taking the unknown road

There are a lot of secret back roads in Tasmania.  Locals talk about them, most have heard of them, but very few people seem to use them.

There's no signs on these back roads to direct you where you're going.  To reassure you that you're going the right way.  You just need to hazard a guess that you've chosen the right one, have a little blind faith and a sense of adventure.  A four wheel drive and good mobile phone coverage is also useful. And you can always turn around if you choose the wrong one.





These back roads are logging roads and they are the ones to use if you're looking for some snow away from the crowds.    They are quiet, less traveled, and after a heavy snowfall, take you to some gorgeous spots.   The thick snow covers unsightly logging activity, and the replanted conifer plantations look so striking with a dusting of snow.

On the weekend, after a few days of heavy snow falls, we set off on a adventure.  Putting on several layers of thermals, scrambling for gloves and waterproof jackets.  We packed chocolate and snacks plus a thermos of tea and left a rib sticking casserole gently simmering in the wood oven, to be ready on our return.  Then we headed to the west towards the Snowy Ranges, with a vague knowledge that one of these unsigned roads would lead us to the snow.  We just had to find it first.

And we did. An open gate leading to a dirt road that headed up into the ranges.  We drove along the unsigned road and we were rewarded with a white wonderland of powdery white fresh snow falls. Breathtaking.   We discovered picturesque snowy pine forests, skidded down pristine spurs, walked across overflowing springs and threw plenty of snow balls.  I mean plenty of snow balls.  It was magical and fun.

I love how taking the unknown road can sometimes lead you to the very best places.

Slow Living, A Practical Workshop

You know when you discover a blog that really resonates with you, and you lose yourself for hours going back and reading all the past posts, breathing in all the words and pictures?

That's exactly what happened when I first found Local Milk - A Cast Iron Skillet and a Camera. Its creator, Beth Kirby has a wonderful eye for creating the most breathtaking photos, cooks the most delicious recipes and writes like an angel.  A winning combination. It was through Local Milk that I found Rebekka Searle of Camellia Fiber Company, and immediately wanted to hang out and eat something tasty in her backyard or forage in the woods for treasures. Such is the warm, welcoming style of her blog.

When I heard the news that these two were teaming up with my good friend Luisa Brimble to bring a couple of workshops to Australia, well, I was thrilled beyond measure.

In Beth's words " I have a thing I like to say, a reminder to myself: to create good content, you have to live good content.  And that concept is what I'm teaming up with Rebekka Searle of Camellia Fiber Co. and photographer Luisa Brimble to teach in Australia this coming September.    Slow Living, A Practical Workshop: Creating Content through Food, Florals, Photography & Textiles is designed to both enrich students through practical skills such as natural dying and baking while also strengthening photography and styling skills and giving you the information you need to both create and get your work out there"

You can read the details about the workshops here - and book tickets here.   These pictures taken by Beth and Luisa give you an idea of the experience and mood of the workshops.  Two special days spent with three talented teachers learning the skills to create content through food, florals, photography and textiles.   I've been given a ticket to a workshop and can hardly wait.  Maybe I'll see you there.

Where there is no time and nothing matters

When you've got a lot of work to do, and it's school holidays, well there's no other option in my mind than to bugger off on a road trip.   After scrambling to find last minute accommodation, we managed to book the last two free nights at the Waldheim Cabins in Cradle Mountain National Park.  Being a good five hour drive away, it fit the road trip bill perfectly.

Rustic cabins in an alpine national park are as irresistible as they sound.  The park is a hot spot on the Tasmanian tourism trail and by day, is as busy as Pitt Street.  But in the late afternoon, when the boom gates close and the crowds have gone home, it really is just you with a handful of other families in the quiet of the most magnificent of national parks.

A little cabin in the woods, with four bunk beds, a little table with four chairs, four cups, four plates, four spoons and four knives.   It's amazing how liberating having no stuff makes you feel.  With big windows facing out into the forest, despite being warm and cosy, the cabin lends itself to spending as much time as you can outdoors.  And that's what we did, armed with thermoses of tea and hot chocolate, field glasses and jelly snakes we walked and walked and walked.  Around glacial lakes and through ballroom forests, over alpine heaths, across stony moors and buttongrass bogs.

The cabins are nestled behind a replica of a lodge called Waldheim, meaning forest home in German, built by an Austrian immigrant and his Tasmanian wife Gustav & Kate Weindorfer around 1912.   Now a museum, here they lived and hosted many visitors with hearty food, warm beds and long guided walks through the magical landscape.   I found their story so fascinating and so inspiring, one of struggle and hardship but also one of great achievement.

I came away with a greater understanding of what is so special about a cabin in the woods.   It's where "there is no time and nothing matters" as Gustav Weindorfer wisely proclaimed.

And when the pressure's on and it's school holidays, I can think of no better place to be.

Word garden

You might think this picture is a glimpse into a garden, one that might grow fruit like apples and quinces and raspberries. Or perhaps this is a garden that grows garlic and kale and sometimes tomatoes?  Well, yes, it is. It does grow those things.   But this gate here, leads to my garden that also grows words.   It is actually a word garden. Did you ever hear of such a thing? 

Lately I feel that I’ve run out of words.  They’ve been eaten all up.  By work commitments and parenting worries and laundry piles. And also by a big HG Wells type contraption in the city.   But I need to write more words, so I will head out here for a while, tending and nurturing the garden, trying to encourage more words to grow.   

I will bend over the beds and get to work.   The soil will feel cold on my fingers, as I pull out the weeds and toss them into a heap.  Occasionally I will take a moment and stiffly stand up, put my hands on hips and arch my stiff back, closing my eyes as the sun hits my face, before getting on with it and tossing more weeds onto the ever growing compost pile.  When the weeds are cleared, and as it is winter, I might sow seeds of broad beans and spinach and peas.

I will stay out here, and do the garden chores until the words come.  And they always do.   Mostly, they come out of the soil, they float up from the ground like an easy pulling weed. I can trap the words in the dirt under my fingernails.  And when I have enough words, I rush them inside and hurriedly put them on paper, captured just like a bug in a jar.

Sometimes the words arrive on the breeze, get caught in my hair and I have to tie it back tightly, so the words don’t fall out and escape before I can get them inside.   If I let my hair out, the words may float away up into the trees, where the birds will snatch them in their beaks and use them to make a nest.  

But the very best words don’t actually grow in my garden, but live behind our house, on the steep hillside with tall stringy trees, strappy grasses and giant boulders.  Hidden away in secret caves with sandy floors, that’s where the words live, I am sure.  They hide in there until they can see me far below in the valley, working in the garden.  Then the words tumble down the hillside and into my head. When they arrive I best not linger, they won’t stay long, in one ear and out the other.  I go inside to trap them.    If I don’t they will disappear, tumbling down to the river beyond before floating out to sea, where maybe a fish might swallow them whole.

So yes, in this garden, this messy untended garden with its wonky beds, its possum chewed apple trees and its escaping raspberries is where I will be.  Growing words, delicious tasty fresh new words, to trap them in a book.