The Not-So-Plain Plains: Part 3

There’s a problem trying to have a grandpa nap when your bushwalking companions are so darned interesting! As I lie in my tent after our long day of off-track walking, I’m hoping to have at least a micro nap before getting up to enjoy an afternoon and evening in our beautiful forest. But Tim, Merran and Libby are having a fascinating discussion, just within earshot. My curious mind usurps my tired one, and I lie there enjoying the chatter. I’m occasionally tempted to call out with my 2 bobs worth, but I refrain. Instead, after a small rest, I emerge from my cocoon and join the others.

[Resting, but not asleep]

Tim is setting up the tarp over our kitchen area, and I lend my lack-of-expertise to the exercise. Part of the reason for camping inside the forest is that showers and strong winds are forecast some time later. So we welcome the idea of a dry area for cooking and relaxing. Tim continues to tweak the tarp for some minutes, flicking some paracord over a branch, tightening a couple of knots, tautening a corner. Finally he exhales in satisfaction and sits on his camp chair under the tarp. We all do the same, feeling we’ve earned some downtime.

 

[Merran, Tim and Libby being interesting!]

We converse sparsely but comfortably as we feel the peace of the forest settling on us. If “Tim’s” forest had a grandma myrtle, this forest has both the matriarch and the patriarch of all pencil pines. We are truly in awe of these giant pines; older, taller and less scathed than any we’ve ever seen in our long years of walking in the Tasmanian highlands. They stand just metres from our tents, surrounded by their kith and kin, as well as a myriad other green and growing things. Wendel Berry, reflecting on the forests of his Kentucky farm, wrote “in the stillness of the trees I am at home.” We can only say amen to that.

[Green - and brown - peace inside our forest]

The weather holds overnight, although cloud cover is thickening as we breakfast. We stick with our plan to explore more of the area. This time we start by walking the width of our special forest. Thick layers of brilliant green moss and variegated brown leaf litter muffle the crunch of our bootsteps as we pick our way north. We emerge from the forest into what feels like bright daylight, and climb a small hill which looks down to a wide tarn. One shore of the lake is fringed by sphagnum and pencil pines; the other is rockier, and favoured by sparse eucalypt growth. 

[Pines on one side, eucalypts on the other]

As we circumnavigate the tarn, light rain begins to fall. We pause to put on rain gear – the first time on the whole trip – then continue exploring the lakeshore. We stop in a wide grassy section on one side of the lake, and can see plenty of animal traces such as pads and droppings. We conjecture that this would have been an ideal hunting ground for the palawa Aboriginal people, with hiding places such as rocks and trees adjacent to the grazing ground.

[Contorted pencil pine beside a tarn]

We now walk west for some time, and the rain showers come and go. There are no tracks, but we gladly follow wombat pads, as they can provide a route of sorts, given that wombats generally avoid the thickest scrub. There is a caveat however: these squat creatures are rather better than humans at walking under bushes. 

 

And now we draw close to areas that we walked through yesterday, but decide we’ll vary our route by making for a particular valley that the other three visited a few years ago. Bizarrely on that trip they came across a completely intact board game of Trivial Pursuit in the wilderness. We wonder if we can find this needle in a haystack again. Both Tim and Libby are sure they recognise certain landmarks.

 

[A fruitless pursuit down valley towards the plateau's edge]

They wander all over the place in what looks a rather brown’s-cows fashion. But despite their efforts, they can find neither the exact location nor the game. Perhaps the “0.5%” has come back to finish the game, and then taken it home again. Disappointed by this fruitless pursuit, and by the continuing showers, we walk quickly down to the southern lip of the Februaries. There we pause for lunch, in the shelter of some dolerite slabs. 

[Overland Track peaks from the edge of February Plains]

[Red seed heads of mountain rocket]

Between showers we catch views south over The Pelions and the Cathedral Plateau. But a cold, whipping wind and increasingly sharp showers make lunch a hurried affair. We’re soon off in the direction of the Tarn of Islands, knowing that not far beyond that we’ll find the stillness and peace of our home forest.

