28 Moments of Wonder, Down Under

When my son was four years old, we flew from Ottawa to Victoria, B.C. – in February. As the doors opened at YVR airport and the mild spring air kissed his cheeks, he exclaimed, “Mummy, it’s summer in this place!” Travel can be magic. At its best, it surprises and delights us. But it also can be overwhelming, frustrating, or even formulaic when you feel that you’re ticking tourist boxes and not really engaging with the country and its people. I certainly felt that way more times than I liked during our visit to Portugal this past spring. During our recent trip to Tasmania, I wanted to conjure the spirit of wonder expressed by my son all those years ago. I wanted to remember the sense of surprise and amazement that travel can bring, when we are open to it. What follows is a highly personal perspective on Australia, captured in 28 moments of wonder.

Moment 1

Arriving at Sydney airport, I am struck by the extraordinary kindness of Australians. A middle-aged woman guides me through domestic security with murmurs of “You’re alright, darling” (I learn that Aussie security only cares about electronics as I rip my carryon apart to find the liquids and medications). The ticket agent exclaims, “You don’t get a window in these seats!” and changes our seats both on the flight from Sydney to Hobart and on the return. In both directions, we watch the spectacular coastline of the Australian continent unfurl. Beach after long, undulating beach, bright white gashes of sand backed by endless swathes of green forest.

Moment 2

Hobart is adorable. The core of the city was built during the English Georgian Period (1714-1830). Small boats and piers dot the waterfront, which is lined with Georgian sandstone buildings that once were warehouses and are now stores, restaurants and art galleries.

Hobart Waterfront

At the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, in paintings from the 1840s, we see Tasmania as Julian’s great-great grandmother, Mary, would have when she stepped off the boat from County Cork, Ireland. There were 10,000 convicts and 3000 soldiers living in Tasmania at the time, and a mere handful of colonial settlers. She ended up in the village of Bothwell in the Tasmanian Highlands, after marrying the District Constable. Bothwell is an hour’s drive from Hobart, but in the 1840s it would have taken two to three days by horse and cart. It’s a trip she might have made once a year. One painting in the Museum depicts a group of naked Indigenous people dancing at night under alien-shaped trees. How strange this place must have seemed to her.

Moment 3

My original concept of wonder was the feeling of awe, excitement and surprise when encountering a novel experience. There is another meaning to the word which translates roughly as WTF. Everyone says you must visit MONA, the private collection of “old and new art” curated by a local millionaire. So, we plonk down $130 AUS for tickets and the ferry ride up the River Derwent. I’m not offended by what we find there, just astonished that people don’t seeing he’s – in true Aussie fashion – “taking the piss.” I’ve seen better old art for free in London. The best modern exhibit was the video of a guy energetically lip-synching Tina Turner’s “Rolling on the River” complete with sweat, foot stomps, and chest thrusts. But kangaroo porn? Really? Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

Billboard at the Hobart Airport

He’s not joking. One of the displays is a milking machine that “eats” at 11 and “poops” at 2.

Moment 4

Moments of wonder can be small too. Julian is struggling with jet lag, so I wander the neighbourhood of Battery Point. Located behind the sandstone warehouses, it housed workers in the 1840s. Now, it’s an enclave of cute, renovated cottages (probably airbnbs), restaurants, and heritage coffee shops. The heady smell of roses in tiny front gardens perfumes the warm Tassie air. Another definition of wonder: I wonder if Julian would like to rent a place here next November…

Moment 5

Australia is at once both familiar and alien. A family history trip following the footsteps of one of Mary’s daughters takes us to Ross. It’s a quintessentially English village: pub on one side of the street, 19th century Anglican church on the other, lines of tall, graceful trees shading the empty boulevard. At dusk, exotic Australian birds emerge, zipping through the air and trilling their evening songs. When I close my eyes, I feel I am in a tropical rainforest, parrots and cockatoos sounding for all the world like their jungle kin.

Moment 6

We visit the ruins of the Ross Female Convict Factory. Stories of the women transported there – some for as small a crime as the theft of a handkerchief – are told on a series of posters. The women were hired out to local settlers as indentured servants. Women could be transported pregnant or with their young infants. They were allowed to breastfeed until their babies were six months old, after which the children were put into orphanages. I suppose the reasoning was that this would break the cycle of criminality, but as a mother and an attachment therapist, I can’t imagine a more efficient way of perpetuating criminal behaviour. One woman, whose story we will hear later, tracked down her baby when he was 14 years old, after she received her ticket of freedom. Transportation sentences were for either 7 or 14 years. Her other two children had remained with her husband in England, and likely never seen again. A deeply sympathetic work in the Art Gallery humanizes the female convicts on one transportation ship.

Convicts on a female transportation ship in 1841
Detail from the Female Convict Ship Painting

Moment 7

Our first day walking the spectacularly beautiful Three Capes Track, which follows the headlands of the south-eastern coast. No words necessary.

