The Last Orchard – Chapter 3
Work to Do
As they left Devonport, she caught sight of two big raptors, circling above the highway. The outline was unmistakeable: wedge-tailed eagles, spiralling on an early morning thermal.
‘Magnificent, aren’t they?’ she commented to Hilda. The little van purred in agreement. She seemed glad to have escaped her confinement in the bowels of the ship, between all those big, boofy motorhomes. At least she’d had her twin brother, Jamie’s Hiace, for company.
Did he have a name for his, or was that not a manly thing?
The transition from suburb to countryside was abrupt – and pleasant. No sprawl of new estates, treeless and bleak. Everything human-made was on a smaller scale here. The townships. The paddocks. Within a few kilometres, she noted forestry, bushland, arable crops, dairy farms.
No endless prairie paddocks.
Red soil that reminded her of Werribee and its lost market gardens.
It looked like they’d had recent rain. The hillsides weren’t yellow and parched. Not like back home in Victoria, this bone-dry March.
If the land use was small scale, the land itself was not. From the top deck of the ferry, she’d been thrilled by the sight of the peaks far to the southwest. Pink and blue in the sunrise.
The highway took them past green river flats and dark, wooded hillsides, conifer plantations and patches of native forest. Hectares of stark clearfell.
She’d known about the roadkill, but it was still confronting. Pademelons, wallabies, one big male kangaroo, bloated already. A wombat. Was anyone checking the pouches for joeys? Brushtail possums, the beautiful, dark-brown ones they had here. A little ringtail. Rabbits, of course rabbits. Was that a quoll? Please God, no.
It was carnage.
On the plus side, Tasmania had a lot of native mammals left to run over.
On the minus side, a hundred and ten kilometres an hour was surely excessive. No chance for the poor bedazzled things to get out of the way. It was like the Hume, only more so.
Christmas Hills!
Bass Highway wanted to whisk them off to Launceston now, but Siri had other ideas.
Take the exit onto B52 towards Longford.
Those funny native-hens by the roadside. Turbo chooks, the locals called them. Tribonyx mortierii. Ooh, was that a covey of brown quail, hopping through the fence?
The lush Meander Valley was dotted with white sheep and black cattle. To the west, a palisade of thick grey cloud topped the rampart of the Great Western Tiers. Behind the cloud would be Cradle Mountain, the Pelion Range. The Walls of Jerusalem.
Magical names!
To the east there were now highlands as well, gradually coming out of silhouette and into the round as the sun rose above them. Those would be the Eastern Tiers: Ben Lomond, Mount Barrow, Mount Arthur.
Ah, here was the highway again. Siri must have cut out an unnecessary loop. Thanks, Siri.
At the roundabout, take the second exit onto N1.
Crossing the Southern Esk again. The little crossing place was called Perth after the one in Scotland, no doubt, pre-dating the capital of WA. Lots of Scots among the colonists. The river looked so healthy and full.
Marvellous, to have so much water. Tasmania really was blessed.
The Fingal Valley, over to the east. Another name to conjure with, Irish this time. It looked dry and open. There would be pockets of native grassland there, if they hadn’t been erased by agriculture and mining. It would be worth investigating.
Perhaps on the way back north. Whenever that might be. She’d booked a return for six weeks’ time, but who knew?
Heading towards Campbell Town on the N1, which now called itself the Midland Highway and seemed to have forsaken sinuous curves for a business-like straight line, she could see the country drying out with every passing kilometre. Giant overhead irrigators stalked the land.
The overall effect was rather magnificent, though, wasn’t it?
She found herself driving south across a swath of dry grassland like a cloth of spun gold hung on the wall of some medieval abbey. On and on it rolled, between serried ranks of dusky green trees, themselves constrained by steel-blue walls: mountain fortresses to east and west.
The highway climbed into a low range of hills. Curves were suddenly back in vogue, and that was a good thing. Straight highways were always so tiring.
The lack of sleep was catching up with her finally. She should have had a proper break at Campbell Town, not just filled up with petrol.
SAINT PETERS PASS REST AREA
That would do. The beauty of travelling with Hilda was that you could just turn her off the road anywhere you pleased, get the kettle on and make yourself a coffee.
