Beswick family writes new chapter for historic farm

Gaunts Farm at Nietta has a long and fascinating history, but a whole new chapter is being written by the latest generation of custodians - Adrian and Kelly Beswick.

The couple moved to the North-West to help Adrian’s aunty Alison Miles and uncle Chris Miles, who owns the property along with their sister Judy.

It’s a succession plan that now involves cousins, and has taken the unique 190ha property in the north-west central coast hinterland in a new direction with agri-tourism, paddock-to-plate produce and farmer’s market  sales.

The couple both work at the North-West Regional Hospital – Adrian in health workforce management and Kelly as the pharmacy manager, simultaneously raising their two children, Oliver, 9 and Max, 6, and working on the land to find a fresh way forward for what has traditionally been an Angus cattle enterprise.

With fertile red volcanic basalt soil, high annual rainfall of 1300mm, a high altitude of 500 metres and some of the cleanest air in the world, it’s long been a recipe for growing lush pasture and producing superb livestock.

The Castra Rivulet flows through Gaunts Farm, featuring Dynamo, Step, Castra, Cascade and Liabootah Waterfalls. 

“Everything had been scaled back after my granddad passed and the farmwork was getting too much for my aunt and uncle making it’s future uncertain, so I decided to help build a succession plan that involved a wider spread of family members,” Adrian said.

“Moving closer and reintroducing cattle to the farm was the first step – luckily granddad had kept the bulls so we cut hay to feed them and started the rebuilding process, including buying sheep.

“The beauty of sheep farming is that you can bring the kids into the game – they love helping out at lamb marking time.

“The aim is to diversify and sell our produce at the Devonport Farmer’s Market and soon we’ll be starting up direct sales and delivery to the public, who love knowing that their food is being grown and processed in less than 100km of food miles.”

Local meat processor Sam Trethewey from the Local Meat Company takes care of the slaughter and vacuum packaging, which Adrian said is important as people tend to look for similar packing to what they are used to from supermarkets.

“Whether it’s fresh or fresh frozen, the whole process from paddock to plate can be as little as a week,” he said.

“We take our orders online and aside from the traditional side or whole beast we do various lamb packs, 500g diced beef packs, roasts, cutlet racks and marinated backstraps for the barbecue.

“At Agfest and some markets we also run Gaunt’s Grill and sell lamb, bacon and egg burgers and slow-roasted lamb and gravy rolls with all the meat cooked over a woodfire.”

This comes as no surprise for those who remember Adrian working at Ulverstone McDonald’s as a teenager or at Hudson’s Café during his university years, the background in hospitality proving to be handy.

In fact it was during those university years, while living with his Aunty that the two planned to restore the farm’s heritage buildings, including the 1886 original homestead to create a new accommodation arm to the family business.

“When I felt ready to come back it really was simply a path of fate, and I dived in headfirst, even undertaking the Tasmanian Leaders’ Program in 2019 in readiness for what was to come,” Adrian said.

“I left the program with an even bigger vision based on agri-tourism and for the past five years have been pushing hard in that direction – incrementally and sustainably.”

“It’s a love job so far, we don’t pay ourselves, but we’re making progress,” Adrian said.

“We’ve purchased a new refrigerated food trailer to display the meat and store whole carcasses to take to market if necessary.

“We’re transitioning to selling from the farm gate, and welcoming the public to see the process all the way through, and part of that is understanding that sometimes it’s hard on the farm and not everything goes to plan at times.”

From weighing livestock and adding eID tags to learning about condition scoring to exploring new markets, it’s all a learning curve that the Beswicks are embracing.

“I used to go fencing with my grandad out the back of the farm and he taught me how to handsplit posts. Now I rely on other experts to show me the modern ways of farming,” he said.

“We’re embracing regenerative farming practises with intensive grazing and long breaks which suits a property that is 500m above sea level and regularly sees snow.”

“At the moment we’re really trying to get a handle on field input costs to maximise the viability of the farm - we’ve been paying huge numbers for synthetic fertiliser and that’s something we need to reduce.”

Ticking away in the background are regular events at Gaunt’s Farm, from private weddings and music festivals to seasonal farm open days.

Future events include astronomer Martin George visiting for a stargazer’s night, author Rachael Treasure for a fireside chat evening and a murder mystery long table dinner.

Guests from around the world come and go to the beautifully restored Button’s Cottage, built in 1886.

Fully refurbished in 2008 with modern amenities, Button's Cottage retains the original split paling kitchen, ceiling and walls, offering self-contained accommodation for up to four people.

While the main house, on the opposite side of The Castra Rivulet, burned down in 1970, both feature the historic hydro system on their doorstep that once provided 240 volt power  to the property.

“Going forward it’s about trying to scale what we’ve started so that it’s cost effective to maintain and it provides an improvement for the next generation while offering a balanced lifestyle for my family,” Adrian said.