Tasmanian camels: Inside Jeff and Ros Wallace’s St Marys Camel Farm

A Tasmanian pair behind a tourism company have continued to invest in their unique side-hustle – a farm experience highlighting their beloved dromedaries. Here’s what they have planned.

The Tasmanian-born calf no longer moults at the start of summer. Picture: St Marys Camel Farm/ Facebook

Tasmania’s very own camel flock – that’s right, we’ve got one – may only have been here less than a decade, but already it is adapting to a climate the polar opposite of its typical desert home.

So says Ros Wallace who, alongside husband Jeff and their pet camels, moved to St Marys estate Fairview eight years ago, now known as St Marys Camel Farm, from their native Victoria “in the hopes of retiring”.

Since 1981, the pair have owned a tourism company that takes people with special needs on “genuine” holidays, such as to Central Australia and Broome’s Cable Beach, and it is in places like that the Wallaces first encountered camels.

Ros Wallace, who owns the farm with husband Jeff. Picture: St Marys Camel Farm/ Facebook

“Our (clients) loved animals and always did the camel rides, and we fell in love with the camels,” Ros said.

“They are a bit like the dolphins in that can relate to people with special needs, they act a lot more affectionately towards them.

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“We brought some to Victoria, but didn’t start breeding until we came to Tasmania and thought there was an opportunity to see if we could do a cold-climate (flock).”

The pair now have five camels, a bull, a pregnant cow, and three calves who are unrelated to the bull.

A fascinating thing is happening with the most recent calf, Ros said.

“Camels are known to be able to evolve within a short time, they only need about two or three generations. So instead of moulting at the beginning of summer, the youngest, a third-generation calf born here, is not moulting anymore. We are going to have to try and find a shearer to shear a camel,” she said.

During Covid, the Wallaces feared the pandemic would linger for many years and spell doom for their accessible tourism company, so they began investing in Fairview to share their love of camels with the rest of Tasmania.

As a result, St Marys Camel Farm opened to the public on December 11, 2021.

It has been an iterative process – the farm now has a museum, shop, ‘tram’ rides (a tractor pulling a converted box trailer full of visitors – a ‘fairy’ park for kids, featuring tiny houses built by East Coast locals, camel interactions and, three weeks ago, opened a new cafe.

The new on-site cafe, which is also licenced to serve alcohol at events like "rustic" weddings. Picture: St Marys Camel Farm/ Facebook

The new cafe has simplicity in mind: serving hot and cold drinks, scones and ploughman’s platters to farmgoers, typically school groups, tour groups or individual families.

It also has a liquor licence, with the Wallaces planning to host catered functions such as “rustic” farm weddings.

The pair plan to grow their flock, harvesting the wool to manufacture into fire-resistant ponchos (wool is a natural fire retardant) for local cockeys and “renting” out the camels to landholders as they “eat all the gorse (weed)”.

Ros wants people to stop seeing the camel as a “feral” pest.

“They don’t degrade the environment, they are respectful of fences, they work well with cows and sheep,” she said.

“If we call them feral and equate them to a cane toad, then we are so undervaluing them.”