Tassie Part 10

Fri 12, Day 10:

I drove Ellen to the airport for the first flight out.

Dover.
We drove via the wide peninsula bounded by the Huon River to the west and D'Entrecasteaux Channel on the east. There was a sheep cheese place at Birchs Bay we wanted to visit.
Good spiel by the guy but very expensive products. They did have a nice pinot noir spread ala quince paste. A TV chef that Caroline hates was doing a segment to camera on the balcony. We each bought a small peice of the vine leaf wrapped harder cheese.

Drove on coast road all the way road - great views. Caroline was fixated on picking up a cucumber for the salad. Before the road joined the south road at Huonville we stopped at an honesty-box booth and picked up a whole swag of fruit and vege and some eggs.
Getting back into the car I was told "We've got a cucumber - that's the important thing."
She was also very happy about the eggs. If anyone is at a loss for a present for the Aunt then a dozen fresh laid free-range eggs are a sure fire winner.
South on the other bank of the Huon River. Beautiful peaceful beds of rushes. The road is slightly elevated with hills to the west. Orchards and vineyards on both sides of the road in a strip that goes down to the riverbank and up the nearest hills. Taller ranges just beyond these are forested. Near Waterloo we spot cherries and stop to sample them. They are enormous and flavoursome - bursting with trapped sunlight and drool. The old farmer is a character. I say we are in the state for another ten days. He says 'Well, you'll need two kilos, then!' Certainly for $15. Done. The Aunt starts expressing doubts we can eat them all, but I am up for the challenge.
The farmer suggests the scenic drive to Dover by taking the turn off to Police Point, as the main road cuts through the hills.
Drive, drive, drive. 'Oh, not another picturesque seaside-slash-rural village with beautiful aspect!' I moan.

At Dover, Caroline once again kindly upgrades us to a bigger cabin with large beds - we are staying three nights after all. It is still early enough in the afternoon to go searching for the supermarket. We drive around and through the town leaving it on three roads without spotting a supermarket. We do see the second-hand bookshop in an old church and other very nice weatherboard buildings, and eventually go back to the quasi general store where the Aunt picks out some disappointed greens. On the way back to the caravan park which is on the north side of the town, I manage to take the wrong road at a five-way intersection and end up instantly in the carpark of the enormous IGA we'd missed because we were too busy being entranced by pretty little weatherboard buildings.
So, even when we made an attempt to explore the town properly we still managed to miss key points ie what we were actually looking for.

Tassie Part 9

Thurs 11, Day 9:

We had a walk in the clouds on Thursday afternoon much of the way up Mt Wellington. We marvelled at how wonderfully close this beautiful forest is to the city. We agreed we could live happily in Hobart.
Wursthaus haul for lunch in our apartment. (Here I also found puy lentils for the Aunt).
Drunk Admiral that night.

.

Tassie part 8

Tues 9, Day 7:
Drove down the Lyell Highway through Queenstown and back into the lush ferny forests of the Wild-Rivers Area. Zoom, zoom, zoom.
Stopped just after Derwent Bridge to check out the new 'Wall in the Wilderness' which is a barn-sized private gallery for an expert wood carver. The main work is going to be 100feet of 15feet tall wall panels showing colonial life of the area. It is astounding - a must see. He specialises in carving totally perfect clothing out of wood. Never seen so many 'Do not touch' signs in my life. Check it out online. There is an astoundingly cool rusted metal sculpture of a cyborg eagle out the front. It looks like a cover illustration from one of the Iain M Banks Sci-fi novels about The Culture that I read years ago.

Lunched near Tarraleah power station.
We got mobile reception for the first time in days a short distance out of New Norfolk where we were staying the night. Caroline texted her daughters to assure that we were both alive even although I didn't deserve to be.
New Norfolk is on the Derwent River and the last town before it flows into the flooded river valley that leads about fifty kms away to Hobart.
We were staying in another pub I'd chosen - the New Norfolk Hotel. I'd rejected the two other suggested by the Lonely Planet as not up to Aunt-friendly standard, and even congratulated myself on how far off the Highway it was. And it was cheap too, so I'd booked one of the two ensuite rooms for the Aunt.

Wed 10, Day 8:
Now, they always put these ensuite rooms at the front of the hotel to maximise the impact of passing traffic. I slept well in my $35 single room at the rear of the hotel and woke early all excited because Ellen was meeting us in Hobart in a few hours time.
I made two cups of tea and took one to Caroline's room.
She had slept for fourteen minutes and three seconds.
A horrible night.
"Dear God!" she groaned, "He's in a good mood!"
I leapt in, spilling tea liberally, and coaxed the old girl into action.
No, I didn't. I left her to it because, for once, she actually did look like the Wrath of God.

