King Island's new season of hope

This Christmas, the people of remote King Island will celebrate an unexpected gift – the saving of their beloved dairy, and with it, the heart of their community.

- JESSICA HOWARD

From the window of a Piper Chieftain, King Island stretches below like a rumpled green blanket, its paddocks carved up by swamp paperbarks and wild sea pressing at every edge. The flight from Melbourne is short but rarely smooth. Bass Strait has a way of reminding travellers who’s in charge.

“See that big factory down there?” Nick Dobromilsky says, leaning towards his eight-year-old daughter, Eleanor, and pointing at a cluster of squat buildings near the coast.

“That’s the cheese factory.” But she doesn’t dare look. Her eyes are shut, hand clamped in his. She’s a nervous flyer, aware of every bump and dip. Nick gives a tight squeeze. They’re almost there.

Seven months ago, he and his wife, Genevieve Blanch, along with business partner Graeme Wilson, bought those buildings - home to King Island Dairy, the island’s biggest employer and an iconic Australian brand. It ended a year of uncertainty after its then owner – the Canadian giant Saputo – announced plans to shutter the dairy because it couldn’t find a new buyer.

“There aren’t many opportunities like it,” Nick says, “but there’s a lot of hard work to get the brand back up and going, and I’m still young enough to do it.”

Every week since, the 40-year-old has commuted back and forth from Melbourne in a poky 10-seater plane to oversee operations at the factory. But this is his family’s first holiday here and they have questions.

“Is there ice-cream?” asks six-year-old Harry with a gap-toothed grin.

A rock and a hard place