Finally, I’m getting out of civilization. Its been a couple of years since I have got to go camping, and I’ve been hanging to just chill in a tent and forget about the world for a day.
I’d disappear forever If the Mrs was keen, but she ain’t having that, she hasn’t got the same fondness for dirty feet, sappy fingers and a deflating mattress that I love.
Fortescue Bay is a National park down on the south east coast near Port Arthur. A nearly untainted, rough wilderness, with plenty of convict blood stained landscapes. I’m hoping the fishing is good.
It was great catching up with ol mate Azza, his young fellas are coming along well, pulling out the whole toy chest right on dinner time, keen as mustard to show off their gear to these unfamiliar faces.
The hotel we stayed at was old school late 1800’s. High roofs, half ton bed frame and a very cosy feel. There great those old school places, they usually get bloody cold in winter time though, as all the heat rises, I’m sure their heaters are beasts.
We rolled in around 3pm to Orana house. No receptionist, just keys and a folder with Elise’s name on it. A chap that seemed to be in his 40’s was keen for a chat and made us feel welcome, but we dropped our kit off and hit the road again. We were chasing some 2nd hand nappies in good condition somewhere in Moonah, and Azza was sorting dinner around 6ish.
Turn’s out the old boy was the receptionist. We slept in in the morning and missed the buffet, but he was nice enough to let me fire up the expresso machine for a well needed latte to get the heart started.
Azza had told us to stop into a place called the Dunally fish Market, its on the way and does a prime fish and chips. You can’t order anything specifically, just fish and chips for 1, 2, 3 or 4 etc.
This place was the coolest establishment I’ve been into since the first time I wondered up Lygon st in Melbourne. You could smell the rusticity as soon as we pulled up, the dog was sitting on a couch just out side.
Azza had said awesome food, check it out but don’t look the dog in the eye. He was my new best friend in under 2 minutes.
The old boy was nearly 16 years old apparently, his joints and bones were feeling the pinch from running around manning the docks for the majority of his journey, he just didn’t like kids. Apparently some young fella had come along and scruffed hold of him at some point, and he’d given them the good news about why you don’t just come up to an old dog with arthritis and grab on. He hadn’t forgotten either. Old dogs are usually pretty intolerant of things they don’t like, and he was no exception. I felt we were building a good bond though.
There’s a certain comfort and overwhelming compassion when your in the company of an old K9 soul. He must have lived the best of lives to still be protecting this territory at his age. I wondered if he would accept my friend request if I sent him one.
We ordered fish and chips for 2, and set up by the little river on the docks. It wasn’t long before my new best mate had joined us.
We indulged in a combination of at least 3 variety’s of battered fish, octopus and calamari. It wasn’t restaurant standard by any means, but was far more enjoyable than any fish and chips I had eaten or been involved with over the years since growing up and working in kitchens. There’s just something about eating fish and chips when your near the ocean in untainted environments. It’s like the salty ambiance is already seasoning your fish and chips, well before you’ve ordered them, your drawn to it. We were heading in the right direction.
We gave the dog our leftovers, then hit the road again around 2pm.
We turned onto a dirt road about 20ks from Port Arthur and within about 20 minutes we were onto the camp sites. The camp sites were bigger than expected and well maintained, except for only 1 of the 4 designated BBQ’s were working, but we’ll make do.
We set up camp and settled down for a nana nap. Its been nearly 2 years since I had been able to fully get away from work commitments for an extended period, and I was wrecked. We had to be back to civilization by 5pm the next day, and I didn’t want to waste to much of my camping time sleeping.
I had started to build my fire pit around 5.30pm, but some lads informed me of the fire ban in place. I didn’t mind using council provided BBQ’s, they were about as efficient as cooking a steak with a lighter though, but we will just have to make do.
The Mrs was in good spirits, which was great. It was the first time we had been camping together, and she was 7 months pregnant, so I was pretty happy about that.
The jetty had many boned out fish frames surrounding it, off cuts from the days catch, and a huge manta ray circling the little enclave, feasting on all the scraps.
We set off around 6pm to catch some dinner. I hadn’t done a great amount of homework as to what would be abundant in the area, I just had to get settled somewhere and get a line wet.
I settled onto a point about 100 metres from the camp ground, and instantly got some attention with my marinara squid from Coles.
Whatever it was though, was swallowing my bait whole and sitting down, and it was not moving anywhere.
After loosing 4 rigs in about 45 minutes, we decided to take another guys advice and throw on a squid jig, then have a crack from the jetty area.
My 3rd cast with an orange coloured squid jig and I watched this squid hit my rig like a freight train, hammering in from about 20 metres away. This bad boy was hungry, but unlucky for him, so was I.
He put up a surprisingly good little fight. Im not sure if he lined me up intentionally, but just as I breached him from the water, he shot a decent calibre of ink strait towards my general direction, which stuck out like a dunally’s dog balls all over my cream coloured Kathmandu fleece. I had a feeling when I left camp that my cream coloured jumper could be in danger of maintaining it’s natural colouration, but I’ve never been much of an ornamental type, I hadn’t bought it for show purposes, it’s to keep me warm out in the scrub.
