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HOLIDAY DERWENT VALLEY WITH ITS YESTERYEAR HAUNTS, MOUNTAINOUS PEAKS AND ARTY INSTALLATIONS, TASMANIA’S DERWENT VALLEY IS A JOURNEY OF INTRIGUE AND DISCOVERY WORDS: Marie Barbieri can’t quite decide if it’s eerie and haunted, or nostalgic and dreamy. It has a forlorn beauty about it, with a conical cowl on its dilapidated hexagonal tower. I stand and stare admiring it, imagining how atmospheric it would be as a film set. I yearn to learn of its past. Who built it? Who lived in it? Do ghosts reside inside? I“G’day!” bursts a voice behind the fence, from a young man wielding a shovel, having me near jump out of my skin. The chap laughs, amused by my juggling a camera, water bottle and banana—all of which now land on the ground. “Baaaah!” When a sheep comes bouncing towards us, I realise that this is no abandoned property. “What Main image: A picturesque a beautiful building,” I say. “Sure is,” he replies. view of the Derwent River Marie Barbieri Marie Images: Images: 24 Australia & NZ | October 2019 www.getmedownunder.com www.getmedownunder.com Australia & NZ | October 2019 25 HOLIDAY DERWENT VALLEY Humour also resides at Sheen Estate and Distillery “It was built in the late 1820s by Josiah Spode (of Above: Rodney in Pontville. Set in a historic heritage precinct, you Dunn at The Agrarian British tableware fame). Its kiln dried hops for beer Kitchen can sip on Poltergeist Gin (dubbed: the ‘true spirit’). It production until the 1960s. And we get a lot of people has earned multiple awards in the coveted San Francisco like you admiring it from the road.” World Spirits Competition. The Shooters Hill oast house is one of many in the Derwent Valley. Some, such as this, were constructed WITH WINE, COMES FOOD in timber, while others were built with brick. Their At Stefano Lubiana Wines in Granton, I find not only mesh floors circulated warm air to dry the grain. a buzzing cellar door, but also a beautiful osteria Owners would plant tall poplars around their fields, as offering organic/biodynamic farm produce, grown windshields, allowing their hops to be hung high for onsite and sourced from local suppliers. Dishes come maximum yield. matched to Tasmania’s only handcrafted biodynamic Tasmania’s hop-growing industry began in the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay drops – also produced early 1800s – a skill exported from England by here. William Shoobridge. He planted cuttings in Hobart, The most celebrated diner in New Norfolk, but it was his son, Ebenezer, who developed hop perhaps, is the 2017-opened Agrarian Kitchen Eatery. growing in the Derwent Valley during the 1870s, Rodney Dunn and Séverine Demanet perfect the creating Text Kiln, another beautiful oast house at paddock-to-plate philosophy. Rodney, who Bushy Park. Bushy Park Estates is today one of the previously worked at Tetsuya’s in Sydney, has cooked world’s leading hop-producers. for magazine photo shoots, and was a TV food researcher. MAY THE SPIRITS BE WITH YOU The ingredients for his inventive dishes are sourced The Derwent Valley has quite the beer, wine and from local fishermen that supply bonefish, flounder spirits scene. Nearby at Hayes, Two Metre Tall Farm and garfish. And the duck and lamb producers are Bar and Cellar Door operates from an old shearing within a 20 kilometres radius of the kitchen. The shed. At its bar I meet co-owner, Jane Huntington. vegetable gardens grow organic heirloom vegetables, “Our unique ales contain whole Derwent Valley hop berries, heritage orchard fruits and herbal tea plants, as Clockwise from flowers, with notes of wild plum, citrus and sour well as experimental produce grown from seed. Nut top: The rolling Derwent Valley; cherry,” she says, proudly. trees are the latest addition to the business’ culinary Stefano Lubiana’s The brewery creates their unfiltered, preservative- repertoire. gorgeous alfresco free, sugar-free and sulphur dioxide-free, wild- And history is steeped throughout. The Agrarian dining; Stefano Lubiana’s fine fermented dry ciders with local Huon Valley apples Kitchen’s smoker has been refashioned with bricks tipples; and from Lucaston Park Orchards. They use only wild from the ground’s previous life: the former Willow Shooters Hill oast house microorganisms, and are about to release their special Court mental asylum that operated from 1829 until barrel-aged brew: a sparkling mead containing honey deinstitutionalisation in 2000. from the onsite hives. “And the meaning behind the business’ name?” I POSSESSIONS FROM THE PAST ask. “Oh, Ashley, my husband, is six foot and seven While here, I explore the rest of Willow Court. No inches tall. So we named it Two Metre Tall!” I love it. longer incarcerating the suffering, the precinct 26 Australia & NZ | October 2019 www.getmedownunder.com www.getmedownunder.com Australia & NZ | October 2019 27 HOLIDAY DERWENT VALLEY upon