 

[Time to head for our forest home!]

Back “home” the wisdom of both a forest camp and a good tarp become clear. We fit neatly beneath the tarp, and sit sipping a warm drink to the sound of wind shooshing through the trees. Some of the younger trees sway and creak excitably as the strong south-west wind sets in. At ground level we only feel occasional wafts of wind. Even the patter of rain on the tarp is softened by the overhead umbrella of trees. 

 

It’s April, and with our part of the planet tilting away from the sun, afternoon soon morphs into evening. Likewise afternoon nibbles meld into dinner. There’s a moment of meal envy for Libby, who hasn’t had much time to prepare dinners before the walk. But she’s made up for it by providing generously in the cheese department, King Island blue, no less! At the end of the day, no-one will go to bed hungry.

Talleh Tales: Chapter Three

So I am on the plateau again, having gone round it like a dog in circles to see if it is a good place. I think it is, and I am to stay up here for a while. - Nan Shepherd

 

Channelling the wonderful Scottish geo-poet, Nan Shepherd, we widened our walking circle the next day. Our home lake was clearly a good place, of that we were certain. But what of the other two lagoons that make up the Talleh Lagoons?

 

We hefted our day packs, lunch and wet weather gear inside, and left camp after a leisurely breakfast. This time we went north, then briefly east to cross the top of our lagoon. Next we turned north and walked up the eastern side of the middle lagoon. The sky was a mix of blue and non-threatening cloud, and a brisk breeze blew from the south. We’d chosen this side of the middle lagoon, the smallest of the three, as the vegetation was low and relatively sparse. Across the lake the going looked steeper and more scrubby. 

[An old fence post at the middle lagoon]

 

On the lakeshore ahead we saw what we thought to be the stump of a dead tree. Instead, to our surprise, it turned out to be a fence post, some rusty old fencing wire still attached. This part of the plateau was used for summer grazing, mainly of sheep but also cattle, from the early 1800s until the mid 20^th century. We presumed that these old lichen-covered fences near Talleh Lagoons were once used for stock management, ‘though they may also have been boundary markers. By coincidence we saw on our map that the western shore of Talleh Lagoons marked the eastern boundary of the Walls of Jerusalem National Park.

[The old fence line extending north from Talleh Lagoons]

 

When we reached the top of the northern lagoon, the sporadic fence posts turned into a line of posts stretching a long way north. I followed it a little way up Quaile Gully, more a shallow creek than a gully at this point. Jim and Lisa waited as I wandered, wondered and took photographs. Some of my wondering was about how Tasmania’s palawa Aboriginal people would have seen and used this place. I knew that they seasonally harvested swans' eggs up here, and from what we’d seen there would have been plenty of those. As well they patch-burned up here, to encourage “green pick” that would have made it easier to hunt marsupials.

[Fenceline in the Quaile Gully]

 

I returned to the others, and together we reckoned we’d gone as far as we wanted. But so we could explore some new country, we made our way to the western shore of the northern lagoon. Thankfully this wasn’t too scrubby, but rather a delightfully undulating checkerboard of green cushion plants, red mountain rocket and lichen-dotted dolerite boulders.

[Lisa and Jim near the northern lagoon]

 

On our journey south we’d planned to avoid the scrubby western side of the middle lagoon. But we were still kept honest by the scrub that stood between the end of the northern lagoon and the top of the middle lagoon. Warmed and a little scratched, we reached the route we’d taken on our outward journey and paused for lunch. Then, bringing the day’s circling journey to an end, we returned to our home lake. 

 

Later that afternoon we caught up with our neighbour Steve, who had successfully hooked his dinner: a good sized brown trout. We were a little envious, especially Jim, who was on a minimalist trip in terms of food. He’d even decided to go without a stove, so would “borrow” hot water from Lisa or me. And at dinner time he didn’t decline offers of any spare hot food from our dinners. We laughingly we told him it was as good as having a dog to clean up after us.