We parked in Salamanca Place in Hobart at about ten, otherwise known as morning coffee time. In her efforts to get a cheap and early flight from Melbourne Ellen had woken at 4am or something stupid like that.
After their caffeine hits, both women had resumed human form and pleasant temper, and they were more than happy to wander round all the little jewellery shops, art galleries, book and gift shops of Salamanca Place. It's a gorgeous little spot. We ate lunch in an Italian restaurant and drank great wine.
Then it was time to check into the flash serviced-apartment Caroline had booked for us on one of the piers in the harbour. A wooden sailing ship was moored next door.
We ate and drank and ate and drank and ate in Hobart. It is a gourmands' paradise.
We had spectacular Greek at Mezethes; found an awesome deli called Wursthaus where we splurged on delicacies for lunch; and ate the second night in the Drunken Admiral. We were on a mission for seafood and passed up two places on the wharf and tried the Drunken Admiral at my suggestion.
The place is kitsch. The entryway looks like one for a themepark. It is crammed with nautical crap including mannequins dressed as pirates, barrels hanging from the ceiling, rear ends of boats and over all this a reasonable sized antique shop has exploded. The Aunt looked profoundly dubious but the place was packed, so the food must be ok, right?
The food was great! The wine was Pinot Gris. Very happy with that.

Tassie Part 7

Mon 8, Day 6:
Back to Corrina for river cruise on the Pieman River out to Pieman Heads on the Arcadia II. Slight problem with the solar powered call button for the ferry not working, so no one came and got us until a friendly ancient canoeist paddled over to the Arcadia II on our behalf.
Cruise cruise cruise. Get out near the sea and wander over the sand until we find a stranded log suitable for seating.
Last on board again, and back we go. Quite chatty with the captain, a young couple from Adelaide and an older gent who originally came from Newport, NSW! (this is where the Aunt is from too).

I think I cooked lamb that evening. We watched Nigella Lawson. The Aunt put up with my howls at being visually manipulated by that hearty, breathy temptress. Not sexy. Good recipe for chicken and pork rib marinated in apple juice and spices, though.

.

Tassie Part 6

Sun 7th, Day 5:
The first thing we did was return to Provadore 24. This was the gourmet food and gift shop that had caught Caroline's eye the previous day. We picked up two sour dough loaves and ten giant jaffas. The day before we'd bought local cleanskin PinotNoir and a dry white. It was as if a twister had picked up the shop and owner from a boutique part of Sydney or Melbourne and plonked them down in this endearingly rough fishing village. She wasn't like any of the locals and we never did ask how she'd come to be here. We chatted for a while about food and whatnot. Caroline told her that I was 'not too bright, but can carry heavy loads'.
She confided that she didn't think many of the locals 'got' the shop. Her philosophy was 'If you're going to have a calorie, make sure it's a nice one.'
I think Stanley was where Caroline decided she should spend the rest of the trip trying to embarrass me in front of strangers. I'd retaliate by asking if she'd 'spent too long in the sun', and things of that nature.

A much longer and uncomfortable drive to Zeehan than expected. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And the Aunt's road to her personal hell is dirt. As it turned out it was not the destination but the journey that was important, and THAT was 'Hell' to quote an unhappy Aunt.
I took the 110 kilometre scenic route that runs through the edge of the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area of the west coast. It is dirt the whole way and very bumpy. This was not my time to shine but I decided to liven things up by trying to crash into a 4WD on a corner. It was one of only two oncoming vehicles we encountered. The other was nearly hit by the 4WD and trailer that had overtaken us and spent too long on the other side of the road as it approached a blind corner.

Lunch in Corrina and crossed the river on the car ferry. I tried to mollify the Aunt by saying there were only eleven kms of dirt road left. Hilariously this was in worse condition than the previous hundred.

We got to Zeehan and checked into our miner's cottage. Zeehan is a small mining town but from a later era than I was expecting. The cottages looked 1950-60s vintage. For some reason the kitchen had about 800 cupboards. Caroline proclaimed several times that the kitchen was schitzophrenic. The bathroom was through the second bedroom so I got to relocate the mattress to the livingroom floor.
We had meat for dinner - big rump steak and t-bone with the leftovers making steak salad sandwiches for the river cruise the next day.

Tassie Part 5

Sat 6th, Day 4:
From my notes, it looks like we had the morning off, but AHA! We visited the colonial manor called Highfield that is on the crest of the hill just west of Stanley. It is a really good museum - lots of information boards throughout the restored house. Most of the other buildings (barn, stables, sty, wool shed etc etc) are also in good repair and annotated.

