Forest bathing

On Easter Monday I went for a rather long walk. More than 25km, according to Runkeeper. After weeks of being cooped up in 'iso', like (almost) everyone else, I was desperate for a leg stretch and some forest bathing, as I believe the Japanese call it. I turned left after leaving our front gate, then left again and just kept walking, up into the hills. Up and up, past the houses and fields of cows and chooks, to the land of wallabies and lyrebirds. Ah, the smell of fresh rainforest air.

I visited the Old Mill site in the forest for the first time since the surrounding coupe was logged a few years back. Then hiked down some forestry roads, in the hope of finding my way through to the top of a different road to return down the hill. However, it has changed a bit up there, and I got stuck and had to return the same way. It's been more than a year since bushfire roared through some of these lands, and I was a bit surprised how little has grown back in places. I was expecting much more green regrowth and undergrowth I guess. Next time I'll try the walk in reverse to see if I can work out how I got through last time. I love exploring the hills of the Huon.

The cannery

There's been a lot of buzz about the Cannery Kitchen and Bar since it opened in December, and it did not disappoint. We visited for Saturday lunch with friends early in the new year and shared some fantastic pizzas from the wood-fired oven, a salad and some broad beans, washed down (as Les Norton would say) with local wine, beer and house sodas.

My first thought as we entered the restaurant was, wow, where did the money come from? They must have some deep pocketed investors. It's stunning. The two enormous wood heaters were attracting a fair bit of attention. Staff were welcoming and helpful. Parents seemed very happy with the kid friendly outdoor area too. Wonder if we could bring the dog? Coming soon: a function space which we could see under development. It would be a fabulous wedding venue.

We will definitely be back soon. I am especially looking forward to the 'European baked goods' for Sunday breakfast, sounds perfect.

End of an era

After a few false alarms and more comebacks than John Farnham (just joking guys), the wonderful Village Antiques of Franklin has finally closed its doors, going out with a bang of the auctioneer's gavel. The Bowmont building which housed the store has been sold and lovely new owners have moved in - more on that later I am sure. After viewings on Friday and Saturday, a good crowd turned up on Sunday for the huge auction of remaining stock, held in the old evaporators factory on the Franklin foreshore. We popped in and out during the day and missed out on the few items we had our eye on, but never mind. I could see just how much work had gone into it by owners Shane and Jane and some trusty helpers. Luckily for Franklin, they are not going far, just a short way up the hill. Now, who wants to buy the huge evaporators building and be part of the exciting renewal of Franklin?

Six cygnets

We'd heard from our friends at the good ship Yukon that there were cygnets around in Franklin, and on one of our dog walks along the Huon River in Franklin this week we got lucky, spotting this pair of proud parents with six beautiful tiny babies! I don't recall seeing so many in one batch or such little ones before. They came close for a look before sailing away across the river, hopefully to a safe spot.

Highland Coos

This local business is onto an absolute Instagram winner. Highland Getaway in Tasmania's beautiful Huon Valley has a 40-strong herd of extremely photogenic and fluffy highland cattle. Guests come to stay, take gorgeous photos and post them to Instagram, which is where I first learned about this local business.

This week I joined a networking evening with our local business enterprise centre and had a tour. Julie, with help from her parents who have relocated from Queensland, has created peaceful luxury accommodation surrounded by the rolling green hills of Ranelagh and Glen Huon. You can stay in the cinema suite or the spa suite, both beautifully appointed. Julie also runs farm tours and you can even brush the cows. You can get close to many of them and they are seriously cute! This would be a wonderful place to relax for a few days or spend a week as a base to explore the local area. And their future plans for the property will be worth keeping an eye on.

Project X part II

After listening to ravens roosting in the darkening southern forests with Hrafn: Conversations with Odin (season now extended into October), the next installment of Project X has arrived in the Huon Valley. The Aftermath Dislocation Principle is an artwork in the form of a 40-foot shipping container with eye holes cut into it, providing a glimpse of a town landscape in miniature. I won't describe it further, just get on down to Geeveston any time between now and November and peer inside. While you are there, why not take a look around the town and eat at one of the lovely establishments like the Old Bank of Geeveston, Baker & Co patisserie or The Bears Went Over the Mountain. Or stop in our wonderful village of Franklin on the way home, at Cinnamon and Cherry (now re-opened Friday to Sunday for the warmer months), Aqua Grill or Frank's Cider Bar and Cafe. Seriously, it's been a tougher winter period than usual this year for many local businesses since the bushfires in the region and you'll be made very welcome if you come down and stay!

