Can My Pony Come Too?

by Rosemary Esmonde Peterswald

  A New Life in Tassie

  It didn’t take us long to decide that Tassie was where we wanted to live. After flying in over the magnificent Western Tiers the following July, we picked up our campervan from the small airport near the historic town of Evandale, not far out of Launceston. From there we drove through the Fingal Valley (where many Irish have settled over the years) to the glorious east coast. We camped the night in a flourishing green field speckled with yellow gorse, newly shorn sheep, and an outcrop of grey rocks overlooking the stunning blue waters of Great Oyster Bay. We couldn’t get over how green Tassie was. It reminded me of Ireland. Sadly the east coast has suffered so many droughts over the past few years that the green grass has faded somewhat and the sheep often struggle to survive.

  Even though it was mid-July the sun was shining brightly, enticing Rob to grab his swimmers and jump into the water.

  When he got out he declared with the understatement of the year: ‘It’s a bit chilly.’

  In 1924, Thomas Grattan Esmonde, my great uncle, had published his book Hunting Memories – an account of his hunting days around the world.

  Of Tasmania he wrote: Southward of the Australian Continent lies Tasmania: lovely land of pathetic tragic and historic memories, nowadays happily transformed into an Eden of placid content. A specially favoured and attractive land with its salubrious climate, its wildly picturesque scenery, its heaped up mountains, its level lakes set in stately forests and its flashing rivers, rushing to the Southern Ocean through the endless bays and estuaries of its rock bound coast.

  I had read this extract many times and now here I was to see for myself what my uncle had discovered nearly sixty years before. He goes on to say: A fisherman could do much worse than explore its tempting waters which a wise and practical Tasmanian Government has stocked abundantly with Salmonidae. I have spent happy days amid its peaceful hills and woods, on the banks of its streams, or wading in their shallows, my ear tuned to the music of their waters as they speed past, mirroring the rocks and trees and giant ferns with their every varying background of hill and cliff, while the speckled trout leaped in the pools like glistening ingots of silver.

  He also wrote: With luck on these occasions one may sometimes bag a specimen of that very rare animal The Tasmanian Tiger, a striped and brindled leopard with a very handsome well marked coat, but much smaller than his famous Asiatic namesake.

  It was unlikely that we’d spy such an animal, as sadly the Tasmanian tiger has long been extinct, but that didn’t stop the girls from keeping an eagle eye out.

  The next day we drove south to Eaglehawk Neck, the gateway to the Tasman Peninsula, where we stopped for a blustery walk on the wide stretch of white sand with thundering waves rolling in from the Tasman Sea. In convict days a long line of savage dogs were stationed either end of the Neck to stop prisoners escaping from the penal settlement of Port Arthur, where convicts were incarcerated in the most awful conditions.

  Our next stop was at Dell’s small bakery in Taranna where we bought scrumptious homemade Tasmanian scallop pies before heading down to Port Arthur to have a look around the old sandstone ruins in the historic site, and for Rob to watch a rugby match in the pub on the hill.

  Port Arthur was one of the British Empire’s major penal settlements of the 19th Century and a vital link in the development and colonisation of Australia. It was named after the Governor of the day, George Arthur, and apart from being a penal settlement had flourishing industries, including timber, ship building, brick manufacturing, coal mines, flour production and nail making. It was the site of Australia’s first railway, consisting of small carriages on wooden rails propelled by convicts between Port Arthur and Taranna. It was also an utter hellhole, with many of the convicts that were incarcerated there being from Ireland, including the famed Smith O’Brien.

  Unfortunately Port Arthur has become notorious once again for the horrendous massacre that took place there in April, 1996, when a lunatic gunned down over thirty people, some of them locals, including the chemist’s wife and his two beautiful daughters. Yet there’s no taking away from the port’s haunting beauty, with the eerie sandstone ruins sitting in the midst of manicured jade lawns, (often with a cricket match being played, or a concert filling the air with music), sandstone walks, water lily ponds, colourful garden beds, stone bridges spanning small rivulets and stands of old English trees; with the added beauty of the sea lapping against the shore. Now, where the massacre took place in the small Broad Arrow café, there’s a tranquil remembrance pool, and an impressive new visitors’ centre stands next door where thankfully hordes of tourists flock in once again, providing much needed employment to the small community.

