Table Cape Tulip Farm

The Table Cape Tulip Farm has been a labour of love for the Roberts-Thomson family since its humble beginnings in 1984. Video by Laura Smith

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:17 The farm here on top of Table Cape was purchased for my great-grandfather in 1910,

00:22 but tulips are a relatively recent addition.

00:25 Dad was inspired by his university professor when he was studying Ag Science at university,

00:32 said that Tasmania had the perfect climate for tulips,

00:36 but at that point there was no tulip growers in Tasmania.

00:39 [Music]

00:43 Once he rejoined the family farm, every generation kind of taken in a slightly different direction.

00:48 Tulips was his and mum's direction.

00:52 When they first started you could only import a couple of thousand tulips at a time, each once a year.

01:00 Import restrictions lifted soon after, then you could bring in a lot more.

01:05 [Music]

01:10 A mishap by Jenny Cox, who used to run a lot of tourism events in Burning,

01:15 and she saw that this should happen and nudged us into it basically.

01:22 By that time we were getting a patch that was just big enough for people to see from the road anyway.

01:28 I suppose in the decade of social media it has taken off.

01:33 [Music]

01:35 People can actually express their honest opinions online instantly.

01:40 Instead of you having to advertise and persuade people to come, they were just coming anyway.

01:46 [Music]

01:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]