Cape Raoul

Moment 8

Day two will take us through forest and along high cliff tops to a beach. Before we start, our driver/guide warns us to watch out for “snakies” that might be a “wee bit aggressive.” Aussies love to trivialize the dangers of their environment. She breezily cautions us that all three varieties are highly venomous. But, hey, no one’s died from a snake bite in Tassie since 1977. Those of you who follow this blog will know that I am terrified of snakes. Julian bravely goes first. It’s a 20K+ walk which I pass with eyes fastened to the ground. Near the end he picks up the pace to get it done. He’s about 15 feet ahead of me when I see a long black eel moving quickly through the grass at the side of the path. Isn’t the brain a wonderful thing? Eels aren’t dangerous. They don’t bite. In fact, we bite them in sushi restaurants once they’ve been smoked. One of our walking companions, John, is a vet. His eyes register astonishment as he shows us with his hands the three-foot-long black snake he saw. Glad I missed that moment of wonder.

Moment 9

The walk out to Cape Huoy is a contrast to our previous two days of walking. The manicured track means it’s slammed with casual walkers, including an entire year-12 gang of shirtless boys approaching the walk like a military training exercise. But in our moments of solitude, we see flocks of cockatoos and a rosella in a tree, which is keenly interested in Julian.

Rosella

Moment 10

A scramble up Mount Brown leads to the best view we’ve had so far: a 180-degree vista of the headlands. From here, we also spot the manicured grounds of Port Arthur, the largest convict prison in Tasmania. The one where they sent the really bad guys or convicts who re-offended after transportation. The punishment here included a chapel in which convicts were placed in individual booths so they could only see the minister, not other convicts. An Irish journalist, John Mitchel, was transported for “seditious libel” when he criticized the British government’s actions — or lack thereof — during the Great Famine. He lamented in his Jail Journal that such a beautiful place should also be the site of such incredible inhumanity.

The view from Mt Brown of the grounds of Port Arthur prison

Moment 11

Magical Maria Island lies off the east coast, just north of Hobart. Fat, lazy wombats, sandstone cliffs painted in vivid oranges, reds and yellows, a beach strewn with prehistoric fossils.

Maria Island Wombats

Maria Island is so bucolic that convicts committed minor crimes to be sent here. Yes, more convicts, sent to farm. It is becoming clear that Tasmania was built on the indentured labour of transported convicts. Everywhere we turn there are convict-built buildings, roads, and bridges. It’s no coincidence that the most commonly transported criminal was a man aged 15-35 with experience in the building trades.

The ubiquitous Tassie wind on Maria Island

Moment 12

Nine Mile beach, so called, well, because it’s nine miles of pale, talcum-powder-soft sand backed by grassy dunes. No convicts today. And no people.

Nine Mile Beach

Moment 13

We walk to the infamous Wineglass Bay, so called, goes one theory, because the blood of butchered whales coloured the water red. There’s no escaping the brutality of Tasmania’s history, even when the convicts don’t figure into the story. It’s November 11 so at 11 am we stop on the track to remember the war service of my father and uncle. We couldn’t have found a better spot. All is quiet, except for the call of birds and contented croaking of frogs. But that isn’t the only moment of the day. Second place goes to the freshly shucked, succulent, briny oysters from the Melshell shack on Dolphin Beach. 

Moment 14

Long deserted beaches line the east coast north of Wineglass Bay. The grassy dunes are sanctuaries for protected bird species. Sheep graze in the fields between the Tasman Highway and the ocean. We stop for lunch at one of the beaches, munching on sandwiches in the perennial Tasmanian wind. Pelican Point, where we’re staying for a few nights, overlooks a marsh. The ocean is a line on the horizon. The unit comes with binoculars and a bird reference guide. We sit on the outside deck, sipping rose and watching the birds.

Moment 15

It’s my birthday! We walk the beach at the Bay of Fires. Another tourist must-see, the Bay turns out to be an over-hyped attraction – unless you find rust-coloured lichen growing on rocks attractive. But the beach is spectacular. And deserted again. Well, except for this guy.

Moment 16

A shortcut from the east coast to the town of Launceston takes us through the mountains. Canadians wouldn’t call these mountains. They top out at about 1200 metres – Whistler village is located 600 metres above sea level. But we won’t split hairs. They are lovely, damp and misty and exploding with a profusion of white flowering shrubs. We come out of the mist and onto a sun-drenched plain with neatly demarcated farm fields. We’re obviously not the first people to be impressed by the sight; conveniently, there is a viewpoint and lookout on the opposite side of the plain.

Moment 17

The town of Penguin on the north coast has lots of penguin statuary, but no penguins. So, why the name? The woman in the tourist office confides that, actually, they do have penguins, but they don’t advertise it because the tourists scare them.

Moment 18

Stanley, a fishing village on the north-west coast, developed when the Van Diemen Land Company (VDLC) was granted the top north-west corner of Tasmania. This is another story of colonial Tasmania – the granting of large land tracts to private investors. Originally, the VDLC planned to graze sheep for wool, but the sheep didn’t survive, so they turned to cattle ranching instead. They built a fabulous headquarters, Highfield, (well, strictly speaking the convicts built it), but they couldn’t really make a go of it. When all was said and done, their big accomplishment was the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger (thylacine and not really a tiger, more like a big dog).

