Tasmanian Forest

Have you ever been a tourist in your own town? It is something we like to do.

I have lived in the north-west Tasmanian region for most of my life and I have never been quite this far 'up the back' before.

A place called Muenna. It was once a thriving country area. We saw markers of old halls and dedications of communities now lost in time. Small gravel roads wind the way through this part of the Tarkine and some of it is littered with plantation forests.

Forestry Tasmania bought a lot of the traditional farming lands in the area and controversially planted them with their trees. Now they want to log the area and again it becomes controversial.

We visited in late afternoon and we saw still frozen over puddles and frost in the shadows. The harshness of the environment and the rocky nature of the ground induces images of how tough life 'out back' must have been for those in the past. A trip into town must have been a rare event. Clearing the land for production a huge feat, building a roads a mammoth effort. The red soils of Table Cape don't occur here.

I have heard tales of the communities and the amount of people that lived here. It is amazing that such a sense of people were bonded here. Sad in a way that it no longer exists there nor does it translate to our modern community existance.

Often the nostalgia is far brighter than the reality.