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NOT many people move to Tasmania to escape cold, wet winters, but Don Carlisle did.
Mr Carlisle and his wife Helen decided to leave Northern Ireland 10 years ago when Mr Carlisle's brother, Sam, with whom he shared their 160-hectare farm, moved to Scotland.
"I just couldn't stand the Irish weather and farming was hard graft - most of the time you were just beating your head against a brick wall," Mr Carlisle said.
"We went south, looking for slightly warmer weather, and bought a property of just under 270 hectares on Bishopsbourne Road, at a fraction of the price of the County Antrim farm - prices have come back a bit there, but at the time you could buy five times the land in Tasmania compared with Ireland.
"It's more intensive there and the rain certainly make grass grow all year round, but the weather's much better here."
Mr Carlisle said that the mixed farm he had built up over the past 10 years catered for 800 ewes and 60 cows, as well as growing poppies, peas, linseed and grass seed, and was now up for sale.
"I'm too old," he said, without actually mentioning his age.
"My son has no interest in taking over the farm, so there's no point in going on forever."
But farming was not Mr Carlisle's only occupation in Ireland. He was a keen motorcycle road racer and won many Irish championships in the 50cc and 80cc class.
"I started racing in 1972 - road racing was Northern Ireland's number one sport, far bigger than even football or anything else, and more than 200,000 people would go to watch the North-West 200 when the population was only just over a million." he said.
"Every town and village in Ireland had at least one or two boys who raced motorcycles and I started out on a converted road bike, a 50cc Minarelli, but it wasn't competitive.
"A six-speed gearbox and racing engine made it competitive for a couple of years and further modifications (conversion to disc- valve inlet) kept it going for another three or four years, until the German-made Kreidlers came along.
"They were at the front until about 1982 when the 50cc class was dropped and the 80cc class introduced."
Mr Carlisle said that farming kept him from following the world championship circuit and he raced mostly in Ireland.
"The season started late March or early April and the cattle were still in barns - you had to get up about 4am to clean them out and feed them and rush back after racing to clean up again," he said.
"I remember one race, I practised in the morning, went home, about an hour away, to bale a field of straw and then went back to the track to race - I got done for speeding on the way too.
"Five of us went over to the UK once in the early 1980s, in a Transit van with five bikes, for a round of the European championship - three bikes were in the van and two were tied to mattresses on the roof."
Mr Carlisle said that his ambitions after selling his Bishopsbourne property could not be simpler. "Take it easy," he said.
"We'll travel a bit and stay away from the winters - they're not as bad here as in Ireland, but they're still there."
Retirement will also give Mr Carlisle the time he needs to finish his most recent project, the conversion of a 2004 50cc Honda road bike into a 1960s' replica works racer.
"I saw one when I went back to Ireland four or five years ago and knew I had to have one," he said.
"They're a work of art and will look great just sitting in the foyer of the house, but I'll probably ride it occasionally - it would be too much of a temptation not to.
"It won't be fast, but as long as I can get it looking the part, sounding the part, by removing the baffle, and smelling the part, by using Castrol `R' racing oil, that's all that matters.
"I really miss the smell of Castrol `R'."