She says he "had many strings to his bow", but hesitates, as if the phrasing doesn't quite do him justice. She pauses for a moment, before deciding on what to say next.

"He was dignified," she says. "And, he had a presence that people gravitated to."

Trying to condense anyone's life into a few lines is hard.

But in the case of Malcolm Taylor, also known as Hanuman Giri or Baba, it's nigh impossible. He was, it turns out, many things. A skilled farmer, bushman, yoga master, environmentalist, blues-rock guitarist, timber-cutter, and eventually, Swami.

When Malcolm passed away in April this year, North Tasmania lost its last-working bullocky and one of its most enigmatic figures.

Malcolm Frank Taylor was born in 1953, in Sheffield, Tasmania - the island's sheep and cattle country. The Taylor family had settled in the region in the early 1820s, and quickly became pioneers of Tasmania's merino industry.

The large farm, close to untouched antipodean forests, was a playground for Malcolm and his three siblings. The youngest in the family, Malcolm would spend his days outside, catching rabbits and helping with farm work - the young Malcolm already displaying an intrepidness that would come to shape his life.

His older sister Anne characterised their childhood adventures like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn - no adults to supervise or interrupt long-days spent outside catching rabbits or exploring. "We were all outdoor kids," Anne said.

Even as a young man, his affinity with animals was obvious.

"When he started farming with Mum and Dad, we were doing sheep, and cattle, and that's where he developed his skills with merino sheep," Anne said.

Malcolm went to Victoria for Agricultural College, but Anne said he struggled "with the killing side of things". The family though was bound to their farm, and Malcolm's future was fixed firmly in agriculture.

Upon returning from the mainland, the itinerant young agriculturist drifted.

He picked hops in Derby, managed a property in Pioneer and started a family, before turning his hand to cattle farming on a family venture in Waterhouse.

But the stability was short-lived.

Malcolm's marriage would not last and, without any sense of direction, turned to travel. "He was sort of just drifting a little bit and was a bit lost after his marriage broke up and the children went to Victoria to live," Anne said. "And then he started talking to me about India".

Anne had recently been to India herself and recommended the trip. Curious and needing a change, Malcolm booked a flight for what would be a life changing adventure.

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Of all the events in his life, Anne said his relationship to India was the most fateful.

Before her brother returned from India, he had telegraphed home three times asking for his parents to pick him up. The first two times, Malcolm never walked off the plane. The third time, the Taylors sat waiting in the terminal.

A tall man, over six-foot, lean, with matted hair, bright eyes and orange robes approached them. Their son, nearly unrecognisable, had finally come home. But now he was Hanuman Giri, "the monkey king".

Anne said Malcolm's astonishing transformation was a shock to his parents.

Over the course of several trips to India, Malcolm would convert to Hinduism, take up yoga, and devote himself to a guru. Exactly what Malcolm did during his trips to India might never be fully known, but those who know him well have stories to tell.

Malcolm's best-friend Snowy Dean is a bushman, mechanic, poet, and farmer. He's laconic when describing their friendship, affectionately referring to him as "one the best bushmen" he'd ever met, and "Baba" after the Baba Nagas that he lived with in India - the naked Hindu holy men and ascetics who smear themselves in ash.

Snowy said Baba had travelled to India several times, chasing a connection with the country.

"He went to India for an experience you know," Snowy said. "When he first arrived, he walked out of the airport and then immediately ran back inside, held his hands over his ears. He said he couldn't believe the amount of people outside".

Once, Snowy said, Malcolm walked barefoot over the lower Himalayas. On another occasion, he said Malcolm lived as a beggar in a colony of lepers.

But Snowy said he never doubted the veracity of his stories, or the profound impact on his world view. "He really took it seriously. He was 100 per cent the whole way. And I respected him for that".

Anne and Snowy both agree that a near-death experience may have been the most fateful experience for Malcolm.

While travelling with the Naga Babas he had studied with, Anne said her brother caught cholera - a bacterial infection leading to intense dehydration, diarrhoea, and vomiting. Delirious and dangerously ill, Anne said he was nursed back to health in a cave by a Swami.