Happy as a pig in mud at #HVMWF 2019

As a bloke in the queue at the bar said to me when I went to fetch a hot spiced cider, "Gumboot people are happy people!" As nice as it would have been to don tatters, face paint and fancy headpieces (we saw lots of beautiful examples), I was extremely happy with my choice of clothing for the Huon Valley Mid Winter Festival on Friday night. I counted the layers I was was wearing - six in total on my upper half! Plus thermals under my jeans and long socks in my gum boots. And I was warm as toast. There was a serious amount of mud, a little rain and a whole lot of happy punters. As I have said before, these people know how to run an event. There is plenty of seating, lots of toilets, undercover areas, fire pits to warm up by and friendly volunteers with a sense of humour. And that's before the great selection of food and beverages, sculptures and awesome music acts. Despite the testing weather conditions, there were plenty of interstate and international visitors. I had squid from the fire bugs at Tasman Quartermasters, some tasty fries, croquettes from Eten and one of Yeastie Beastie's fabulous doughnuts. With hot spiced Willie Smith's Cider in hand, we ran into a few groups of friends and made it out of the paddock car park without needing to be towed out of the mud. Happy days!

Ravens

"So what are you up to on the weekend?" my work colleague asked me on Friday afternoon.

"Well, on Sunday afternoon we're going to drive about an hour south of us to Hastings Caves, where we'll get on a bus to take us deep into the southern forests at dusk, to listen to the sound of ravens coming in to roost for the night, then get back on the bus and come home again."

I realise how odd that sounds, unless you've been to anything that's part of the Dark Mofo festival before perhaps. This particular event is called Hrafn: Conversations with Odin, a sound installation by renowned sound artist Chris Watson whose works have been heard around the world and who has previously worked with Sir David Attenborough.

The installation is part of the $2 million Project X, designed to bring visitors to the Huon Valley to aid in recovery after the devastating bushfires early this year. The fires damaged much of the Tahune Airwalk, one of the region's main tourist attractions, and it's not expected to reopen until late 2019. The project has copped criticism, as it was always going to. But good things always do, and same old, same old isn't going to bring people here, when everyone loves the new and different. Hrafn is on from Thursday to Sunday next week as well, read more and get your tickets here.

Dinner at one of the Huon Valley's restaurants and cafes is part of the Hrafn experience. Last night we enjoyed a delicious meal of beef curry (David) and seafood chowder (me) sitting by the wood fire at The Bears Went Over The Mountain (or The Bears for short). We actually hadn't been in there since a stop for Devonshire tea during a holiday in Tasmania more than 10 years ago. It's been renovated to a larger, light and bright space with yummy scones and plenty more on offer. The Bears is licensed with a nice range of Tasmanian ciders, wines and soft drinks. Now we know, we'll go back for sure.

Paint the town red

Each year, businesses in the south of Tasmania are encouraged to light up in red in support of the Dark Mofo festival, the annual winter art and music festival run by the team at MONA. Whether it's red lighting, red coloured food and drinks or limited edition red packaging, many businesses get into the spirit of this fantastic festival that brings many visitors to the state. The idea is to create a great experience for tourists and local festival-goers as they travel around the Hobart area. As we now live on the main road and David runs his technology help business from here, we decided to light up the Franklin Old Bank in red too. Spooky huh! I love this time of year.

A very long weekend

It was a long weekend, and boy was I grateful for this one. We needed the time to adjust to our new one-dog household. Just to give ourselves some space, without obligations. Yesterday we took Gretchen on a short outing to Cygnet. We picked up a few things, popped into a couple of stores that we hadn't been to, had coffee and cake at Lotus Eaters in their nice dog friendly outdoor area. Gretchen is having to get used to being solo dog. Over the weekend she kept looking out the door or around the garden for her missing sister, which was a little heartbreaking. But at least she gets the whole back seat of the car to herself now. We couldn't face going straight back home, so called a kind friend who had offered support and popped in for a chat. It did us both the world of good.

Today we left Gretchen at home alone for a few hours while we headed to the Taste of the Huon. The weather was beautiful, and loads of people came from Hobart and beyond to sample a huge range of food and beverages, a much needed boost for local businesses affected by loss of income during the recent bushfires. We had coffee and doughnuts, sampled some Indonesian fare, bought some local saffron and wine and a take-home pack of ginger beer, then settled down with a Simple Cider to watch a performance artist called Samora Squid pass his entire body through the head of a tennis racket, then swallow a sword. That guy is a true entertainer.

No alert level

Finally over the weekend, the alert levels on the Tasmanian Fire Service web site for the Huon Valley areas around the Riveaux Road fire that started in mid-January were dropped. Hooray! You could almost hear everyone breathe a collective sigh of relief.

On Thursday we heard a number of enormous explosions as fire affected trees were felled in the forestry area behind us. The house shook and my PC monitor wobbled dangerously on its stand! Fire services vehicles are still patrolling up our road regularly. We are grateful for the huge amount of work that has been done and still continues to keep our community safe. I haven't been far into fire affected areas, but you can see below what it looks like just 1km from our house. The burnt smell sure penetrates the nostrils.

