In Tasmania

What is it about Tasmania that it so appealing to me? Perhaps it is that much of it has similarities to my favourite places in the northern hemisphere and it is all found on this Island in the roaring forties which is about the size of New Brunswick. The landscape is stunning, temperate rainforest wilderness, mountains clothed in alpine cushion plants, white sand beaches nestled in otherwise rugged coastline, manicured agricultural landscapes producing wonderful food and wine, and a fascinating though somewhat grim history. Tassie is also in the drug business, the only place where opium poppies are grown legally and they also grow pyrethrum. The flora and fauna are rich and there are species unique to Tasmania. I saw hundreds of wallabies and pademelons, and a few Tasmanian devils and wombats and one tiger snake. I watched oystercatchers feeding their chicks on the shore and saw penguin chicks nestled in a burrow above the Tasman Sea

Tasmania is Australia’s smallest state and was its second penal colony after Sydney. It does not suffer from the extremes of heat and drought that afflict much of mainland Australia. But like many places on this beleaguered earth, it is torn over issues of land and resource use. Agriculture, forestry, mining and tourism compete and clash. Old growth forests are being felled to produce wood chips for export. Fast growing Blue gums and Monterey Pine are planted in clear felled areas. Potatoes are grown on slopes that would be illegal even in Prince Edward Island. But speciality farms including organic farms are diverse and flourishing, there is pride in growing and producing local products. McCains have a presence in Tasmania, processing vegetables and the state has its own version of the Irvings. The are the Gunns, traditionally and still in the forestry business, sawmills, pulp and chips but more recently they have branched into the wine production. Bumper stickers proclaim, “Save Trees, not Gunns”.

Hobart in the south, has a vibrant small town feel with all the amenities of a state capital. The State Museum and Art Gallery is superb and the Botanical Gardens impressive. I particularly enjoyed the controlled environment house depicting the flora of subantarctic islands complete with wind, fog and roaring seals and screaming birds. The Hobart Walking Club has 700 members and organizes at least three walks a week and several longer hikes in the summer months. In the north there are a number of small towns and ports servicing the resource industries. Flower gardens festoon the towns and villages and the convict built stone buildings and bridges lend an air of the English village In New South Wales many convict built buildings were torn down in an attempt to erase the memory of transportation. The peninsulas around the south are beautiful with coastal walking trails, state forests and small farms. The Tasman Peninsula is dominated by Port Arthur, the penal colony now a National Historic site which was well worth a days visit.
There are Canadian connections as well, Canadian “rebels” from riots in Lower Canada were sent to both Port Arthur and Sydney. And John Franklin was governor of Van Diemen’s Land from 1832 -1843 after his first three Arctic voyages and before the final fatal one. His peers noted that he did not show the same qualities in the south as he had shown in the north, he was not comfortable with the cruel punishments administered to convicts and was thought to be overly influenced by the progressive and reforming views of his wife. Jane Franklin attempted to bring in reforms for female prisoners but was more successful with intellectual and scientific pursuits She founded The Royal Society of Tasmania, the second RS in the world and still going strong

The western half of the Island is relatively unpopulated, much of it is mountainous and forested, and the west coast is pounded by the roaring forties, a wild place indeed.
I saw this part of Tasmania with Tarkine Trails on a six day expertly guided exploration mostly on foot. We camped in the rainforest, stayed at at former mining village now a eco-village, marvelled at the pristine forest, the button grass plains and the succession much influenced by natural or “cool” fires as they are known. We also saw the disastrous effects of a hot fire 18 months ago, caused by a driver who had gone off the road in a remote spot and lit a fire to attract attention in the height of a summer drought ! Thousands of hectares of mature rainforest were burned. Regrowth consists of liverworts and mosses in a shrubby thicket of Lemon Boronia amongst the blackened sticks of Eucalypts, some of which were sprouting leaves and demonstrating their tremendous resistance to fire. The climax species of the rainforest are not fire resistant so were completely destroyed. This eerie landscape had replaced the diversity of Myrtle Beech, Blackwood, Celery Top Pine and Eucalypts. But it did afford magnificent views of the Tarkine which we surveyed from a ridge called LongBack where Tasmanian Christmas Bells were flowering in profusion. I was reminded of my mother’s complaint when I took her walking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire about 30 years “When are we going to get out of the trees?” She loved a view and was accustomed to walking was in the relatively tree free vistas of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales.

The rainforests afford a different view, through an ecological succession that spans several hundred years and at closer range, a diversity of ferns, mosses, fungi, liverworts, understory shrubs and birds...oh how the kookaburras laughed at Tiger Ridge. And glimpsing the rare pink robin on the last day was a special treat.

Farewell Tasmania, you are etched in my Gaian consciousness more than any other part of Australia.