But back to Stanley. We gather with a dozen other tourists at dusk to watch the fairy penguins come onto land after a day of fishing. All day, fairy penguin chicks hide in the bushes and under the boardwalk. When they hear the distinctive calls of their parents, they waddle out of hiding to greet them. One chick is so excited – or hungry – that he tumbles onto the beach in anticipation several times before his parents appear. The next day, a local complains, “They’re in all the bushes around here. It’s a bloody nuisance.” Which goes to show that what delights the tourist only aggravates the local.

Moment 19

At Stanley Seafood, we eat amazing scallops and abalone and meet Ingrid. She’s an improbably named Māori woman who talks politics, philosophy and psychology as we order and eat our food. When she learns we’re from BC, she tells us that a group of Māori met with the Indigenous people of Port Alberni earlier this year. Oral history in both cultures tells of Māori who spent several years on the west coast of BC. DNA testing shows that some Indigenous people of Port Alberni in fact have Māori DNA!

Moment 20

The Tarkine is a dense swath of temperate rain forest south-west of Stanley. After listening to a cacophony of frogs in a roadside pond, we walk in the rain among tree ferns and massive eucalyptus as big as our Douglas fir. I demonstrate the utility of my strength classes when I lift a downed tree from the road so Julian can drive on. Sadly, no photographic evidence.

Moment 21

Waratah is a small mining town in north-central Tasmania where Julian’s great-grandfather worked as an accountant, and his grandfather lived until he was in his 20s. Once bustling, Waratah is a collection of small, rundown cottages, drenched in rain, and broken by a vanished resource. The museum is in the former courthouse where Julian’s great-grandfather heard cases as a Justice of the Peace. To our delight, we find his name in an account book. To our dismay, we answer the question of why his grandfather left Tasmania to never return: Waratah is a sad, dreary place.

Moment 22

We are staying at the Pumphouse Point on Lake St. Clair. Originally built to pump water out of the lake, for some reason the developers changed their minds once it was completed. Now it’s a unique hotel, set far out into the lake. Our room on the second floor has an unobstructed, private view of the lake. The lower level contains lounges with big comfy chairs and an honesty bar. Bliss.

Pumphouse Point on Lake St. Clair

Dinner is served at noisy communal tables. Not everyone’s cup of tea but we dive in, and meet more engaging Aussie tourists. One young couple extol the beauty of a several day drive from Perth to Broome on the west coast and give us their email address in case we bite. The next night we meet another couple who have rented the private cottage at Pumphouse Point because that was all that was available. They invite us over for a pre-dinner drink and recommend taking the train from Sydney to Perth, a four-day trip. Another exchange of email addresses. I think our next trip to Australia might be shaping up. After dinner, we step outside to admire a golden sunset while other guests look for the resident platypus.

Moment 23

We’ve saved the best for last – beautiful Bruny Island. A short distance south-west of Hobart, it’s easily reachable on a day trip. But we’ve taken a flyer and booked three nights. At Get Shucked, a short distance from the ferry terminal, we eat fresh oysters with a few dozen of our closest friends. We worry that Bruny may be a little too close to Hobart, but it turns out they’re mostly day trippers. Once we drive a half-hour across a sandy isthmus onto the south island, we are alone with the beaches and penguins.

Moment 24

We cross two beaches and climb a couple of hills to reach Cape Elizabeth where we find a 360-degree view of the headlands.

Moment 25

In the morning, an echidna (something like an Australian hedgehog with an anteater’s nose) grazes in the yard of our cottage.

Echidna

At dusk, we watch purple clouds scud across a clearing sky.

Moment 26

We’re savouring the last moments of this trip, knowing that we’ll soon return to Hobart then Sydney then home. Then our equanimity is shattered – our car breaks down! On Bruny Island. On a Sunday, when only a couple of restaurants are open, all involving a 20-minute drive. It could have been a disaster (especially for our stomachs). However, the car rental company comes through with the delivery of a new rental on a flatbed truck. The driver glances at our broken-down rental and pronounces, “Cheap Chinese shit.” The new car is much nicer.

Moment 27

Back in Hobart, we eat our final Tassie dinner at Blue Eye, a modest seafood restaurant on the waterfront. Blue eye is also the name of a deep-sea, white-fleshed fish, which I’ve never heard of before. When I ask the waiter if it’s like barramundi, she rolls her eyes and explains with the thickest Tasmanian accent possible while still speaking English that barramundi is farmed, blue eye is fresh. She’s right: blue eye is much better.

Moment 28

We arrive back in Sydney, where it’s 33 degrees and humid. We decide to head to the city on the high-speed train to catch a glimpse of Sydney Harbour and to take the ferry out to Manly Beach. The Harbour is slammed with tourists, all jostling to get their unique shots to post on their social media accounts. It’s hot and I’m tired, so we head into the Botanical Gardens for shade and solitude. As I turn to admire the curling branches of a magnificent magnolia, I catch sight of the iconic Opera House roof framed by the tree branches.

My book club ladies say that it’s hard to write a good ending. I couldn’t have wished for a better one.

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