’ll all slope downhill into one point. You just scoop them up with shovels.
Joel Rheinberger
Going high tech. I’m glad to hear it there, Tino. An interesting thing for an adult when you’re moving your life this kind of distance is making new friends. How have you found that process down here?
Tino Carnevale
Fairly easy. I’ve joined a lot of the clubs around the place. I joined the cricket club, now vice president of the cricket club and captain of the cricket club. Not a very good cricketer to be honest.
Joel Rheinberger
They just want someone to take over the admin. I understand that.
Tino Carnevale
Pretty much. It was kind of, no, no, great group of people. And a lot of people who have been down here for many years and a lot of people who have just come down here. So it’s a really good mix. As well as the fire department, there’s-
Joel Rheinberger
I notice you’re wearing a firey’s hat.
Tino Carnevale
Yeah. It’s a bit covered in mud and dirt, but-
Joel Rheinberger
As it should be, a country fire volunteer.
Tino Carnevale
Thank you, Joel. That means a lot. So through that, there’s, it’s a like-minded group of people who are all sort of interested in looking after the land and the people and the infrastructure around here. So that-
Joel Rheinberger
That’s just a mouse running along.
Tino Carnevale
The rolls of hay that the neighbour, the cattle farmers next door, they’ve all moved the hay. So every time they move a bale, all the mice from underneath come into my shed. So thank you, mice.
Joel Rheinberger
Do you have any livestock here?
Tino Carnevale
I have seven sheep.
Joel Rheinberger
Few enough to name them.
Tino Carnevale
I can name them all. I’m not sure if they deserve names. They’ve eaten many things, many things that mean a lot to me. The sheep’s names are Guacamole and Gilda. There’s also Avis, Atlas, all As, Joi named them. I could just make it up from now on, like Amarils and whatever.
Joel Rheinberger
What have they eaten that you care deeply about?
Tino Carnevale
The olive trees. The thing about olive trees. Yeah.
Joel Rheinberger
Well, they’re delicious.
Tino Carnevale
I don’t want to talk about it. Thank you, Joel. You’ve just offended the sheep. I give them 10 acres of great land, like beautiful land, premium land. And sheep don’t need that. They don’t even really like it, I think that much. But they pay me back by eating all my cherry trees, all my olives, my silverbeet. They eat pretty much everything that I plant around the house. So my dixonias, my manferns that I’ve got here, they’ve all been nibbled by the sheep. So my relationship with the sheep is very complicated.
Joel Rheinberger
Have you thought of this newfangled idea of a fence?
Tino Carnevale
Oh, yes. Yes. But I built a really nice fence for the 10 acres around the house to keep all the fauna out there. The deal was the 40 acres at the back were for the local fauna.
Joel Rheinberger
Little hoppy things?
Tino Carnevale
Exactly. Everything that lives out there, they can stay out there. And then this bit was for us, and we would do our horticulture and grow our plants. But the sheep, they were sort of salvaged. So they’re kind of rescue sheep. They kind of should be a little bit more sympathetic to us, but they have their stomachs and their taste buds, and they seem to want to eat everything. But yes.
Joel Rheinberger
Are you going to get rid of the sheep at some point? That’s going to have to happen by the sound of it.
Tino Carnevale
This is the problem. Every time I find a new bush or shrub that it’s been nibbled on or eaten or decimated and run over, sometimes they don’t even eat it, they just run over it. Then the next morning I’ll be going off to work and one of them will come up and they will ba at me and they will rub against me and they’ll be very affectionate. And I’m a big softy, I suppose. But one day there will be fencing out the back, and the sheep will learn to live a new existence out there. But they’re merinos, so they’re mostly for wool, because Joi is spinning and she knits.
These sheep have got a lot of wool on them. Actually, every time I have to sort of wrangle them, it’s quite an ordeal because I’m not set up for sheep. I know how to deal with them, but I’m not set up. I don’t have a crusher or anything. So, we have to erect this sort of a elaborate crush out of old gates and then sort of back the ute up and somehow entice them in. And my dog, who is a lovely sheepdog, Dougal, and he’s quite good with the sheep instinctively, but I’m not the best trainer of sheepdogs and we tend to be counterproductive. This is a nice way of saying it.
Joel Rheinberger
The other thing taking up a lot of space in your shed, Tino Carnevale, is this boat. This timber boat. Where’s that from?
Tino Carnevale
This is a cooter boat. Her name is Seal. She is from, I think, Wynyard. She was built in 1937, I think. She’s King Billy pine.
Joel Rheinberger
Did you get this to remake? What’s the story?
Tino Carnevale
I worked for, I think, about three or four days on a cherry orchard and I got it here. I worked for another day for the transport and yeah, it’s ah…
Joel Rheinberger
So, you bartered for this? Your days work for a boat?
Tino Carnevale
Yes. And then when I got it here, as you do with these kind of things, you know, what have I done?
Joel Rheinberger
It’s a big boat. How big is it?
Tino Carnevale
19 foot, I think. She’s got really lovely lines. She was actually an old commercial boat that worked out of Bass Strait and she had an engine in her and the prop is sitting just there. But I’m undecided. I’ve stripped all back. I’ve sanded it down and I need to drop the keel off. So, I need to somehow lift this extremely heavy boat in my shed. But lucky I have a couple of good mates that are far better at engineering things than I am.
Joel Rheinberger
You need a block and tackle, my friend.
Tino Carnevale
I don’t know if the shed would take it. It’s that heavy.
Joel Rheinberger
You need a truck jack, my friend.
Tino Carnevale
I think so.
Joel Rheinberger
Here is the question. Is there any way that you can use this wool in fixing up this boat?
Tino Carnevale
Entwining the two. I really like that. That’s like two birds with one stone, Joel. I do have a dream. We’ve dug a dam just down in the front paddock here. A bit of a folly, I suppose. It’s just there for prettiness.
Joel Rheinberger
For frogs.
Tino Carnevale
Yeah, yeah. And the sheep to drink, I suppose. But I did think I would float this in the dam and fill it. I could fill it with wool and then have a good little kip in there one night. That’d be worth the effort, I think. I’d smell a little bit like lanolin, but you know.
Joel Rheinberger
You’d get out with nary a wrinkle in sight.
Tino Carnevale
Well, maybe I could sort of market that as some kind of, you know, Tasman Peninsula experience.
Joel Rheinberger
Come and meet the greasy man of Premaydena.
Tino Carnevale
Or you could be the greasy man or lady, depending if you wanted to go in the lanolin boat.