[Any spare water, Lisa?]

 

In the late afternoon I noticed some movement at the far end of the lake. I saw what I thought was people scrambling down the scrubby shore and getting in for a swim, near where the inlet stream joined the lake. It was too far away to make out details, but I watched for some minutes as these people splashed and swam and had a good old time in the water. I guessed they’d get out of the water soon enough, and we’d see them coming this way to camp.

 

I decided to get a little closer, and walked up to where Steve was camped. But by then the swimmers had gone. I asked Steve if he’d noticed them, and he shook his head, saying he’d only seen swans. Jim joined us, and he too reckoned it was probably swans. I looked up towards the tracks leading in and out of our lagoon, but saw no sign of walkers. I was mightily puzzled, as I was sure I’d seen people, and that the swans were further out in the water. 

 

I pondered this later, and wondered whether my reverie of palawa people around these lagoons had over-fired my imagination. Perhaps it had just been swans, but … my cogitations continued. There are those who are somewhat in awe of the pioneer European trappers, shepherds and cattlemen who braved the often bleak conditions up here for nearly two centuries. And certainly they have my admiration. But the Big River band, and others of the palawa people, were up here for 60 000 years plus, including through a couple of ice ages. Admiration doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel about that. Perhaps I might be excused for engaging my imagination a little more than usual.

[View towards the Walls of Jerusalem on our way out]

 

The next day we packed up and left, and headed for a place that Jim knew would feed him well without the need for a stove or for any “borrowing”. As we sat and reviewed our great experience of “slow-packing”, the Great Lake Hotel fed us very well. 

Central Plateau Variations: Part 3

[Who else has walked here?]

It’s rare to walk the Earth and not be following in the footsteps of others. At our first campsite, we’d sat relaxed and content – when the weather allowed – and imagined the Palawa, Tasmania’s Aboriginal people, doing much the same over tens of thousands of years. The shelter, the water, the hunting, the clear views, would all have made this a wonderful summer place. What stories, songs and dances must they have shared here, and passed on for countless generations?

[A place of contentment]

For the Palawa, European invasion stopped all that, whether though disease, forced eviction, or deliberate killings. Others would now eye off this high country for their own purposes, and they did so quickly. In the 1830s, when G. A. Robinson (the so-called protector of Aboriginals), travelled through the Central Plateau to round up any remaining Aboriginals, he noted that “wild cattle was seen grazing … and several young calves appeared among them”. 

So this “empty” Central Plateau became a favoured place on which to summer livestock. It’s estimated that between 1860 and 1920, up to 350,000 sheep and 6,000 cattle were summered up here annually. This is tranhumance on a grander scale than I’d ever imagined. Gradually cattle became more highly favoured than sheep, and by the late 1870s, settlers from the Mersey Valley and surrounding districts had acquired cattle grazing leases on the plateau. They built tracks such as Higgs Track, Warners Track and Dixons Track so they could drive stock up to the high country each summer.

But as we were discovering first hand, the “warmer” months on the plateau can still be harsh, making navigation difficult. Around 1913 a farmer from Meander named Charles Ritter, who had leases in the Walls of Jerusalem area, thought to make a safer all-weather drove route from the top of Higgs Track/Ironstone Hut area to the Walls. It was probably completed by 1918, and became known as Ritters Track. While it was called a track, I had long wondered whether it was ever more than a series of large rock cairns that could be followed even in rough weather. On our fourth day, we were hoping to find out for ourselves.

[An old sketch map by Keith Lancaster, showing Ritters Track]

The night had been exceedingly windy, and none of us had slept much. Jim wasn't feeling great after a poor sleep punctuated by some unwelcome toilet trips in the dark. We’d already decided to adapt our schedule, allowing for another night here at Pencil Pine Tarn, and a short wander today. That meant Jim could stay back and “keep our camp secure”, which he generously volunteered to do. The rest of us would pack lunch and a day pack, and go in search of Ritters Track.

