Stories of the road…
Beyond the fog, somewhere, there is clear sky
WE WENT TO BED under the clear cold sky of a late-winter Tasmanian night. We awoke to a fog-shrouded morning in which the ground blended into the sky in an undifferentiated greyness.
It was around eleven when we called it quits after one of Yvonne’s sumptuous dinners, a bottle of smooth Tasmanian wine and good conversation. We were warm overnighting in our van among the fruit trees and close to Yvonne’s beehives. That was one advantage of a small van, something we learned while on the road through the winter of 2019 and on into the following spring and summer. It warmed quickly even when cold winds and rain were blowing.
What a dismal morning. Not good for heading south today, I said to Fiona. How long will this thick fog blanked this small northern city?
Our usual breakfast on the road is a bowl of muesli with sliced banana and a cup of tea. Same as at home. No chance of that this morning, however. When we wandered into the house there was Yvonne preparing a cooked breakfast. Now, occasionally we make a cooked breakfast of rolled oats or Tasmanian quinoa — with sliced banana, of course — but it would be nothing so simple this morning. Yvonne’s idea of breakfast was pancake with fried egg, spinach, ham for the non-vegos and some kind of sauce. We would leave feeling all-too-full this morning.
Finding a home
On clear winter days you can see the snow-capped plateau of Ben Lomond from Yvonne’s aerie atop the ridge that encloses the city on its western side. The plateau-topped mountain is a good 63km from Launceston and is the only ski field in easy reach of the city, although some would call it mediocre in comparison with skiing on the mainland.
I liken her home to an aerie because from her porch you look down to where the city below spreads along the valley between its west and east ridgeline and fronts the cold grey waters of the Tamar. From here of mornings you see the sun climb over the eastern horizon to shed its welcoming warmth on the city below.
Yvonne made her way down to these parts on quitting Sydney over 20 years ago, after she returned from working in China. She has built a life in the city with the slam poetry scene for which she organises events and performs, as well as involvement in the womens’ writers group and other endeavours. She has adapted to life in this city and found opportunity. I guess you would call her a self-made woman, independent and content.
Off into the still and foggy morning
It is time to go. The fog is as thick as it had been when we woke this morning. Looks like we will have to drive through it.
Off we go and to turn southward to follow the highway up the hill to the city outskirts. We drive slowly but in only a few minutes we are out in the countryside, if only we could see it. Unlike other cities where you drive through the suburbs to get to the city centre, in Launceston you drive out of open country and down this long hill and there you are on the edge of the central business district.
St Leonards on Launceston’s southern extremity is hidden in the fog somewhere over there to our left. So too is the countryside through which we cautiously drive with nothing to be seen but the road ahead as it unrolls to reveal itself but by bit, and the headlights of traffic Launceston-bound. Epping Forest, a tiny cluster of buildings emerges and quickly disappears in the fog.
Campbell Town, the sign announces. Not much doing here. The town, usually a food and toilet stop for travellers, is quiet in its misty shroud although the lights of Banjo’s, the bakery found all over Tasmania, announces it is open for business. I have noticed that with its longer hours the business takes most of the travelling trade passing through, however someone told me that Banjos big fail is recycling for which it makes no effort.
On into a fog which is as thick as it was at Yvonne’s house this morning. The highway flows towards the historic sandstone town of Ross that you reach via a short diversion. Ross is a small town on the Macquarie River set amid the farmland of Tasmania’s Midlands. Other than a hotel and an ordinary cafe, the town is known among travellers for the bakery and cafe with its outside dining below a big, spreading tree, and which proudly proclaims that it make the best vanilla slices you can find anywhere.
Interestingly, down by the park there is interpretive signage about the 42°S latitude that passes just north of the town to divide the state into north and south, and the rivalry between those divisions. Had we been able to see it through the fog there is a large map if Tasmania proclaiming your crossing the latitude a little north of Ross.
Photography compels a stop in Ross. No sweeping landscapes this morning, just the greyscale closeness of old buildings half revealed in the mist and the still waters of the river reflecting the greyness of the day. I wander the foot track by the river and note the emptiness of the campsite there. Who is that couple with their old van with surfboards on roofrack, their little tent a splash of colour in the morning’s foggy greyness and last night’s accommodation? Where are they off to on their late-winter travels?
Again, the highway. Next town — Oatlands. It is another historic town with old, sandstone buildings harking back to the early days of farming hereabouts. You know it when coming into town for the restored windmill at the northern end of town close to Lake Dulverton and the whisky brewery.
We don’t stop at Oatlands and, anyway, the place is covered in this thick fog that shows no sign of lifting. On we go.
Then, with a surprising suddeness, we are in open country under an open sky of blue. Behind us Oatlands remains hidden in the fog. Ahead is the turnoff we take to transit the farmland and orchards of the Coal Valley. We could continue along the Midlands Highway but this route is more direct to get to our destination on the southeast coast. It passes through extensive farm fields edged with low, forested ridges, winds its way over low hills to the the town of Colebrook and on to Campania. Not far from Richmond we take a minor road to eventually join the highway along the east coast. Over a hill_and there it is. The coast. Home. On we go.
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