Echo Inn – Michmutters
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Dreams turn to ashes for Eco Inn on Victoria’s off-grid French Island

The nights are dark on French Island.

Once the handful of tourists heads back to the mainland this patch of land feels even more isolated.

French Island is little more than 60 kilometers south of Melbourne and yet most Melburnians would never have heard of it.

Residents live off the grid here and love the seclusion.

Car headlights sporadically light up the back roads and on a clear night the stars sparkle.

It made the fire that burned on the morning of April 2 this year, it seemed even brighter. The flames leapt from the kitchen of the Eco Inn as the smoke alarm let out its constant shrill.

Two story eco lodge with large green lawns and people sat on the veranda
French Island Eco Inn in its former glory before the fire.(Supplied: Phil Bock)

Phil and Yuko Bock stumbled from their bedroom where they slept, but the smoke pushed them back. They jumped from a second-floor window to escape.

Their beloved dog Sammy never made it out.

Four accommodation cottages just meters from the main homestead also burned to the ground. The guests escaped uninjured, but everything was gone.

Phil and Yuko had struggled during the endless Victorian COVID lockdowns with no paying visitors, and they had suspended their insurance.

They’d spent a decade building up their business and in one night it was all gone.

Man, woman and white and black dog sitting closely together and smiling outdoors.
Eco Inn owners Phil and Yuko Bock and their beloved dog, Sammy, who they lost in the fire.(Supplied: Phil Bock)

“Losing our home, business, and beloved dog to a fire is a tragedy that we will remember forever,” Phil says.

“But the thoughtfulness of our small local community and past guests has kept us hopeful. It really is appreciated and reminds us how lucky we are to live here.

“We may be geographically isolated and considered socially disadvantaged, but being part of a small community is like no other when it matters the most.”

Phil and Yuko have moved into a small holiday cottage that remains on the property, the only building spared by the fire.

Our Back Roads team stayed at the Eco Inn during our shoot just a few months earlier.

You won’t see them in our program on air, but they were our welcoming hosts, our companions, and our snooker challengers late into the evenings, and I wanted to share their story.

The fire not only gutted their livelihoods but left a community reeling. A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help them.

A close-knit and resourceful community

When a Back Roads team arrives in small-town destinations, we’re immediately welcomed.

French Island was no different, although some were anxious that the spotlight of a Back Roads TV crew might spoil the privacy they clung to.

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The island is twice the size of its neighbour, Phillip Island, but happily dodges the daily tourist-enticing penguin parades to the south.

Unlike Phillip Island, French Island has no bitumen, no council, no rates, and no bridge.

The barge fits just two cars for the 15-minute trip from Corinella on the Victorian mainland to the landmass north of Phillip Island.

Terry, the barge pilot, calls us “Bituminites”, just like all the other visitors who take for granted the sealed motorways of our daily drives.

The permanent population numbers not much more than 100: an idiosyncratic mix of rich and poor, famous and anonymous, worldly and parochial.

But they are inextricably linked by a chosen lifestyle that has one foot in the past and one eye on the future.

An environmental vineyard is gaining a name for itself among wine connoisseurs.

Locals live self-sufficiently with the help of wind and solar power and banks of batteries to keep their homes and small businesses thriving.

More than two-thirds of the island is a national park.

A koala hugging a branch in the nook of a tree.
There are more koalas on French Island than people.(ABC Back Roads: Campbell Miller)

What’s missing here is what makes this place so special — no foxes, black rats, or kangaroos. No possums or wallabies.

That enables many other species to thrive, almost too well, judging by the koala population under the active control of Parks Victoria.

One of everything is enough for French Islanders

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