'Most remote job in the world': The couple who lived in isolation as lighthouse keepers

Yes, a surprising number of people have applied for one-way tickets to Mars, but how many would put their hands up for a move to the ends of the Earth, to live in isolation and be pounded by weather so fierce and foul it makes the moon, or even Melbourne, look hospitable?

As it turns out, more than 1000 people went for for the role as lighthouse keepers on hobby-farm-sized Maatsuyker Island, the southernmost land mass on the Australian continental shelf, with at least some of them having found the position by Googling “most remote job in the world”.

That’s how the eventual “winners” – if that’s the word – Jesse Siebler, 32, and Taylor Stevens, 31 – came across the advertisement, which is a search history that suggests a stronger than average need to get away from it all.

“We both had and have a strong desire to experience a more simple way of life – a stubborn yet sentimental pushback at the expectations of a life lived in the pocket-sized spaces around the nine and the five,” Taylor explains.

“I don’t think we were meant to live like we do today – constant media connection, always rushing, comparing, focusing on the monetary value of things. The life we found on Maatsuyker Island was gratifying to the heart and soul of a person. We loved and laughed harder there than ever before.”

For some couples, the idea of six months completely isolated from other humans sounds like a torture test, or an awful reality-TV idea, while for others it would be marvellous, if it was on a tropical island.

Maatsuyker is more of a gone-troppo island, just 186 hectares in total, beautiful in a barren way and battered by bestial winds and 250 days of rain a year, some of it smashing sideways, and even uphill. At some stages the winds exceeded 100km/h for weeks at time, and on more than one occasion it was strong enough to knock Taylor flat on her back.

The rare days of sunshine, however, were magnificent enough to “ignite the soul”, according to Jesse.

Located in Southwest National Park, a World Heritage Wilderness Area, Maatsuyker and its lighthouse and outbuildings, built in 1891, fall under the protection of Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.

The primary role of Island Caretakers is to prevent mother nature, who seems to be in a constant bad mood down that way, from engulfing the lighthouse and buildings, which meant that Jesse and Taylor worked as cleaners, concreters, painters, electricians, whale watchers, fire spotters and weather observers (reporting in for the BOM, at 6am and 9am, every day), as well as each other’s chefs.

“The remoteness and the harshness of the place is certainly one of its most thrilling qualities… just being there was a miracle,” Taylor says. “And the beauty, well, it is just nearly unparalleled. You lift your head up from cutting grass or digging in the dirt and are left nearly breathless every time. Just like, bam, stunning! We carried that thankfulness through some horizontal rain and 80-knot winds, and it just became fun. Like suddenly, you were a child playing in the mud again.”

And then there are the birds, more than one million short-tailed shearwaters who assail this outcrop of rock with noise and excrement.

“Those birds are amazing. In full swing of the season, the sound of the shearwaters seems to shake the whole island,” Taylor says, sounding strangely thrilled.

“It’s the loudest, most awkward cooing, crying, shrieking sound you’ve ever heard in your life, just right outside your window, all hours of the night. And somehow, you can’t help but love it!”

With the elements against them, Taylor and Jesse, from Melbourne, say they turned to each other for physical and emotional support, and found the whole experience so filled with “all-consuming joy” that when their six-month stint came to an end, earlier this year, they couldn’t face the idea of returning to city life.

So they were thrilled when they got a call from a couple who had been living on Three Hummock Island, another remote dot off the coast of Tasmania, for nine years and were looking for someone to take their place.

“On Three Hummock we are employed full-time as Island Managers, rather than volunteer caretakers as on Maatsuyker,” Taylor explains. “The island is a State Reserve, which is the highest level of protection for natural values in Tasmania.

“We manage the accommodation here, the rest of the year, we manage the island in every capacity. It is still extremely rugged and remote, and the amount of work there is here could keep us busy the rest of our lives.”