Three years earlier we’d half-heartedly looked for some cairns between here and Long Tarns. That time we’d only had some rough, third-hand notes, and our explorations hadn’t allowed us to say with any certainty that the cairns we found were part of Ritters Track. This time, we had not one but two lots of GPS data indicating the supposed locations of Ritter’s cairns. The only thing against us was the weather, which remained showery and ferociously windy: in short exactly the kind of weather Ritter hoped his track would deal with.

[Tim contemplates the route]

Tim and Larry, our two GPS-bearers, lead the way, at first taking us almost east, seemingly back to where we’d come from. I expressed my surprise, but Tim assured me we’d soon swing south. And once we’d picked up a cairn, we’d start heading more south-west. 

Before long one of our navigators signalled us to join him. According to his GPS, we were within 20 metres of one of the cairns. But what were we looking for? A pile of rocks in a landscape made of rocks? And rocks that have been glaciated, ice-shattered, and scattered about willy-nilly over aeons? The five of us wandered about, a little clueless, until someone finally had their eureka moment. 

[Surely a Ritters Track cairn?]

We hurried over towards an obviously human creation: four or five rocks piled high atop a large boulder, forming a rough and wonky pyramid. If the cairn’s size wasn’t the clincher, the mop of long, grey/green lichen on the rocks was. This indicated it was no recent or random cairn, but one put here deliberately, and many decades ago.

[Tim and Larry spy out the next cairn]

The next couple of hours saw us slowly following our navigational nerds from cairn to cairn. Sometimes the next cairn was visible from the current one, but at other times we were glad to have the GPS data. This was not the sort of “track” that, once found, you could easily follow. Apparently Ritter didn’t choose a straight-line route towards the Walls of Jerusalem (which today was clear to see ahead of us). Rather he kept to higher, less boggy ground, winding around the plateau on ground over which cattle could more easily move.

[A clear view towards the Walls of Jerusalem]

Another matter sometimes confused us. We found multiple other cairns dotted across the landscape. Some we considered Ritteresque: good copies, but not originals. Others were mere wannabes: poor imitations that lacked size or age, the creation perhaps of bushwalkers or anglers. Our rule of thumb was that a true Ritter cairn would be substantial, vaguely pyramidal, made with care, and bearded with lichen. We came to admire the labour that Charles Ritter, presumably with the help of his fellow drovers, had put into building the many dozens of cairns. The heavy rocks would have taken some effort to move, and the conditions for doing that work would seldom have been ideal.

[Libby inspects another genuine Ritter cairn]

As we walked, we imagined driving cattle through this terrain. How different it would have been to walk or ride here accompanied by the sound of hoofs and mooing; the steam from their breath; the swish of their tails; the slop of the slush beneath their hard hoofs; the smell of dung and drover alike. We could admire, celebrate even, the hard labour of these cattlemen, without wishing that this was still happening. Clearly driving and grazing cattle between here and the central Walls – where the best grazing was found – made a mess, and altered the landscape hugely. The unsustainability of the practice, both environmentally and economically, led to grazing being prohibited above the 3000ft contour (914m) in 1973. 

[Tim and Merran at our lunch stop]

While it had been fascinating to follow the footsteps of Ritter, after lunch it was time to complete our off-track loop back to the campsite. We were beginning to wonder how another grey-bearded fixture was doing. We found Jim relaxing in the sun, which had finally made a welcome return. As Tim placed his small solar panel in the same patch of sun as Jim, I remarked that we now had two solar collectors. Then, over a relaxing afternoon tea, we swapped stories of our day. Jim noticed that a couple of us were red in the face, and when we conjectured that a combination of windburn and sunburn might be to blame, he was all the gladder for his rest day.

[Two solar collectors hard at work]

When the shade from the pines started overtaking us, we followed the sun up the hill. It was good to gain a little altitude, to change our perspective, and to feel a windless sun after 48 hours of gales. Eventually we wandered back down to the camp, and we were soon off to our tents. How good it felt to be in that now quiet space, without wind tearing my every thought away.