We got back to camp, grabbed our cooking apparatus, and headed down to the BBQ’s for some dinner.
Fresh squid with toast and fried eggs. Not the sort of combo I would put on a menu anytime soon, or ever, but it was the freshest squid I had probably ever eaten. We were soon joined by a young possum and a few wallaby’s, who helped us clean up the mess, at least the food mess anyways.
This dish is a Sea Bream with scallop Vol-Au-Vaunt and a Safron, tomato foam. Commonly known these days as a Jackass Morwong, or Nemadactylus macropterus, if you want to be scientific about it.
I still call them Bream, as I grew up chasing these bad boys up and down the Scamander river, so I have the pedigree to do it.
From memory they were abundant when I was little, but harder to find anything of decent size these days. Good thing the mongers at kyema seafood know where to look.
They were always good fun to catch and put up a great fight. You could never tell once you hooked one how big it was going to be, as they always put up a great battle.
They must have huge hearts when it comes to fish with fighting spirit.
It was great that in the mid 90s, a few politicians decided to start protecting our world renowned fishing industry.
So many of the things I used to catch growing up nearly got wiped out by the mid 90s.
Were surely getting better at not bleeding recourses dry as a species, but we still have a way to go.
We were up and about the next day by around 9ish. We slept reasonably well, probably only 3 or 4 possum brawls for the night which wasn’t to bad.
I felt like I wanted to stay for a few more days, but we got bills to pay, and the woman starts at 5pm.
Tasmania is truly one of the great untouched and semi-untainted wildernesses in the world. The big boss in Malcolm Turnbull has pledged something like $70 million to start to fix up the mighty Tamar river back in my home town of Launceston, as we ruined it by putting a dam in up at Trevallyn back in the day.
We could fix it by letting the dam go, but apparently Invermay is built on top of a swamp, and it would be washed away with the mud and silt if we did that.
We need power to enjoy our modern luxuries like not freezing to death during the bitterly cold winter months, but al least were finally starting to fix and repair some of the damage that’s been done to one of our great pristine landscapes, namely the Tamar river in this instance.
Its crazy that the Tamar has a great array of bio-valve seafood species that cannot be consumed, due to toxicity of the water, namely the silt levels.
Tasmania is a small, somewhat primitive economy, in comparison to the rest of Australia. We just don’t have the big population to drive big business, or mainly the cash flow that garners relevance in the real world, the business world.
I spent a few years in a place called Georgetown, at the river mouth, and was surprised when starting up there at how pure the local area was, but also by how many introduced and pest classified species of plants that were allowed to run rampant all over the landscape.
There’s a little bird conservation area there, that is nearly completely overrun with gauss, as well as the penguin population that lives and nests in gauss at the nearby Low Head conservation area and historic site.
My best mate Shelby and I used to go on missions down there trying to catch dinner and generally explore the old convict era establishments, but it’s always dawned on me as to why the natural landscape was overlooked for the introduced species of gauss.
Out the front of my workplace there was a huge seagull nesting colony. I first ventured in there looking for Shelby, as she had a penchant for chasing birds, as most dogs do. But it got me wondering why couldn’t we establish a natural ecosystem to promote native birds and sea life to nest and basically hang out right outside the restaurant windows.
There were literally hundreds of bird nests, and chicks, right below the restaurant windows.
‘Come down to the restaurant for some fish and chips and see a few oyster crackers and pelicans while were at it’. Not a bad marketing ploy if you ask me.
Imagine sitting down for dinner with all sorts of natives birds right outside your window. There were even seals that would hang about at the nearby jetty, trying to steal peoples fish. trying to entice those guys to chill in the sun would surely attract some patrons, I would imagine.
People come to Tasmania for lots of reasons, but I’m lead to believe that the main one is our pure and untainted landscapes.
Encouraging and revitalising the natural landscape would surely be a great way to bring in more tourists, who in turn spend money and pump up our economy. Which in turn would help to make Tasmania more relevant in the real world.
The manufacturers of Australian sporting apparel might even start remembering Tasmania when they put maps of Australia on our country’s Guernseys.
I got involved with a charity up in Georgetown that helps support local family’s that are doing it tough, with a view later on to potentially get involved with regenerating the natural landscapes. Mainly the bird conservation areas Shelby and I would visit regularly.
Chef life made it hard to do anything else other than work, eat and sleep. But I believe there would be merit in such endeavours.
There’s a couple of cats called Joseph and Errol in the local area that are going above and beyond to boost Launceston’s status among the other states in Australia, but we still have a way to go before we fully fix our convict era damage, and even mindset in some parts.
Tasmania is truly one of the great places to grow up, and hopefully I’ll have many summers with my lady and little man to enjoy the great Tazzie landscapes.
Tales of a Tassie Chef 