Misinformation, attention-seeking and other bad bushfire behaviour

It has to be said. Well, I feel the need to say it, so here goes. During the recent bushfire emergency here in southern Tasmania, social media was both a source of very useful information (how good are the Tasmania Fire Service, Tasmania Police and TasAlert?) and a cesspit of exaggerated claims, misinformation, unsubstantiated drama, attention seeking and just plain silly behaviour. Among the rubbish I saw online during the two weeks of high alert included:

• Geeveston is being evacuated!! Everyone is being door-knocked and told to leave!!! (Actually no, they weren't).
• Photos of people in the centre of town and many miles from the fire front hosing down their houses using town water, encouraging others to do the same. At one point, Geeveston (which really did need the water at that point) almost ran out, not helped by this crazy over-preparedness no doubt. I reckon any work you do hosing down stuff that far in advance is a waste of time and will evaporate in minutes with the heat of an approaching fire... but then, I'm not a fire expert so don't take my advice!
• Our whole valley is BURNING!!! 
• The fire has crossed the Huon River!!!
• People misinterpreting the useful data on the Sentinel Hotspots web site from Geoscience Australia.
• Some folk were driving up roads with active fires just to take photos for Instagram. I saw videos of flames licking the edges of Bermuda Road (what the hell are you doing there taking video?!) and photos of smoldering tress taken up our road while the fire service was still backburning and creating fire breaks. Seriously, get out of the way and let the firies do their job.
• A couple of very good local photographers took some amazing shots of the fires at night, making it clear that the photos were taken with a zoom lens - which people then re-posted as if the fire was bearing down on them.

One of my neighbours lives on her own up here hear the forestry and was so anxious for five days before we actually needed to evacuate that she called or texted me almost every hour, asking "should we leave yet? Are you leaving now?" This wasn't helped by the misinformation and drama she was hearing. Please, before you post a dramatic, dare I say inflammatory, post on social media in an emergency situation, get your facts straight and think about the potential impact of your post on people who are already stressed and anxious. There's a reason the Tasmanian Fire Service alerts seem a little vague - everyone needs to make the best decision for themselves at the time based on known facts. What's right for a fit couple with the equipment and will to defend their own property is probably not right for a frail elderly person, someone with severe asthma or a family with five children and a menagerie of animals.

A couple of days after we were able to return home, I received an invitation to join a Facebook group that aims to help people near the Tahune fire to communicate. I love what the group admin had to say about sharing information in the group:

*** Please make sure that any information you share is ACCURATE. By accurate, we mean from TFS, police, a 100% accurate conversation you have had with someone on site or you have seen it with your own eyes, NOT what your mate heard from someone else. We don't want people scared for no reason. Also, when regarding your safety, ONLY follow advice from emergency services! Stay safe!

Hear, hear.

A couple of other tips that might be useful if you're thinking about how to prepare for the increased likelihood of extreme weather events in the future:

• Put a computer backup strategy in place now, well, before disaster strikes. What about all those photos on your home PC? My husband David runs a computer help business and was contacted by customers wanting to know what to do when it was really too late to be thinking about it. You can read his article about it here.
• Internet-connected security cameras are a good investment for peace of mind. They can send you alerts and allow you to monitor what's happening at your back door when you are not there. Ours allowed us to know that we still had power and a house! And we saw when the firies door-knocked to check that no-one was still home in our road when the fire was getting close. Totally worth it.

Security camera shot of the firies door-knocking our place.

Limbo land

Like most people in the Huon Valley right now, we sit and wait. Wait to find out if our homes will be spared from an approaching inferno. We wonder how all our friends are faring. I worry about everything, real (like whether my chickens still have any water) and imagined. It's quite nerve wracking. Today, Walkley award-winning cartoonist First Dog on the Moon, who lives on the other side of the river from us, posted a series of vignettes accurately summing up how it feels to be here.

A couple of weeks ago, David and I were sitting at our kitchen bench after dinner, when a large black cloud moved overhead and we heard rolling thunder in the distance. It was pretty impressive, and a sound we don't hear often in Tasmania. We looked out the window to see great bolts of lightning far to the south west of us. Shortly afterwards the Tasmanian Fire Service web site lit up with alerts. It turned out those dry lightning strikes sparked a lot of fires around the state, particularly in the south west wilderness area. Many miles from us.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, it's a Wednesday night and we (David and I and the two dogs) have been staying with dear, kind friends in Huonville since Sunday night. A week ago, some fires started by that lightning had spread to become a larger one that threatened the Tahune Airwalk, a tourism attraction attraction run by Forestry Tasmania. Yesterday, photos revealed some of the damage it sustained. The smoke last Tuesday was awful, although the fire was still around 17km from our house. We put our bushfire survival plan into action, packed important documents like insurance papers, some clothes, toiletries, dog food, the chainsaw (in case of fallen trees), computer backups and so on. Both cars were ready to go. David cleared all our gutters and removed anything wooden or explosive from around the house. One of our neighbours who lives on her own was very anxious and starting calling or texting me every hour, asking "should we go yet"? But the alert level in our area was just "watch and act", with no need to evacuate. You just need to prepare and stay informed.