  Back in 1980 when we told one of the local farmers, watching the rugby in the pub, that we were driving around Tassie looking for a possible place to farm and be close to where we could keep a yacht, he gave a broad grin.

  ‘I know just the spot,’ he told us, taking a large gulp from a Cascade stubby. After a moment he plonked the bottle down, splashing beer onto the counter. ‘Could well be what you’re after. At Koonya. Bruce Heyward up at Windermere’s selling. It’s an apple orchard with a good piece of farming land. It’s been on the market a while, but it may be worth taking a gander. You can keep a boat at Taranna, not far down the road.’

  ‘How do we have a look?’ I asked, thinking this sounded promising.

  ‘Not a problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll give Bruce a holler.’

  The next morning we were sitting around the Huon Pine kitchen table at Windermere, talking to the affable Bruce Heyward, a tall, fit heavy-set man with kind eyes and a thatch of grey hair. We’d fallen in love with the green valley that Windermere was nestled in the moment we rounded the top of the wooded headland at Sympathy Point on the Taranna Nubeena Road. On one side of the road were the sparkling blue waters of Norfolk Bay; on the other side there was an apple orchard, and a paddock of hop vines where we had turned left and driven up the long driveway lined with tall poplars, past a huge dam with ducks weaving between the thick reeds on the edge. Further on was a small convict cottage, sitting on a hill overlooking a beautiful flat paddock fronting the river. To the left of the dam was a long timber hut with a shingled roof. Next to that stood two enormous iron sheds for apple storage and packing. We later discovered Bruce had erected them both entirely himself, using a tractor and pulleys.

  For over two hours we wandered around Windermere with Bruce, inspecting the numerous paddocks, wooded groves, the extensive orchard with many varieties of apples (from Granny Smith, Cox’s Orange Pippins, Red and Golden Delicious to early Gravensteins), the pickers’ quarters, the derelict convict cottage, another small cottage by the woods on a separate title and the apple sheds. Bruce seemed amused that I wasn’t all that interested in the house, once I’d seen there’d be enough room for us all, if Rob and I slept on the open verandah and Poppy had the main bedroom. I was much more interested in the stunning garden of camellias, fuscias, roses, rhododendrons and silver birches and whether it would be possible to make a living out of the orchard and the remainder of one hundred and forty odd acres of pasture. The somewhat dated brick house we could deal with in our own time.

  Bruce is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. Immediately we felt comfortable with what he was telling us. He didn’t make a fortune, but he’d made a good living over the years, enough to educate the children and give him and his wife, Marjorie, a comfortable existence.

  ‘Mind you,’ he said, looking out across the orchard, ‘it can be challenging work.’ This was to prove an understatement.

  Yet Rob and I immediately felt we’d found what we were looking for. However, this was the first place we’d seen. There were many questions still to be answered. Would we be happy living in the area? Would the girls have any friends nearby? What were the schools like? Was it a reasonable buy? Would it increase in value, or was it a depressed area? What about hospital care, as Poppy got older? Most importantly, could we make a l
iving here once Rob got out of the army?

  We decided to tell Bruce we were interested, but needed time to have a look around the rest of Tassie. He fully understood. So we agreed that we’d get back in touch early the next week, when we’d had a chance to explore the island and see what else was for sale. He gave us the name of his real estate agent at Henry Jones in Hobart and we agreed to keep in touch.

  However, no matter where else we travelled, we couldn’t get Windermere out of our minds. And we didn’t leave many stones unturned in our search, from the apple orchards of the Huon Valley in the south to the picturesque Tamar Valley in the north. We even looked on Bruny Island, but disregarded that as we’d have to go to and fro by ferry. There was just something about Windermere that had grabbed us both. The girls had fallen in love with the Peninsula too, dreaming of swimming and sailing in Norfolk Bay and riding horses amidst the rolling hills.