We had lunch back at the cabin.

PM. Allende gardens. Attacked by Emu.

Allende Gardens are beautiful. This is a private project of a landscape gardener/arist who twenty years ago bought a beef cattle property and started converting it. She must have planted the stand of Californian redwoods first. She's continually added to it with her stoned gardener partner ever since. He looks like the most laidback bushranger in history - big flowing beard, and the physique of one starved out by the authorities.
A creek flows through the property and seven bridges cross over. The entrance is very pretty reception hall/summer house: lots of light; nice furniture; six small angry terrier dogs in various states of exhaustion.
You pay your money, talk to the bearded dude who looks like he stepped out of a Henry Lawson poem, get a map and then exit the building to where an edenic paradise awaits. You are immediately greated by a pair of black swans and a bunch of peacocks, peahens and even peachicks. One clutch is too young to have the crest of three decorative feathers, but the other two chicks are old enough to have them. Suitably enchanted you wander the gardens.
Such colours! Such verdant growth!
It turns out that the Aunt likes Dahlias. This is a good thing as there is a profusion of cultivars that surely covers all colours and petal form - spikey sunbursts of yellow to tight spheres of soft pruple. There is an exemplary colection of decorative trees including a weeping spruce/pine from the Himalaya where the needles hang vertically from the limbs, such that all the foliage is presented as draped curtains.
There is an avenue of silver birches that leads to the Mother Garden - which is the newest, and still being developed. This avenue cries out for a bride to walk down and indeed their brochure has such a picture. The mother garden ssurrounds a decorative pond and includes the newest arrival - a Huon Pine. We disturbed a flock of guinea fowl.
We meandered through the apples (Caroline compulsively tasting them), over the creek, past the dovecote with proper white turtle doves, and into the rose garden where there was an even greater variety than the dahlias. It was the very epitome of peacefulness. Then we entered the shade of more decorative trees and stopped at a bowered avenue where I said 'Huh! There's an emu.'

The emu approached.
And got closer.
And then he got close enough to hiss in my face.
I didn't know that emus hissed. And I also didn't know if they peck ones eyes out or, like Cassowaries, they kick.
Not eager to find out I suggested that we move on.

Perhaps we should move a bit more swiftly: the emu was following at a disconcertingly close range.
Being the gentleman I am, I interposed my taut, hairy body between that of the fearsome emu and my sinless Aunt, whilst simultaneously trying to avoid getting kicked or pecked. I figured that this behaviour was territorial and that all we need do was leave his area and we'd be fine. After all, they have freakin weddings here!!! You can't have an emu strut up and kick the crap out of the groom now can you?!!!
The emu started charging. I turned ready to do, um, I dunno, maybe take a kick to the guts and then wade into the bastard, fists flying, til he fled defeated. I would them collapse - bleeding from the exploded kidneys - while my Aunt thanked me and asked for the carkeys to drive me to the nearest hospital 560km away.
The emu backed off, but kept following. Then thudthudthud of him charging again. His head was reared back like a cobra ready to strike and that simply can't be good! It looked like he was prepped to take out my eyes (of course, now, I can see that maybe he was interposing his chest between his eyes and the kick of a rival emu).
Summoning the ghost of Hemmingway I suggested "I think we should move a little faster!" - my voice quavering just a little.
"Is he still behind us?!" asks the Aunt still inspecting vegetation - albeit at a trot.
"What do you think?!!?!?!" Women!!!
At this point the track diverged.
The Aunt went right and, thinking he was following me, I went left. The emu hove to the right like the fat bully locked onto the smaller kid with the lollies.
'No, he's following you! Back this way!'
The Aunt swung back to the left asking where we were going.
'To the house!' I said, mostly because I actually knew where we were going.

The guy seemed genuinely surprised that the emu had chased us, but then again, by the look of him, he was probably amazed every time he woke up.
'He was just playing' he stated.
I believe I only spluttered in incredulity internally.
Apparently you aren't meant to look emus in the eye.
'Didn't I tell you about the emu when you came in? Oh, it must have been the people before you.'
Yes, you stoned freak! You somehow neglected to tell us that amidst this sanctuary of light and shadow, and the whispering hymn to the Womb of Nature that there was a DIRECT DESCENDANT OF THE DINOSAURS!!!
What you are meant to do is hold your arm up with a beaked fist like it's the head of the Loch Ness Monster emerging. Hold it up high so that you are taller than the emu. It will them back down.
The same thing works with Galapogas Tortoises.
Stupid emus.

