The Night I…Slept In A Farmer’s Barn in Tasmania

The night I slept in a farmer’s barn in Tasmania, Australia

Being a global nomad and not having a home means you’re constantly changing your style of accommodation. You’re also willing to take whatever accommodation comes about. How about a free night sleeping in a farmer’s barn in Tasmania then? Yes please, I’ll take it! We’re going back to April 2010 for this story…the night I slept in a farmer’s barn in Tasmania.

The side entrance to the barn where we could park our cars for the night.

Now bear in mind it was winter time (and Tassie gets cold), it was in the middle of nowhere and I was getting up at 6am every day to go broccoli harvesting. Even having a bed was a Godsend to be honest, as I often just slept in a car or my tent. Camping cost $5 per week, sleeping in my car was free but a lot colder. When farmer Joe Cook threw up the option of a FREE night in his barn I was well up for it!

The mystic charm of Tasmania provided me the experience of sleeping in a converted barn!

OK so this sounds like I was going to end up sleeping with sheep, pigs, cows and possibly wakening up with horse shit on my pillow/haystack. In fact this was the best night sleep I had in months – honestly. This was actually a converted barn. So I drove to this house on the edge of Longford, got to park my car there, walked past two dogs and the “barn” turned out to be a shed that had a hot shower, electric and I even had wireless internet (I used a Telstra adapter for this – something I needed to keep my travel blog up to date in Tasmania).

My bed and of course my laptop for updating my travel blog – in the magical wilderness of a night in a farmer’s converted barn in Tasmania.

I shared a room in there with fellow traveller and worker Pierre Renard (from France) and Jeff the tractor driver. I used the internet to write a travel blog at the time and then went fast to sleep in the mystic rural wilderness charm of Tasmania. I was up early for work, left the farmer’s barn behind and ended my stint on broccoli farming a few days later after 3 months endless broccoli work (I ended up on cauliflowers next).

Yes there was even a bathroom in the converted barn – with hot water and a working toilet! Immense.

These sort of rare and random travel moments are memories I will always savour. I have slept in many different places (must have had a night’s sleep in over 2,000 different beds in my lifetime), but this is one of the most cherished and random. More posts on “The Night I…”