Okay, I know it’s supposed to be Moses in the Wilderness or Adam in the Garden of Eden, but we do things differently here.  This is not a bible.  Not even close.  This even has elements of fact in it. You met Adam, my son, in the previous post, so I’ve handed him the baton for another go at describing our trip.   He has returned to Adelaide (South Australia) now, but I think he’d be back here in a moment if there was a chance of heading back to Corinna!  After I finish my next book, Adam.      MM

 

Okay, here’s part two. As you may recall, the Meandering Matriarch  and I had set off on our great West Tasmanian Expotition. We had encountered a fair bit of staggeringly beautiful scenery along our drive, some truly horrible hamburgers, an overnight stay at an establishment that was… certainly memorable.

Lake Burbury

So. After all of that, we finally set off for Corinna. The drive to Corinna was even more jaw dropping. I’m afraid we didn’t take much in the way of photos. For one thing,  if we had stopped every time there was a view, we’d have averaged about 1.2kms per hour. On top of this, well… it was a bit wet. Tassie is one of those rare and remarkable places that looks good in a storm or all misty. It rather looks like God decided to paint the scenery with water colours rather than oils. It has a rich grey, bluey grey greenish-ness about it. It’s kind of otherworldly… Very, very, beautiful.

So lots of ooh-ing and ahh-ing… and lots of mist and rain and sheer drop offs as we trundled along bendy, twisty mountain roads. One of the cool things was watching the road we were traveling along being scraped into submission  by a huge big (and terribly slow) grader. The big blade of this diesel monster was chopping a handsbreadth of the surface off the ‘road’. It was just crawling along doing its thing. Once we passed it, we realized exactly why this was necessary. The fairly heavy and regular rainfall of the west does quite a bit to contribute to the adventure of traveling in the west. What it contributes is to instill in you – the adventurer – a fervent hope that your car will not rattle and shake itself into pieces.  It also aids you in developing a deep sense of exactly where some of your lesser- considered internal organs belong. As you enter your second hour of violent vibrations, you come to appreciate where your spleen normally is.

After a couple of hours, we arrived.  Corinna.  Wonderful place.  Imagine, if you will, a couple of dozen little tin roofed wooden huts wrapping themselves along the edge of a slightly unpredictable dirt track. Now, right in the midst of them, picture a big rustic log and wood ‘lodge’ kind of building. The main building was very nifty. It exuded ‘I am filled with wonderful food, nice people, and all sorts of ye olde log fire rustic hospitality.’  What’s even better… what it exuded… wasn’t a fib.

The food! I could quite happily subsist on their soups of the day and their hot fresh cob loaves. Heaven. Their salads were universally delicious (and I don’t often eat salads). Their mains were  MASSIVE. I am not one of nature’s dainty, petite people. I am a fairly large, lumbering type. I don’t really do small bite sized portions… and Corinna’s mains were… well, at most, I could finish half of one.  The next time I go… I strongly suspect that I will mainly order their soups and cob loaves… the mains are good… but the soup and bread are fantastic!

Okay. The huts. They rock. Small but cozy. The furniture is largely modern, but very simple and very comfortable. There was a sofa, a big lounge chair, a couple of nice tables, good beds, etc. It was all wonderfully straightforward. Mind you… the place is kind of far from anywhere, so the electricity is all solar generated… and the water is from rainwater tanks. In principle, this means don’t be outlandish with power and water; in practice this means that there is one power socket. Just one. You are invited by the management not to run a hair dryer, and to plug in your laptop only long enough to recharge it… and it’s fairly pointless to recharge your mobile phone  (given that you are NOT going to get a signal).  For the Matriarch and me, this was not much of a crisis. Have I mentioned the soup yet?

The Pieman River, Corinna, Tasmania

Anyway. There were panoramic views, there was a lazy ferry trip down the Pieman River. There were long languorous meals (featuring soup). There were lazy mornings, fresh air, trees, the majestic Pieman River, mountains that thrust out of the landscape like teeth, marsupials and critters happily wandering around rather nonchalantly (but no scorpions).

The Heads, Pieman River, Tasmania

Folks… I had a great time. I got to spend the better part of a week with my mum in some of the most beautiful wilderness you could hope to find. We ate, we edited a novel, we joked, laughed … we had a ball. What more could I possibly want from a holiday?

Adam