Living in Tasmania | How People Live When the Power Comes From Rain | 4K Travel Documentary

Living in Tasmania: why so few people live on an island the size of Ireland. In the first months of 2016, rows of diesel generators stood beside the dams of Tasmania, an island that makes its electricity from rain. This film follows the people of Australia's island state, from hydro villages to a wax cylinder recorded in 1899, and asks why so few live on an island almost as large as the Republic of Ireland, and why they stay. In this film: A cable on the floor of Bass Strait, a ferry crossing and the price of distance, told through the families of Hydro Tasmania's villages A convict island, the Black War and a woman whose recorded songs helped a community rebuild a language, with each historian's position attributed The river that was never dammed, the apple trade that collapsed, and the whisky maker, the museum owner and the Saturday market that followed Chapters: 00:00 When the Diesel Generators Came Back 01:50 An Island the Size of Ireland, With a Ninth of the People 03:52 Headwaters: Rain, Dams and the Hydro Villages 08:33 The Crossing: Bass Strait by Ferry, Freight and Cable 13:36 The Prison Island: Port Arthur and the Convicts 17:26 The Black War 22:56 The Free River: The Franklin Dam Fight 27:52 After the Apples 32:11 Fanny Cochrane Smith and the Wax Cylinder 36:38 The Ones Who Stay 39:53 Back to the Cable: Why So Few People Live Here 41:37 The 305 Acres of Fanny Cochrane Smith Figures come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (population to March 2026, 2021 census), Hydro Tasmania, the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, the University of Tasmania, the National Museum of Australia, the Productivity Commission, and published histories, as of November 2026. Historians disagree on the number of deaths and on the word to use for the Black War; the film attributes each position to the person who holds it. The Aboriginal Tasmanian people are the palawa, and the film uses the community's own names for the island (lutruwita), Mount Wellington (kunanyi) and Hobart (nipaluna). The channel goes to one hard place at a time. Subscribe for the next. #Tasmania #LivingInTasmania #TravelDocumentary #HowPeopleLive #Hobart #BassStrait #Australia #4KTravel #TasmanianHistory #IslandLife