‘Maybe a slice of chocolate cake, Hilda? Why the bloody hell not, eh?’
She fetched the deckchair from behind the passenger seat, and sat back to enjoy the autumn sunshine.
Waiting for the kettle to boil, she reviewed the night before.
Hadn’t it turned out to be an interesting voyage?
Such a sweet man, she hoped they’d keep in touch. They wouldn’t be far from one another, in the Huon Valley, and she was curious to see his boat in the flesh, so to speak. In the wood, rather.
Curious, and a little afraid to discover he’d bought an utter wreck, and would be humiliated and sad. She really hoped not. The big man had seemed quite defeated by life, though he was putting a brave face on it. He was a decent, kind man who deserved good things.
The shrill whistle of the kettle broke into her thoughts.
Back on the highway, she soon passed the little town of Oatlands. Ooh, a windmill! A lake! Sandstone buildings!
She wished she’d stopped there, now.
Was that a Hiace campervan at the servo?
Heading down to the Derwent, she marvelled at the jumble of place names. Bagdad, Mangalore and Brighton. Dromedary.
Siri got her through Hobart without any problems. It seemed, though, that all roads led to the city centre, then out again. All arterials, no ring road. It was the consequence of the city’s unique location, she supposed, spread around that wonderful, big bay and the steep-sided Derwent Valley.
The climb out of Hobart seemed to take a very long time. She coaxed Hilda up the steep rise through bushland, past startling water views she couldn’t safely look at. Then down they swooped into the Huon Valley, past Willie Smith’s Cider Shed at Grove and into Huonville. A busy little place.
Across the Huon – a glorious river! – then right at the junction.
Could she really remember this steep, curving road from all those years ago, in the back of Uncle Vern’s Dodge? Or was it her mind, playing tricks on her?
It had been half a century.
Through Glen Huon, a straggle of houses not holding much interest, not even a general store or a milk bar. Good grief – not even a pub! On up the Huon, past the bridge over to Judbury – no pub there either, by the look of things. Hmm.
‘Not much fun to be had in the Upper Huon Valley, Hilda. I suppose that’s why Uncle Vern had to make his own entertainment.’
It looked like grocery shopping and farm supplies would have to be fetched from Huonville.
As for nightlife …
Up and up and up the river, on a road that had turned to dirt and clung doggedly to the river bank, now a precipice. On through bushland and past isolated farmsteads.
Hilda was getting hot and bothered. She didn’t like up and she didn’t like dirt.
‘Sorry, Hilda sweetie,’ Leigh found herself muttering. ‘Not far now.’
Had it really been this isolated? Leigh had memories of other farms, other homes nearby, just down the valley from Uncle Vern. This was thick regrowth bushland, predominantly messmate or as they called it here, stringybark, with dogwood and treeferns, sorry – manferns – in the wetter pockets.
A junction. Turning left, where the sign read NO THROUGH ROAD. Away from the river, uphill – ye gods, more up.
‘Arrived,’ said Siri, abruptly leaving them in the lurch.
Thanks for that.
Wait. There was an overgrown track off to the left. It did bear a resemblance to the executor’s photos, allowing for another year’s neglect.
And ah, here was a letter box, concealed by blackberries. Had a postie really ever come up here?
The metal gate was off its hinges, lying in the undergrowth. Deep ruts suggested that offroad vehicles were accustomed to use Vern’s property – her property – to access the bush.
That would have to change. She’d have a word with the neighbours, if she could find any. Put some signs up. Fix the gate.
‘Well, girly, looks like we’ve got work to do.’
She swung open Hilda’s back door. Took out the machete.
Coming up:
Next Tuesday in Audrey Liza: Jamie gets a talking-to and a home-cooked dinner from the Dohertys.
Next Friday in The Last Orchard (paid subscriptions): Leigh feels a new sense of freedom, but is also daunted by the contrast between her childhood memories and the present state of the farm.
Please remember that unless you have a paid subscription, this is the last chapter of The Last Orchard you will receive.
However, you’ll be able to catch up with Leigh when she appears occasionally in Audrey Liza, the Tuesday Tale.