  So in the end we made an appointment with the real estate agent at Henry Jones, an elegant sort of fellow, who arrived wearing a tweed Saville Row suit, not exactly suited to pacing Windermere’s unruly boundaries. As you can imagine he was somewhat flustered by the time we’d walked every nook and cranny. Once again we sat at the kitchen table with a roaring fire in the grate, this time with Bruce’s wife, Marjorie, serving piping hot scones and scalding tea. Soon an agreement was reached.

  We were now the proud new owners of an apple orchard (of which neither of us had the faintest clue how to run) and one hundred and forty acres of prime farming land. It was agreed that Bruce would stay on for six months and would take the profits from the first season. This seemed more than fair, as he was giving us six months before we had to come up with the money, hence it would be Bruce who produced and packed the crop. It all sounded a good arrangement, particularly as Rob would still be in the army when we came down.

  After final farewells we drove back up north where we stayed a night in Launceston, before jumping on a plane for Canberra. Within a week we’d put both our properties on the market. At times I lay awake at night wondering if we’d done the right thing. Yet seeing how happy Rob was I soon lost any thoughts of regrets. But I knew I’d be sad to leave my job at Perrymans and the many friends we had in Canberra, not to mention our Drominagh, although I was realistic enough to know there was no way we could make a worthwhile income from forty acres. Were we mad to throw all we had in Canberra away to go and live in a remote country community on the small island of Tasmania? Perhaps not quite as mad as my parents had been when moving us all to Australia. At least we would be in the same country.

  Not long after we got back to Canberra we flew down to Melbourne to Dib’s wedding. Years before she and Peter had decided they weren’t suited to each other and had divorced. A few years later Dibs met Kevin Scott, a past editor and production manager with News Corp, who now ran his own business. Eugene was to give Dibs away and I was to be her maid of honour. She looked so happy and gorgeous, standing in the front garden of her home in Royal Avenue next to the dashing and athletic Kevin. We were all thrilled that she’d found the great happiness she deserved very much.

  That summer my parents were once again back in Australia. It was agreed we’d have a family Christmas at Gill and Colin’s property at Wallabadah south of Tamworth. Packing up the car, we dropped Poppy off in Goulburn for Christmas with Dick and Fran and headed north. It was blistering hot, so we were more than glad when we finally arrived at Hardigreen Park on Christmas Eve. What followed was a wonderful week with all the family, except for Viv, spending long hot days lolling by the river or under the huge weeping willows in Gill and Colin’s garden, with the odd heated argument on politics and religion thrown in for good measure.

  The children, Gill’s Andrew, Allison, Mia and Liam and our two girls got on famously, riding the horses, yabbying in the river and playing endless games of cricket in the paddock next to the garden. All too soon our time at Hardigreen came to an end. Early one morning we said a sad goodbye before heading back to Canberra to get ready for the move to Tasmania. My parents had agreed to come and visit us on their way to Ireland, so we knew we’d be seeing them before too long, but I’d no idea how long it would be until I saw the rest of my family, particularly my precious Gill.

  We found a buyer for Drominagh easily (the nephew of Damien Parer, the famous war photographer, who’d taken so many harrowing images of the Kokoda Track). The house in Flynn took much longer. John and Pat Perryman had decided to go into goat breeding, so they took our flock of angoras, including the lordly buck Simon. We’d thought of taking the goats to Tassie, but were advised it would be too wet and cold for them on the Peninsula.

  If it was too wet and cold for Angoras I did wonder for a moment how on earth we would cope.

  Rob had managed to get a posting with the army to the barracks at Brighton just north of Hobart, which he was to take up early in the New Year. So on a blistering hot January day, after a horde of farewell parties (including a special dinner at the luxurious Lakeside Hotel put on by the Perrymans for me) Rob and Poppy headed off first, in the Holden one tonne truck packed to the hilt and trailing the Boomeroo.

  Behind them the girls, Gatsby and I followed in the Lancia – down the long driveway between the walnut and almond trees, past the cracked and dry dam and over the stone crossing, now surrounded by a mass of weeping willows, which had grown in the blink of an eyelid from when we’d planted the cuttings. As I got out to shut the gates for the very last time I glanced up at the homestead and felt a tear threaten.

