The Ida Bay Railway at work - once the age of steam had arrived, little workhorses like this were the lifeblood of many small mining and forestry communities. This is one of the few left. Many of the bushwalks in this area follow former rail lines The Huon Valley is about as far south as you can go in Australia. It’s a beautiful sight in the spring when its abundant orchards – apple, cherry and pear are in bloom, but even in winter there are attractive views of little patchwork farms, vineyards and orchards and tiny hamlets nestled against a backdrop of dark timbered mountains and bordered by the mighty Huon River. Sometimes when I travel this way, I wonder if our lives would have been different if our parents had landed here, where the landscape superficially resembles the European countryside they left behind, rather than in the flat alien country to the north. Not that it was always as bucolic as it now seems. It is still literally at the end...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people