[A calm Pencil Pine Tarn]

In that calm state, I began to ponder on our walk, and to think about the footsteps we had followed to this point. Whether it was those of the Palawa, those of the cattlemen, or those of the pioneer bushwalkers, the ones who were here before us are now gone. Without feeling at all morbid, I apprehended afresh my own impermanence. None of us – grey-bearded or not – will hang around even as long as Ritter’s cairns. Sooner or later each of us will follow in the footsteps of those who are gone. 

It was in a time of pandemic, nearly 400 years ago, that poet John Donne reflected so powerfully on this. 

No man is an island, 

entire of itself, 

every man is a piece of the continent, 

a part of the main; … 

any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind,  

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 

It tolls for thee. 

Returning to Rhona (4)

Part 4: Wasting the Wilderness

Autumn 2011. Trip number 5 to Lake Rhona starts in the kind of summer weather we've not seen during summer itself. We cross a summer river, walk up a summer valley, feel the peat-bound heat of summer reflecting back at us fiercely. We climb that final summer hill and promise we'll slake our thirsts in the deliciously cool summer cup that is Lake Rhona.

Lake Rhona, with Reeds Peak behind. An idyllic scene, but the dead standing pines tell a story  

On every bushwalking trip I carry baggage. I don't mean the sort that fits inside my pack, but the emotional kind. On trips to Lake Rhona, the memory of the tragic loss of Lake Pedder is the heaviest of these, no matter how much I insist that Rhona and Pedder are completely distinct from each other.

I lost a sister to cancer at a tragically young age. To this day her now-adult daughters always remind me of her. That's not to say they don't each have their own unique and treasured identity. It's a simple acknowledgement of what gets caught in memory's net.

To walk through any part of the Tasmanian wilderness is to be reminded of its past: what it has lost; the threats it has faced; the threats it continues to face.

For me it starts with a loud absence: that of Tasmania's Palawa. In the 1830s escaped convicts, Goodwin and Connolly, reported seeing many Aboriginal huts in the Vale of Rasselas. Within decades they and their occupants had either died or been driven from the area.

Ironically the absence of their fire use opened the area to greater fire risks. Aboriginal burning was generally small-scale and out of peak season. Its main purpose was to clear localised hunting grounds. European burning was less judicious, and too often of a timing and scale that brought landscape-wide devastation.

Early on this was for exploration, mining and grazing. But later forestry burning had a huge impact too. Even Ernie Bond, who was not averse to burning his grazing grounds, was aghast at the effect of post-war forestry fires in the Gordon, Florentine and Rasselas valleys.

On my first trip to Rhona there was another piece of heavy "baggage". The summer before a hazard reduction burn in the Florentine had gone drastically wrong. The fire had escaped, burned through the Vale of Rasselas, and found its way up to a defenseless Lake Rhona.

The great majority of the stunning King Billy pine forest that lined its northern shore was burned and lost. Dead stumps still stand there today, the pines' residue resin keeping them preserved from rot, vertical but lifeless. Nature abhors a vacuum: eucalypts have largely filled the void, with just a few King Billys left alive to remind us of our folly.

A King Billy pine clings to life on the shores of Lake Rhona 

Meanwhile, back in autumn 2011. Exhaustion and a late arrival prevent us from keeping our promise to drink Rhona's cup dry. But on the way up we've also been discussing the touchy issue of toileting in this area. It has started us thinking about the quality of the water in the lake. By our back-of-the-envelope calculations, bushwalkers deposit around 1 000 "number twos" around the lake shore every year. This being an alpine area, we've learned that decomposition of solid waste is very slow. Essentially most bushwalkers here are "pooing in their own nest", to borrow some technical ornithological terminology!

Our inspection of the area immediately behind the campsite confirms some fairly squalid toileting practices. Solid waste and toilet paper are not hard to find. Some has been buried in shallow sand, an easy find for the wildlife. The presence of a bold - and very plump - native rat (probably Mastacomys fuscus) at the campsite has us speculating in a very ugly direction regarding its diet!