'Steph? Yeah, it's Harry. Bit of a problem. Your mum's been kicked to death by an emu.'

That evening I walked up the steep slope to the top of the nut and walked around in the gloaming. It was forested with redgums til they were all cut down for firewood by the colonial townsfolk. Now there are not-quite-trees in a protected gully, but the rest is scrub and grass. A ton of pademelons call it home and there is a mutton bird colony amongst the thickets.

Note on Stanley: this is the first town that we accidently managed to miss the main street of. Caroline came back from a drive on the second evening saying that there wasn't much to this two at all, and where exactly had I bought the booze? I explained that Church street was a main street with all those nice stone and wooden buildings on it. She replied laughingly that she hadn't seen such a street at all!

Tassie Part 4

Fri 5th, Day 3: We drive the windy road along the coast. Stop at Penguin to buy me a hat. Stop near Burnie at lookout over sea. We watched a raptor beat the air til it caught an updraft. Tight spirals up to the required height, then slid back over the hills and out of view.
Stop in Wynyard for info and to eat at another bakery. Bought some sour dough that turned out to be sour faux.
Fossil bluffs are where Errol Flynn's dad found an important skeleton of a baleen whale. The sediments of the bluffs are rich with ancient seashells. The waters are obviously pristine - tons of live shellfish including the segmented-shell molluscs called chiton.

Table Cape just north of Wynyard is georgeous. Rich red soil from a volcanic core - extremely fertile. Tulips and other flowers during the right season. Currently alium, onion, iris, opium poppy and pyrethrum and barley. The road goes through the fields to a lighthouse. On the way back we stop at the flower-farm display/shop thing but it was shut. This turned out to be serendipitous because we got to see a pair of wedgetail eagles saoring effortless surveying their territory. (later we find out there are only 800 pairs left in the whole of Tassie due to shooting and poisoning, so we feel quite priveledged.)
The air is clean, the water is clear and the farmland is perfection.

Lunch at Boat Harbour after trying unsuccessfully to find the Birdland Native Gardens. We watch a fantail feed its tiny fledgingly half her size.
Black backed gulls (about twice the size of Sydney seagulls) confidently bathe in tidal pools.

Drive to Stanley. Stanley is a small town in the shadow of a flat-top volcanic core called The Nut. It stands 146metres at the end of a very thin peninsular. From a distance it looks like a surfaced submarine with the Nut as the conning tower.
The town is tiny and gorgeous with a main street of very pretty stone buildings and smaller doll-house pretty wooden shops. The Caravan park is on the eastern side, on Tallows Beach of Sawyer Bay. The beach is compact fine limestone sand. I find scallop and pipi shells. The water is very shallow and the next morning we see how far the tide has retreated.

We drink Notley Gorge Pinot Grigio - crisp, clear, perhaps a little sweet.
The fish came from the fisherman's co-op down at the wharf run by a man with an impressive collection of melanomas on his arms. They specialised in live lobster, but we were more interested in fish. Blue Grenadier the first night and something else the next. I can't remember, I'll have to ask the Aunt.

We stayed two nights; we should have stayed longer.
There's a penguin colony on the other side of the peninsular - about 500metres away. I went to say 'hi' very quietly to them. The national parks service run tours that meet at the dog fence, but we were told there were penguins on this side of the fence too. I walked up to where seven people were milling. A couple were watching an unconcerned pademelon.
I said 'You saw the penguins back there, yeah?' They hadn't and were English. (What a poorly written, yet informative, sentence.)
I had noticed the entrances to a dozen burrows on the way to the fence, so I took this couple back and showed where two full sized little penguins were carefully looking out one of them. This illicited oohs and ahhs, as penguins do. The only thing cuter is a hiccupping baby wombat. You can see the telepathy between them as they expose the minimum of themselves to look at you.
'A human! Oh, he's seen us. Shuffle back, shuffle back!'
'We'll just wait back here for a bit.'
'Yeah. Just, just for a while. Then we'll stand just at the front of the burrow, looking cute, as before'.
Animal spotting while tipsy is a excellent past-time. I also found two brown chicks hungrily waiting for mum or dad to return, and showed them to the whole group this time.
It occurred to me again, at that point, how awesome and generous I am.
I would beckon to unobservant tourists and show them the richness of nature they'd missed. I think the government could pay me to proivide such a service to make visitor's experiences of Australia that much more rewarding.

I walked back via the head of the track up the Nut. In the darkness I sent pademelons scattering. I drunkenly apologised to them as I went and eventually managed to take one shot of a pademelon skylined against the very last of the sunset.

.

.