row of garlic, and the Westaway Raspberries farm – all flourishing from Tasmania’s rich, fertile today houses some of the most extensive antique Above: It’s antiques soils. April and May is truffle season, here, but I’m a shops imaginable. Across several historic buildings, I central at Willow little too early for those rich pickings. find the most random of memorabilia: a rusting VW Court Reaching Mount Field, we trudge into the Kombi, dentist chairs, vintage airline seats, tapestry wilderness, passing towering eucalyptus regnans (also fire screens, war puzzles, copper samovars and even known as swamp gum, stringy gum, and mountain prison doors! ash). It’s the world’s second tallest tree (after the coast Artists and performers of Derwent Valley Arts and redwood) and the world’s tallest flowering plant. We Salamanca Arts will soon take up residence in the halt beneath a 79-metre giant! We later cross the wind-raked landscape of Wombat Clockwise from top here, as does the red flower of the Tasmanian waratah. left: The Drill Hall Willow Court complex, which will lend it an Silver and black wattles and native cherries come Moor, coated in cushion-plant, pineapple grass, Emporium; a I love the white and red berries of the copperleaf additional new lease of life. and go, as does banksia marginata, which grows from beaked needlebush, and mountain rocket sporting Bennett’s wallaby snowberry bush. At The Drill Hall Emporium in town, other rare sea level to the alpine peaks. Myrtle and deciduous purple stems. appears; explosions “That red prickly plant over there is Richea of colour at Mount antiques colour shelves. I discover a lion’s head violin, beech also dresses the trail, as does flowering Reaching Lake Dobson, we join a circuit walk Field; lush green scoparia,” says Richard. “Was it named after you?” I Japanese printing blocks, vintage bobbins still bearing dogwood, and filmy ferns endemic to Gondwana dressed in pandani plants and 10,000-year-old pencil ferns at Mount Field; tease. Richard’s smile is shy. and the chilly their threads, an early 19th-century tea service, forests. pines. Pristine is the word. Pimelia shrub, known as curtains of A few steps on and a Bennett’s wallaby appears, apothecary jars, milk bottles from around the world, “This is one of my favourite trees,” says Richard, Bushman’s shoelace due to its fibrous strands, grows Russell Falls sporting a mighty coat of fur. We crouch, admiring a sassafras. It’s lit by luminous bracket fungi, and attractive lichen sketching its trunk like an ancient world map. “Did you know that sassafras leaves numb The most celebrated diner in the mouth?” he asks. I didn’t, but decide not to test the New Norfolk is the 2017-opened claim. AMAZING ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS! Agrarian Kitchen Eatery After enjoying the chill and spill of Russell Falls, we climb above the torrent to where a myrtle beach rises You’ll want to make these memorable experiences part of your itinerary... PonDS onorong The Salmon from the watercourse. What a place to root! We then Hug A B At this 1861-established heritage hatchery E and moths and butterflies in Deyrolle Paris display reach gorgeous Horseshoe Falls. It’s the perfect spot to horse WilDliF (pictured below), wander the landscaped cases. It always fascinates me how such items arrive in pause and listen to the red-tailed black cockatoos in Equine therapy is led SanctuarY gardens and ponds to view the birthplace of such places. Imagine if we knew all their stories… the background: a far less screechy call than that of its by Leanne Masters Join a nocturnal wildlife trout introduction to Australia. View Atlantic white sulphur-crested cousin. (pictured left). Her tour to meet orphaned salmon and rainbow, tiger and albino trout. MOUNTAIN HIGH Continuing on, we pass the gorgeous white flowers ‘Hug a Horse’ bare-nosed wombats www.salmonponds.com.au pictured On a new morn, I take leave of village life to join of the Tasmanian laurel plant and the leatherwood experience offers preparing for release ( nature encounter specialists: Premier Travel tree. “The celery top pines here actually have you enriching above right). Learn about the Tasmania. I meet mycologist, Richard Robinson, to photosynthetic stems, rather than leaves,” says moments with her rescued 104-year-old cockatoo, why koalas are fluffier here, and hike Mount Field National Park. Richard, gazing up at their frilly canopy. “And what shires, stallions, mares and foals. which animal has a four-headed The scenic drive is a movie reel of silver hawthorn are those gorgeous blue berries?” I ask, pointing. (wait for it…) penis. hedgerows (harking back to the original convict “They’re from the Dianella tasmanica: a flax lily.” www.hugahorse. com.au www.bonorong.com.au fencing), hop fields, cherry and apple orchards, row Richard knows everything.

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