By mutual agreement our party has decided to walk the 100-200 metres out of the catchment area to do our "number twos". Another solution would be to use "poo tubes". This combination of biodegradable bags and large tight-lidded plastic "pots" (approx. 10cm in diameter) for storing and carrying human waste, is the ultimate "carry in, carry out" practice.

Lake Rhona water: as cool and clear as iced tea ... we hope!

Some find the thought of this as gross as considering the Rhona rat's diet. Many would prefer someone else take responsibility for removing their waste, hence the popular call for a fly-in-fly-out toilet to be placed behind Rhona's beach. Personally I hope we can learn from our wilderness mistakes of the past, and start to take a deeper responsibility for removing unnecessary traces from these wild places.

Federation Peak - Part 5

[part 5 of a 15 part series describing an ascent of Tasmania's Federation Peak]

5) Passing Wargata Mina

Farmhouse Creek to the South Cracroft, Tuesday February 5th, 1991

To the left is the indistinct track to Lake Sydney, a remote glacial lake cupped between Mt Bobs and The Boomerang. I passed that way another day, and got close enough to a platypus to hear it breathe. But on this day we go straight ahead, up and over the lushly forested saddle, and on towards Federation. In the distance some currawongs send out their claxon call, to me the signature sound of the highlands. Immense King Billy pines, metres in circumference, deep green with deeply furrowed trunks, guard the track. They are ancient outposts of Gondwana, common here in the high rainfall high forest, but increasingly rare in the drying climate that begins to take hold even here in southwest Tasmania.

From the saddle the track has been re-routed, out of respect for other ancients – Tasmania’s Palawa. Aboriginals lived here thousands of years before Abraham or the pyramids, and they left hand stencils at Wargata Mina, a cave west of here. At the request of their descendants the track, which once went by the cave, has been re-aligned to give the sacred site wide berth. It is now one of the few pieces of land under direct Aboriginal control.

Over lunch – mine a squashed but still-fresh bread roll from home – I think about Aboriginal presence in this area. To our group this is wilderness, the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. But to those who left hand stencils in Wargata Mina over 10 000 years ago; who spat paint against outstretched hands in the deep dark, it was home. They and their descendants have walked and worked this land ever since. The extensive areas of buttongrass are partly a result of Aboriginal burning, and some of the tracks they used have become the tracks we use.

But not the new section of track beyond the saddle at the top of Farmhouse Creek. We’re among the first to use it, and we make rapid progress down the slope towards the South Cracroft River. As it flattens out the track moves out of forest into more open heath. It looks to have been hastily cleared, with the stumps of felled paperbark, ti-tree and bauera protruding everywhere, and some of the cut foliage still strewn about among the buttongrass. We adopt a four wheel drive-like gait, lifting our legs high to prevent us tripping on the low stumps. The literal downside of this is that we’re more prone to slip on the almost grassy, sometimes mossy surface. At least with so few feet having gone before us, there is mercifullly little of the usual southwest mud to mark our occasional falls. It also helps that the threatened rain has been little more than a thin drizzle. And not long after we cross the South Cracroft, we even begin to see Federation Peak – a cloud-shrouded giant looming before us.

A Hymn to Tasmania

[A Welcome Speech to the Interpretation Australia Association (IAA) National Conference in Strahan, Tasmania by Peter Grant, October 3, 2005]

What is this place, this island you have come to that we call Tasmania? In a sense there are as many Tasmanias as there are people who experience it. So I would like to simply share something quite personal of what Tasmania means to me. I call it “A Hymn to Tasmania”, adding a warning footnote that not all hymns are “happy clappy”. Many of the best have a dark or sombre note through which hope and victory must struggle to shine.


Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is universally regarded as a magnificent work of art. In addition to the beauty of the subject, there is something about the enigmatic smile that has sparked both admiration and speculation for as long as it has existed. Likewise there is a certain magnificence to Tasmania. Here is an island – an archipelago of islands as our late Premier Jim Bacon liked to say – that is admired across the Strait by the majority of Australians, and loved by the increasing numbers who come to it from further afield.

Here you will find a beguiling mixture of utter wildness and amiable approachability. As American writer and photographer Arthur Rosenfeld put it “nowhere have I seen such breathtaking contrasts arise so naturally from the dialogue between mountain and forest, clarity and cloud, sun and moon. A person can disappear in beauty like this."

But once you have penetrated the beauty of this island you will find, as with the Mona Lisa, that there is also an enigma. Instead of a smile however, it is an enigmatic frown. On this heart-shaped island, there is a feeling that the heart has been hurt if not broken at times. What is the source of this frown; this veiled heart-ache? For me it derives from a sense that something tragic, something sad, flawed or failed has happened here. A skein of melancholy seems woven into the warp and weft of this beautiful place.

And our history bears this out, starting with the Aboriginal tragedy that unfolded here following European invasion. It is difficult to see how we can use any other word than invasion. Surely “discovery” is just plain wrong, and “settlement” euphemistic at best. Even before 1803 there were skirmishes between the Palawa, the original Tasmanians, and the Europeans – as there were also friendly exchanges. But once the English decided to come, their gaze having turned here following their capture of French information on the island, there was little that could stop them. Aboriginal resistance was blunted by both guns and germs. The Palawa, so long isolated from a host of germs, quickly succumbed to European-borne diseases. It was a victory of sorts merely to survive under such circumstances, but Tasmania’s Aboriginal people have survived … and we will hear more of that story later.

Not only were the English determined to injure, infect or ignore the island’s long-established inhabitants, they also worked to supplant them with convicts. This cargo of human misery was to be transplanted out of the old country – out of sight and mind – to the “end of the world”. A place where nature herself was to be one of the keenest gaolers. Thus were culture and nature dubious allies in old Van Diemen’s Land.

And then there is our more modern history, in which the worst excesses of Van Diemen’s Land were to be expunged through hard labour. But this time the work was not so much for the overseers as for ourselves. We would delve, cut, sow and pluck a new state into being, even changing our name to Tasmania as though to distance ourselves from “the hated stain” of our convict past.

So how have we fared on this rebound from the past? Let me employ an extended analogy. The ancient Hebrew prophet Hosea was given one of the most bizarre jobs in the bible. He was instructed by God to marry a prostitute named Gomer. This was so that he could experience, and then communicate to his peers, what it was like for the Lord to have his “wife” – the people of Israel – constantly unfaithful to him through worshipping false gods.

As I look at modern Tasmania, I sometimes feel a little like Hosea. I love this place, yet Tasmania, like Gomer, seems always ready to run off after false gods. In the post war years this included the idea that we could become a manufacturing centre – “The Ruhr Valley of the South” was the rhetoric of the time – if only we could produce enough cheap power to attract heavy industry. The loss of the irreplaceable Lake Pedder was one result of this short-skirts-and-gaudy-make-up approach. And currently it seems that we are selling off our forests for a cheap drink and a bit of slap-and-tickle, while only the Madam makes any money.

I have recently returned from Alaska, a place with many resonances for a Tasmanian. Alaska is seen – indeed their vehicle number plates proclaim it – as “the last frontier”. (We are “Your Natural State”.) When Alaska was purchased from the Russians in 1867 for $7.2million (about 2c an acre), it was derided by the press and many politicians as a waste of money for a useless “ice-box”. (While no-one had to buy Tasmania, I’m sure some of you consider us to be Australia’s bar-fridge in terms of climate! And doubtless Cascade & Boags would be happy to fill that role for you!)