Last Friday was expected to be a horror day for bushfires, with temperatures around 36 degrees and high winds. At that point, our friends Scott and Karla made the offer that should we need to evacuate, we could bring the dogs and stay with them. I was so grateful, but as Friday passed and was fairly uneventful, we didn't really think we'd need it. But by Sunday the fire was a lot closer, and our power went out in the afternoon. We couldn't see what was coming, and facing the prospect of no water or electricity up in the hills near forestry, we decided it was time to leave.

So now we're now waiting, waiting, in a kind of limbo land. It seems quiet, we know our home is still there (our security camera at the front door is still sending images), but we also know the nearest fire in the last 24 hours was at best guess 1.8km from our house (see map below where I've circled our house in red). It doesn't take much for that to turn bad and the TFS agrees. So for now we are staying put. It's hard to concentrate on anything. I am constantly checking everything from the TFS alerts to ABC Radio bushfire emergency updates at quarter to the hour, Facebook (more on that separate disaster zone later) to weather apps and the Sentinel Hotspots site, hoping to glean information. Or we are checking in on friends, calling, texting or popping in to visit those who are camped at the evacuation centre at Huonville PCYC. It's kind of shocking to see your town's name on the TV list of emergency zones - see photo below.

The first big lesson I've learned so far is not to underestimate the amount of time you may be away from home if you have to evacuate in an emergency. We packed enough fresh clothes for maybe four or five days, but the friends we are staying with once had to evacuate for three weeks from a fire in NSW! We really thought that in three days either we would have lost our home or the danger would have passed and we could go home. Now I see how this could easily stretch on, with peak bushfire season in Tasmania being in February and so many fires out of control in wilderness areas that could potentially encroach on population centres.

The second thing this has shown me is the incredible support that people give each other in times of crisis. So much kindness, generosity and plain smart thinking. We live in a wonderful community. I am in awe of the firefighters trying to keep this beast at bay and keep people and property safe. And the helicopter pilots, the police, the volunteers and local council and so many others. Tensions are high and they must be truly exhausted in these conditions. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

 

A moment in time

Almost two years ago, we were among the first to experience long table dining at the newly opened Fat Pig Farm, run by Matthew Evans and Sadie Chrestman, at a local business dinner organised by the Kingborough & Huon Community Enterprise Centre (KHBEC). Last week we were back, for another KHBEC dinner. Paddock to plate has become a cliche these days, but you can see it with your own eyes at Fat Pig Farm. Sadie told us about the philosophy of Fat Pig Farm. It's about a moment in time: the produce harvested and cooked that day is different from any other day. It's also about community: the local producers, growers, winemakers and staff who share a love of real food, as well as the people who come together at the table to eat it. The meal was truly special, from the lemon and ginger hot toddy served on arrival to individual desserts served in glasses to make standing up and networking easy. The Fat Pig Farm team knows how to cater, that's for sure. David and I have wanted to visit for a Friday Feast for ages. We've held out, thinking that friends or family visiting from the mainland might be keen to join us, but to no avail. We'll just have to book it in for ourselves sometime.

Mid-winter festing

My favourite Tassie festival, over again. This year, friends made the trip down from the north to stay and join us at the Huon Valley Mid-Winter Festival. Friday night's burning man ceremony was awesome. After the long and tedious preamble last year ("Let me tell you a story...", a very long one that will go for about 40 minutes), it was refreshing and positive to have a woman from the local indigenous community welcome everyone to country, encouraging us to take care of the land we depend on. Then a horde of flaming arrows flew at Big Willie and up he went, to the great delight of the crowd.

I had been looking forward to trying a rabbit pie from The Princess and the Fatman made with sustainably farmed bunnies from Geeveston, and it did not disappoint. Absolutely delicious. Then a pork bun from Fat Pig Farm and some hot mulled Willie Smiths cider. And I simply can't go past Lady Hester's sourdough donuts, oh my god! As always the event is so well organised, with all the basics sorted, like enough seating and toilets, friendly staff keeping the place clean, easy parking and plenty of fire barrels to warm up by. Add the music, costumes and generally jovial atmosphere, what's not to love. Bring on 2019.