March 7, 2026

I feel like I am following the supply chain in Australia. When we were in New Plymouth the dock was filled with fresh cut timber ready to be shipped to China. Now in Burnie, the pier was packed with woodchips ready to be shipped for paper making.

But what I thought was a large number of woodchips was a piddling compared to what Burnie used to produce. For many decades, Burnie was one of the largest woodchip export industries in the world. The industry was closely tied to the pulp and paper sector that made Burnie a “paper town.” Now I recognize how a community can be closely tied to an industry. In the 1980s, OSHA introduced important cotton dust exposure standards for textile mills to reduce cases of byssinosis, commonly called “white lung.” I ran employee assistance programs for Fran Tarkenton and Associates in Greenwood, South Carolina a major “mill town.” The term “white lung” came from the white cotton dust filling the air in mills with pale dust coating workers’ clothing and lungs. The textile mills ran 24 hours a day and everyone and everyone’s kin worked at the mill. There was company housing, a company store and tokens that could be used for purchases to be reconciled when you got your check. So it was in Burnie, Australia.

The major employer was Australian Paper Manufacturers, which built a large pulp and paper mill in Burnie in the 1930s. Any of the residents of Burnie who could work were employed by the paper mill. But that all changed with the digital age. Who sends correspondence anymore? All documents are now signed by DocuSign. The paper industry plummeted and what remains is a fraction of woodchips compared to what was once produced. The old pulp and paper mill used to dominate the waterfront with huge industrial buildings, chimneys, and woodchip facilities. Many visitors walking along Burnie’s waterfront today don’t realize that the area once handled mountains of woodchips and paper products every day. I surely didn’t.

So now the 20,000 residents of Burnie had to reimagine their destiny. And reimagine they did!

Burnie had three things going for it: very pure water, high-quality Australian barley and strong dairy farms. So, in 1999 a group of local dairy farmers started the Hellyer Road Distillery and as the saying goes “the rest is history.”

Burnie has become one of the most respected whisky regions in the world. In 2014 their Oak single malt won World’s Best Single Malt Whisky at the World Whiskies Awards. The win shocked the whisky world because it beat Scotland and Ireland. Some believe Burnie’s sea air contributes to subtle flavor characteristics during maturation.

Hellyers Road is most famous for their cream liqueur. Burnie’s region has a strong dairy industry, so combining local cream with their whisky made sense when they started the distillery. This is actually similar to how Baileys was created in Ireland in the 1970s, combining two major local industries. (I am reminded that our dear Irish mother, on yearly special occasions when my father would take her to a restaurant, she would always order a Bailey’s Irish Cream.)

Now I must say that residents of Burnie like to drink. A fellow passenger shared with me that they went on a distillery tour that started at 10:00 a.m. and was told by the tour guide: “If 10:00 a.m. is too early to drink you are in the wrong country.” All kidding aside, residents don’t drink at home as much as “go out for a drink.” The pubs in Bernie are usually larger venues with multiple areas: bar, restaurant, and beer gardens. It is very common to serve full meals like steak, fish and chips, or schnitzel. And outdoor beer gardens are popular because of the climate. And I’m told it is very common in Burnie for pub patrons to “shout a round”
where friends take turns buying drinks for an entire group.

It seems that these traditions are more than just consuming alcohol but celebrating how a community that was once devasting could reimage itself into a new flourishing city.

There is much to be proud of in doing that.

It would make you want to raise a toast!

We have three sea days before our last port in Australia, Freemantle, located far west in Australia on the Indian Ocean. This will be our gateway to Bali, Malaysia and Thailand.

Thanks for traveling with us.