The Wardle family live on Dirk Hartog Island, off the WA coast

WHILE you’re slumming it in traffic or at a boring desk job, this family is living it up on a stunning island off the WA coast. Here’s what life is like.

This view sure beats a Monday morning at your desk.

THE Wardle family live the kind of life the rest of us dream about.

Keiran, his wife Tory and their three young children — Will, 13, Ollie, 10 and Sanchie, 6 — live on Dirk Hartog Island off the West Australian coast.

They run all tourism on the 80km-long island and wake up surrounded by crystal blue waters, sea turtles and dugongs. Will, Ollie and Sanchie have lived their whole lives here and are now all addicted to the beach.

While other families spend their weekends stuck in traffic or their eyes glued to iPads, these kids are out paddle boarding, swimming and catching fish.

So how on earth does a family of five manage work, school, and life, in such isolation?

We asked Keiran to explain how his family makes lifework in this little slice of paradise.

So, how does one acquire an island like yours?

I grew up in Perth and my grandfather Thomas Wardle bought the island in 1969. He had a massive empire called Tom the Cheap grocers. He actually introduced supermarkets into Australia. He named it Dirthog Island and just enjoyed the island life. He fished and had a sheep station and really just relaxed and made the most of it.

I visited for the first time when I was six, with my parents and my brothers. We decided this is such a great spot that we’d come back every school holidays, so we did.

But when I left school in the ‘90s, my grandfather became quite sick and he wasn’t allowed to be away from too many doctors, so he moved off the island.

Later on, the caretaker of the island had a heart attack and I was the only son in Perth doing nothing, so I got a phone call saying I had to go and look after the caretaker for a weeks.

I went to look after the island and the sheep station. I was so green in those first couple of weeks that I spent over $1000 in a week in phone calls asking for help. I was always calling dad saying ‘There’s water come out of the taps! There’s no power at the sheep station!’. All these things that as an 18-year-old kid you just don’t know. I eventually figured it all out and now we [he and wife Tory] run the island ourselves.

The government owns the land, but we promote the accommodation, the camping and the 4WD adventures. We own less than one per cent of it.

So you run and Tory everything — the accommodation, activities, the food.

Yep, it’s just us. We have a few staff but Tory cooks all the meals.

How do you get access to freshwater and electricity and how do you dispose of waste? It’s not like the garbage truck comes around to your place every week.

We have 24/7 solar power and we produce our own water. It’s like our own little community. We have a boat and a barge, if we need to take our vehicles to the mainland.

We get all our fresh produce delivered once a week. That comes out of our local town in Denham. We get meat supplies delivered every 2-3 weeks. We use a lot of fresh seafood that we catch ourselves. We just serve them up and everyone loves it.

We separate everything into glass, cans and general rubbish. We have a glass crusher — you have no idea how much easier that makes things — and all that waste is transported back to Denham.

How do your kids get to school?

Our oldest boy Will is 13 and he went to boarding school last year. He’s in Perth which is about 840km away and he doesn’t come home on the weekends. They have two trips a term where they can come back home. But we try and get down there whenever we can. The others are in year 1 and year 4 and we homeschool them.

What’s it like raising kids in such a remote location?

They just love it. My 13-year-old boy, he’ll jump in the water out the front of our place and snorkel on his own. Mum and dad get a bit worried, but these kids don’t worry at all.

You take them down to the city and they hate wearing shoes. They hate going into crowded areas. We get our oldest boy back up here, off come his shoes and he’s straight out onto the boat. He does a lot of snorkelling and underwater photography.

Our middle boy Oli loves getting out on the boat and taking his brother to all the good spots — he’s only 10.

Our little girl Sanchie, she’s six. We’ve only just managed to get her to realise that she’s not the only one out here on the island and she loves it. She spends a lot of time walking to beaches and swimming and carrying on, she just loves the open space.

We have a beautiful golden retriever. His name is Salty. He’ll stand up on the board and just go paddling out the front. Wherever Tory goes, this dog goes. He’s very loyal.

What do you guys get up to on the weekends?

The kids love camping. We have a swag each for the kids but Sanchie jumps in our double swag. We just go to the beach around the corner or down to Surf Point. The kids just love exploring and spending the night away from home.

During school holidays we get lots of kids from Melbourne and Sydney who don’t usually get to experience that back to nature stuff.

They’re so used to being in confined spaces with technology, but here you have families where technology doesn’t even get a look in, because the kids are running wild.

Your mates must be envious of your lifestyle.

Everyone is always really intrigued and fascinated. They ask how we survive without a supermarket around the corner.

Tory and I grew up in Perth and we still have really good friends in Perth. All of our school mates are there and a lot of them do come up here. We do try and get to Perth as much as possible, to catch up with friends and family.

Some are a little envious of us, but it is tough work. You’re looking after tourists in the middle of nowhere.

For example, we have 11 people arriving today and all of our fruit and vegetable deliveries haven’t turned up. So we’re running around madly trying to organise another supplier to arrive tomorrow. So it will be fresh fish and vegetables for dinner tonight.

Are there any downsides to living on an island?

We are in the middle of nowhere and it takes a lot of money to get replacement parts, to get a mechanic to arrive. In the main city, you ring the plumber and they come and fix anything, but that costs a fortune here. We try to do most of it ourselves.

If we had a plane we could fly back to Perth on weekends, but we’re a long way away from that.

What happens if there’s an emergency?

We’ve had a few evacuations, but nothing too serious, touch wood. We’re pretty well trained in making sure people are safe.

The Royal Flying Doctors are a saving grace for any family living in the country. They are your first point of call. We’ve had a few rescue missions and they are fantastic. Our kids have been here since they were a couple of weeks old. You can ring them and you run through the symptoms and we have a medical check and suddenly everything is good. They can solve your problems in a heartbeat.

You live in Shark Bay, have you had any run ins with sharks?

We do have a few sharks around, but I don’t think there’s been one recorded shark attack in Shark Bay, ironically.

You’re living in the country so you do get a few snakes around. But we do the right thing so there’s no places for snakes to hide. We’ve never had a snake bite or any issues, touch wood.

Do you think you’ll ever leave?

It really depends on how the kids go in boarding school. It really makes it hard, especially on Tory. We’re always flat out and super busy. We just keep expanding and we love it here. We’ll just see how we go.

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Originally published as The Wardle family live on Dirk Hartog Island, off the WA coast