  Slowly turning my back, I wiped the sweat from my forehead, pulled the gate shut and got back in the car. With a sad smile to Charlotte and Georgie, who were both in tears as they’d had to leave their pet goats and Merrylegs behind, I placed my foot hard on the accelerator and commenced the long drive to our new life in what I thought would be the cooler climate of Tasmania.

  Chapter 30

  She’ll Be Apples at Koonya

  Yet when we arrived in Tasmania, after stopping for two nights with Dibs and Kevin in Melbourne, it was the hottest day the state had experienced in years. From memory it was 37 degrees. As we pulled into the garage at the historic village of Campbelltown to fill up with petrol and get a cool drink, I had no doubt at all that we were going to expire.

  In fact poor Poppy almost did. I often wonder what he really thought of this move. He never complained, as we dragged him from one adventure to the next. Yet surely he must have wished for a less gypsy style existence. As a bank manager, he’d constantly been on the go from one town to the next. And later, after he retired, Hazel seemed to have him on the move often too. But he was a lot older now. However, as Rob assures me, to remain living on his own would have been much worse. At least with us he had someone to share a meal and a glass of wine with each evening and the girls to constantly keep him young. He was certainly never lonely or bored. Surely though, at seventy-seven, this move to Tassie must have been somewhat traumatic for him.

  After a few days in a motel in Hobart, awaiting the removal van to arrive, we headed south past the sprawling paddocks with cows grazing languidly in front of Government House. We drove over the Tasman Bridge spanning the magnificent Derwent River dotted with yachts competing in the mid-week race. A little further along the river was the unmistakable tall sphere of Australia’s first casino perched on the shore and I could see the towering and majestic Mount Wellington gazing down as though she was a mother hen keeping an eagle eye on the city. At the small coastal town of Dunalley, where much to my astonishment we had to stop to let a crayfish struggle across the sea-splashed road, we collected the key to our new home from Bruce, who was building a fifty-five foot steel trawler, The Norfolk Bay, out of disused oil tanks. This was to be Bruce’s new life, running tuna fishing charters out of Eaglehawk Neck.

  As we drove up the long avenue beside the orchard at Windermere (with the trees now laden with tiny apples) and pulled up outside the vine-covered fence surrounding our new house, I was once again overcome with t
he beauty of the place. Even in this searing summer heat it didn’t seem to have wilted. The dam wasn’t as full as in the winter, but the ducks were still playing in the reeds and Bruce’s cattle sat chewing the cud lazily in the river paddock. Further on, flocks of sheep huddled under the shade of the Blackwood trees, escaping the heat, with others traipsing down to the dam for a drink. All in all it looked much like a Tom Roberts’ painting.

  When the removalist truck failed to turn up, it was obvious we’d have to spend the first night camped on the floor. At five ‘clock it was still so hot that I showered, put a long red towelling dress on (all that I could find that was clean) and sat under the silver birch in the front garden, where Rob brought Poppy and me a glass of wine. The girls were happily playing on the swing and Gatsby was busy exploring. A truck pulled up out the front and in it was Don Clark, an eye-catching guy with a mass of greying hair and huge expressive eyes. Don had heard he had new neighbours. He’d also heard we were sailors. As he’d just built himself a 36-foot fibre glass Roberts Mauritius, he was keen to see what sort of boat we had.

  ‘G’day,’ he said, holding out a farmer’s hand, ‘welcome to Koonya. Sue and I live down the road at Cascades. Reckoned I’d just drop in and see if you need anything.’

  Joining us for a glass of wine, he told us how his family had lived on Cascades, a property spanning both sides of the road going down and into the small village of Koonya, for a number of generations. He also had an apple and pear orchard and large packing sheds, although much older and more basic than the ones Bruce had built at Windermere, so Bruce had been storing and packing Don’s apples for the last few seasons. Cascades had been the outstation for Port Arthur and had many old historic buildings, which he and Sue were about to do up and turn into colonial accommodation.

  Sue told me later that when Don got back to Cascades he scratched his head in consternation and exclaimed: ‘Gawd, Sue, don’t reckon they’ll last long. She was sitting out under the tree in a long dress, having a glass of wine at 5 o’clock. Don’t look much like farmers to me.’