ISLAND LIFE

Ryan Mather says he’s usually able to rustle up a giant crayfish or two when friends visit him at his home on King Island.

“It’s a pretty common thing to do,” says Mather, an outdoor education teacher at King Island District High School. “Visitors are always surprised by their size. Here you’ll get a couple of 4kg ones in a weekend. If you cooked up one you could feed up to four to six people. They’re all around the shoreline. You can literally get them off the shore.”

Originally from Ulverstone, Mather moved to King Island in January last year to take up his first full-time teaching role after completing an education degree at the University of Tasmania in Launceston. He says that the remote island lifestyle appealed to him.

“I did my fourth year teaching placement here and loved it. I loved the lifestyle. It suited me down to the ground. There’s lots of fishing and diving and it’s all so close,” says Mather, who is shown here at his home in Currie with a couple of crayfish he’d caught that morning to share with friends at dinner.

He says his home, where he lives with his wife Gayl and four-month-old daughter, Polly, is conveniently close to Currie harbour and the school.

“At school with my outdoor education students I do a lot of surfing and then a little bit of snorkelling, mountain bike riding and kayaking,” he says.

“I’m friends with the principal of King Island District High School and we go out diving. And I often go out before and after school to pull up my cray pots.”