The Melroses have been farming oysters at Dolphin Sands since 1984. Don and Anne started it. Their son Ian still runs the production. Cassie joined the family in 2000 and runs the shack. And now Charlie and Archie are learning the lines on weekends.
Don and Anne Melrose started farming Pacific oysters in Great Oyster Bay in 1984. Their son Ian was on the boat with them from the beginning -- building the first rack at the edge of the river, the cement painter going freehand on the back of the truck.
The painter spelled Melshell with one L instead of two. Don shrugged, said it was easier to remember anyway, and that was the name. Forty years later, it's still on the gate.
The first oysters went out to the local fish markets. Within a few years, restaurants in Hobart and Launceston were calling. By the 1990s the farm was supplying Melbourne. Today the bay is still the same bay, the family is still the same family, and the work is done the way it has been for forty seasons -- by hand, in the same water, by the same name on the gate.
There aren't many businesses where the grandparents, the parents and the kids all turn up at work the same week. Melshell is one of them.
Founders, since 1984. Forty years on, Don and Anne are still on the farm every week, checking on the seed stock, pottering around the racks. The oyster industry is a slow one -- what they planted in 1984 is the river the family is still working today.
"The work still starts with the water."
Second generation. Ian runs the production and wholesale side of the farm. Long lines in Great Oyster Bay, cylinder baskets in the Swan River, harvest, grade, dispatch. He's been doing it since he was a teenager helping his father in the early years, and there isn't a season he hasn't worked through.
Production · wholesale · Great Oyster Bay
Joined the farm in 2000. Cassie runs the shack -- the dining experience, the tours, the menu, the wines, the Melbourne shipments, the conversation with the visitor at the picnic table. If you've left Melshell with one of the house-made sweet chilli sauces or an apron, you spoke to Cassie. She is also the voice replying to every five-star review.
The shack · tours · the conversation
Third generation. The boys have been on the farm since they could walk. School holidays and weekends are spent on the lines with their father, learning to read the tide and the timing of a good harvest. Forty years from now, if everything goes the way the Melroses tend to make it go, the bay will still know their hands.
Third generation · in the water already
We strive to serve our customers, our staff, and our natural world.
The farm operates across two bays. Long lines in Great Oyster Bay -- heavy lines suspended in the cold open water -- where the current works the oysters and the cold thickens the shells.
And cylinder baskets in the Swan River -- calmer water, gentler tide. The baskets tumble with the tide which thickens the meat and rounds the shell beautifully. The cylinders are turned and rotated by hand.
The two methods make different oysters. Most of our visitors will eventually taste both and pick a side.
The first racks. Don, Anne and Ian Melrose build the first oyster rack in Great Oyster Bay. The painter spells it Melshell with one L. The name sticks.
Restaurants and Melbourne. Word spreads. Hobart and Launceston restaurants are buying regularly. By the late nineties, regular shipments are flying out to Melbourne fish markets.
Cassie joins the family. Ian and Cassie marry; Cassie joins the farm. The Swan River lease is added with cylinder baskets — a different method for a different bay.
The shack opens. Cassie builds the cellar door experience: a waterfront oyster shack where visitors eat the freshest oysters in Australia at the picnic tables where they grew. Tasmanian wines from Bend, Freycinet and Milton vineyards. Self-cook seafood kebabs. The boys, Charlie and Archie, start helping on weekends.
Award-winning, three generations, the work the same. Industry awards, strong visitor reviews, and weekday shack service all point to the same thing: a small family farm with a story worth telling well.
Two hours and forty minutes north of Hobart on the Great Eastern Drive. Fifteen minutes north of Swansea, on the way to Coles Bay and Freycinet. The cold currents that come up from the Southern Ocean meet the bay here, and that's where the oysters live.
One of the cleanest, coldest, most productive oyster waters in Australia. Our long-line lease sits on its eastern shore, in line with Freycinet National Park.
Tidal, calm, sheltered. Our cylinder-basket lease sits in the upper reaches. The tumble of the baskets with the tide produces a rounder, sweeter oyster.
Open Monday to Friday, 10 til 4. Picnic-table dining, waterfront seating, Tasmanian wines, freshly shucked oysters from this morning's harvest.
The shack is open weekdays, 10 til 4. You don't need to book for the picnic tables — just turn up. For a tour, a private booking or one of our seasonal events, drop us a line.