Pyengana DairyCompany

Cheddar has been made in this pocket of north-east Tasmania for more than 130 years, the cloth-bound curing method handed down through generations of dairying families before Jon Healey formalised the business in 1992. The herd grazes barely a hundred metres from the factory floor, and the cheese matures in a cave-like cellar beneath the farmgate café, where a tunnel bored a kilometre into the hillside draws cool air down to hold a constant temperature — no refrigeration, just geography doing the work. Visitors can watch the cheddar being turned through a viewing window before sitting down to a plate of it upstairs, alongside a menu built around the dairy's own butter and cream. The setting adds to the pull: St Columba Falls, one of the state's tallest waterfalls, sits a short drive further into the valley. It is unpretentious dairy country, and the cheddar — sharp, crumbly, cloth-aged — remains the reason people detour off the coastal highway to find it.