Despite its inglorious beginning, one of Alaska’s biggest roles today is as a reminder of what the lower 48 used to be and used to have. In Alaska you will find vast forests, huge wildernesses of ice-fields and glaciers, wildlife in unbelievable abundance. Tasmania plays a similar role for Australia, albeit on a smaller scale, especially in terms of intact wild ecosystems. Chief Geographer Henry Gannett, writing of Alaska in the late 1800s, stated that its grandeur, “is more valuable than the gold or the fish or the timber, for it will never be exhausted.“ This quote, more than a century old, sets out some of the alternatives both Alaskans and Tasmanians still face today.

And in neither place is it always a straightforward choice. In Alaska the tourists that come to see the grandeur, especially those in cruise ships, can overwhelm the local populace and the unique local culture. Juneau, the state’s capital, is dominated as much by its plethora of souvenir and merchandise shops as it is by its stunning mountainous surroundings. The locals know that you only have to go 100 metres up any hill – and there are plenty of those – and you will shake off the exercise-shy tourists. Either that or wait for winter! In Sitka, where I spent most of the last month, the best coffee shop in town, a wonderful Bohemian hang-out, is hidden away at the back of a bookshop, and thus protected from the majority of the “boat people”.

Bulk tourism of this kind seems to be a very mixed blessing. Which is where Tourism Tasmania’s “Experience Strategy” seems to me to show the way. Here it is recognised that you will only add value to tourism, and win the word-of-mouth game, if you offer an authentic experience. Can you truly experience Alaska by spending several days in a cruise ship, stopping en-masse in ports that sell food and merchandise that comes from the cruise companies, and is usually made elsewhere? And if you seldom meet a local and go no further afield than the shops, how “Alaskan” is the experience? You could see the same scenery, and more wildlife, by staying at home and watching the Discovery Channel. You would also avoid sea sickness.

Tourism Tasmania, to its credit, has recognised that tourists increasingly demand an authentic experience. Moreover they have seen that the key to providing such experiences in Tasmania is interpretation. And so a circle starts to form, cycling through experience, stories and meaning to authenticity … with interpreters central to the whole process. However it will not remain authentic if we Tasmanians “whitewash our tombs”; if we try to gloss over the tragedies of our past or the inconsistencies of our present.

American novelist David Guterson (“Snow Falling on Cedars”), who himself lives on an island, observed that:

Islands fill mainlanders with an unabashed yearning for a life simpler than the one they endure, a pared-down life in which all that is elemental - sea, wind, sun, love, the last light of day, the sand beneath fingernails - is brought to the fore-front of existence.

In Tasmania we can choose to pander to that illusion. We can try to convey that here you will find only blessed and happy people; the cleanest and greenest of economies; food and wine fit for gods; and bounteous wild and untouched wilderness, all in perfect balance. Or we can tell the truth: that the human drama, with all its pathos, comedy, tragedy, farce and struggle, is played out here in the nature culture of Tasmania, just as it is everywhere.

And yet … it seems to me that there are lessons that can be learned from observing Australia’s island state closely. Our conference theme is Nature Culture: Interpreting the Divide. Here in Tasmania if we have witnessed, and continue to witness, some of the dreadful results of the perceived divide between the two, there are also positives that have been gained. I have spoken of tragedies in relation to our Aboriginal, convict and resource extraction histories. But each of these also shows us a hopeful side. Despite everything, our Aboriginal people have survived. And their culture and presence is burgeoning, as you will witness when you hear Jim Everett or walk the Henty Dunes. Likewise our convict past, as Richard Davey so eloquently reminds us, managed to produce some unexpected – and at the time unwanted – positives in terms of resistance, ingenuity and the triumph of the human spirit. And our natural resources have not been, and will not be, completely pillaged. Here in Strahan you are on the edge of 1.38 million hectares of World Heritage Area – saved and so-proclaimed through the action of individuals who loved this wild home, and told their rulers so.

As you experience the extraordinary places around Strahan, and around the rest of Tasmania, try to resist the notion that this is a place untouched by what happens where you live. And above all reject the notion that you are an alien here. As Gary Snyder has pointed out, nature is not a place to visit, it is home1. Welcome home.



1. The Practice of the Wild, p 7