Whatever happened in India, upon landing back in Tasmania, Malcolm returned spiritually transformed.

But in the orbit of the Taylor farming legacy he was pulled to merino sheep farming in Waterhouse.

A fateful encounter with a Tasmanian bullocky legend would change his path once again.

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Although largely forgotten to history, the Australian bullocky drove the country's early timber trade.

More sure-footed, less flighty than horses and capable of traversing difficult terrain, bullock trains and their drivers went up and down the country to establish early European trade networks.

By the time Malcolm returned to Australia, the bullocky was a fading Australian myth, with only pockets of skilled bullock drivers dotted across the country's remote regions. But the work and lifestyle were appealing to him.

A skilled forester and timber cutter, Malcolm knew how to operate mills and needed work.

Bullocks were more capable than horses for transporting his timber and weren't as disruptive to undergrowth as heavy machinery.

Rusty Richards, one of the last working bullockys of the North East, was moving hydro poles. The work was gruelling and slow, but he needed help, and Malcolm put his hand up for the job.

With the help of Rusty, he would become a skilled bullocky, carting timber across North Tasmania with his team of bullocks through the temperate native forest, preserving the fading agricultural heritage of a bygone era.

In hindsight, Malcolm's move to Derby seemed inevitable. Well before mountain bikes came to define the blue tiers, Derby was a quiet town, with cheap land and a promise of simple living.

Anne said Malcolm, determined to adhere to a sustainable life, would cart his timber to his new residence in Derby to hand-build his house.

"You could call it spiritual - it was just part of living off the land, of being a subsistence person without destroying it," Anne said.

It was near this time he first met Snowy.

"Malcolm and his brother turned up, and they were looking pretty down in the mouth - they'd put a hole in the sump of their track loader working out in the bush. They had no money, and no one to weld it up for them," Snowy said.

"Baba and Terry couldn't make any money out of the sawmill - not many people could - so eventually Baba came and worked for me," Snowy said. "We'd send him out bush felling trees, and he'd hand bark the logs. We'd bring the logs home and saw them up in the big mill".

Snowy helped the brothers but wouldn't accept any payment. A week later, Malcolm returned to his house, but Snowy still wouldn't take any money. Instead, he offered him a job.

They became fast friends, sharing a mutual love of the bush, and the lifestyle that came with it. Snowy recalls fond memories of nights spent playing music and sharing stories.

"We got like brothers," Snowy said. "We both helped each other. If he was crook, I'd bring food over to him, and he'd do the same over to my place. We really kept an eye on each other as much as we could."

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Malcolm would find new meaning in the teachings of Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda, or Swamiji, developing a yoga practice and lifestyle.

The famous guru and yogi may be relatively unknown to western audiences, but commands respect from thousands of students to his global 'Yoga In Daily Life' school. Malcolm's devotion to Swamiji, and his teachings, would guide the rest of his life.

The remarkable leap from farm boy and bullocky to staunch Hindu-devotee and talented yoga practitioner is, for Anne, less difficult to fathom in the context of Hanuman's innate desire to live a simple life.

The hippie moniker, she cautioned, was inaccurate, and a gross oversimplification of a personal and spiritual desire to tread lightly and live well.

The rest - his unwillingness to wear shoes, the seven-foot-long dreadlocks, the charitable acts within the community - was just Malcolm.

Anne said her brother's cancer diagnosis was sudden.

The news that it was terminal shook their family, but Malcolm decided he would hold on for as long as he could for his guru to visit. Denied a visa, Swamiji never made it to Australia.

Anne said although he was devastated to have missed his guru, the work of the staff at the Launceston General Hospital, and the guidance and care by oncologist Dr Hung Nguyen, made his passing easier.

Anne said she wanted to tell her brother's story, but time and time again, the issue of how best to do it reared its head. Her brother was enigmatic, too mercurial to pin down. "He had a special energy," she said. "People just seemed to pick up on that energy".

Or as Snowy put it, in his own pithy way from one bushman to another: "We won't see anyone quite like Baba again."

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