Meet your hosts: Gil and Diana Stokes

Gil Stokes grew up with the unshakeable desire to be a farmer. Unable to help with a farm, his mother guided Gil into agricultural science and he graduated with a Bachelors degree from Melbourne University in 1963.

Over the next two years he motor-cycled through Asia, the Middle East and Europe with a fellow graduate, and came to the decision that he would become an academic.

Then followed two years at Sydney University and six years in the USA at North Carolina State University and UC Davis completing a Masters degree in Animal Nutrition and a doctorate and post doctoral studies in Biochemistry.  Over the next thirteen years he held academic positions at the University of Western Australia.

He resigned in 1987 from a tenured Senior Lectureship to start a consulting business serving universities, industry and government. Frequent trips with his wife Diana were made across Australia and to India, Indonesia and Singapore.  Business services ranged from the brokering of research solutions to industry, workshop training in grant writing, the preparation of business plans for new and proposed research centres, high tech company presentations for market analysts, and the writing of grant applications.  This work continues in Tasmania.

Diana was born in Patagonia, Argentina where her father managed a large sheep station for its wealthy English owner.  At age ten she sailed with her family to Kenya (during the Mau Mau uprising, in order to escape the Peronista regime in Argentina).  During her school years, Diana attended eight boarding schools as the family moved between farms.  Her work experience includes nursing and hairdressing in Kenya, raising a family in the UK and more recently managing a Health Club and teaching healthy diets, gym workouts and yoga while in Western Australia.  In the last six years she has discovered the joys of belly dancing!

In 2001, Gil and Diana revisited Tasmania to find a new home and found a magnificent block on the Village Green in Westbury – then a paddock, supporting an extraordinary stand of old European trees.  They wanted to respect the historic amenity of the Green and designed Elm Wood with a decidedly Victorian architectural look, while incorporating many features that carry memories of their previous homes.  The result, a culmination of Gil’s love of woodwork and gardening, Diana’s gifts of home making and graceful design and colour and their mutual eye for beauty, harmony and proportion.

They now wish to share their love and experiences of Tasmania with their guests at Elm Wood’s luxurious accommodation in its gracious and relaxing atmosphere.