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Fare well on friendly Flinders

IT'S hard not to think of food on Flinders Island. For one thing, the abattoir is back in business and that translates to fresh, locally processed local tucker on restaurant tables. Whitemark butcher Brett Newall is pushing the message that the abattoir's retail outlet is back in business with a huge whiteboard sign outside his shop. At Vistas on Trousers Point, owners Ken Stockton and Carolyn Dawe love promoting the island's fine  fare - such as wild wallaby - on their menu at  Chappell's Restaurant. "The tourists just love the wallaby,''  Mr Stockton said.  "It's healthy and not as gamey as kangaroo.'' They'll put  wallaby pies on the menu through winter. At the moment, the wallaby fillet has a local quince and bush-pepper sauce. At Lady Barron's Furneaux Tavern and Whitemark's Interstate Hotel, you can sample the pride of Flinders. One night at the tavern we tackle wallaby shanks and stripey trumpeter, washed down with a Flinders-made Unavale 2008 cabernet sauvignon; another night  it's the ultimate pub fare, chicken parmigiana, at the Interstate. Wherever you choose, Flinders does its best to celebrate the Furneaux group's marine and land-based bounty. The owners of Partridge Farm, Rob and Lorraine Holloway,  put together a spectacular spread of home-grown and home-processed food from their gardens. Mrs Holloway is reputed to cook a great muttonbird - the option sits with wallaby pasta and garfish in creamy caper sauce on their in-house menu. It's not the sort of place to go hungry. This Saturday the island will celebrate its spectacular fare with a long-table lunch for 100 people. And in keeping with the farm gate-to-plate philosophy, the table will be set up in one of the Holloways' paddocks. The lunch is part of a series by the Tasmania-based SBS team that produce A Gourmet Farmer.  Nick Haddow, Matthew Evans and Ross O'Meara have organised the  lunches, called A Common Ground, to reconnect diners with producers. Our eating experiences on Flinders start at the other end of the island, where Palana Retreat's Daryl Butler  serves up a huge crayfish, and take in occasional stops at places such as the Whitemark bakery and the Klug sisters' Freckles Cafe. We are three nights on Flinders and our final evening is at the self-contained Green Valley Homestead, owned by Terence and June Klug (parents of the cafe owners). It's a roomy, well-appointed accommodation on Butterfactory Road, very close to the old butter factory itself. There's time to thin-slice and fry some  greenlip abalone gathered that morning. Catch it yourself, clean it yourself, cook it yourself: DIY is very Flinders. We put in a call to Jim Murphy, one of the owners of the old butter factory building and surrounding vineyard, and before long we are sipping some of his pinot noir and discussing his  rare craft of making ukuleles. Like many on the island, Mr Murphy has one foot on mainland Australia and one foot on Flinders. He has lived life large, and tells wonderful stories of a business career that included selling cask wine to Buckingham Palace. He has high hopes and a steady confidence that his vineyard will produce outstanding wine. Mr Murphy's  hospitality is a barometer of island hospitality: generous, proud and welcoming. It's an addictive place to visit. Once is hardly enough.