New Year



Rosy went to visit a friend at her family's shack at St Helen's for a few days (a shack, in Tasmanian parlance, is not a tumbledown hovel, but a second house at the beach. Lots of Tasmanians have shacks that have been passed down the family for generations. The rest of us make friends with those who do..). The Girl and I drove Rosy there to drop her off. The lovely little town was heaving with holiday visitors, so we scurried away up the coast and found ourselves a beach for the afternoon. Here is The Girl looking glamorous.


Here we are trying to take a selfie with a classic camera with absolutely no capacity to see what we look like. This is the one with both our heads in it.


We lay on our towels on the sand and read all the best bits in our books to each other. When we were roasted to a turn we splashed in the sea. While it may look a beautiful tropical blue, the water is actually only slightly above freezing point. Refreshing. We watched the clouds, collected shells, walked on the sand, had a little nap.

On the way home we climbed a little way up the St Patrick's Head trail. St Patrick's Head is a perfectly triangular small mountain that dominates the skyline for about an hour on the road to the coast. The Girl and I couldn't resist investigating the trail on the way home.


Its lower reaches are incredibly picturesque and easy walking, especially if you find the perfect stick to help you along.


Then the track winds up through a mysterious rainforest, where we stood among the giant ferns between fallen logs listening to the occasional call of a bird.. and nothing else at all. It was like we had fallen off the edge of the world. But then we headed back down, not being dressed for scaling sheer cliffs on the side of the mountain.. I know, where is our sense of adventure?


Sometimes we are granted a perfect jewel of a day, and this was one of them. Blue skies, sand, sea, a rainforest, the company of my lovely girl. I am truly the luckiest woman in the world, and if this is 2017, bring me more:)

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Child's Garden of Verses


Comments

Tracy said…
Sounds like a wonderful day.

I remember my father talking about their "shack" at Sisters Beach. On one of our many family trips to Tassie, when I was small, he took us to drive by that shack. It was then we realised the Tasmanian understanding of the word is very different to - well - everyone else on the face of the planet!

And in recent years, during a couple of trips to Tassie, I've dreamed of having a little "shack" (the Tasmanian version!) myself. Cheap flights make that an entirely attractive scenario.
Jo said…
Tracy, yes, but buy a shack here, and one day you'll wake up and discover you don't want to go back..
Meg said…
All those things, blue skies, sea, rainforest, family...that's my perfect day too! I've been to Tassie twice and fallen in love with ALL of it...right now I'm envious of cooler weather as it's been so hot here, no 'beaching' as one would surely roast after only a few minutes. I hope your new year brings you many more perfect days, Jo.

Meg
GretchenJoanna said…
Oh, Jo! What a treasure of a day...
Anonymous said…
What a perfect day. You and The Girl are gorgeous. As to Tassie beaches, it is cruel how they look so good but are freezing cold.

But for a place to hibernate from the world, cool enough to curl up with a book or sit in the sun without melting in five minutes or cooking into a crustacean. Now there's a thought! If only Sydney prices were lower, we could do that now!
Jo said…
Meg, all of us in Tassie won't survive global warming as we will all die when the temperature reaches 30C so there will be plenty of room for all you northerners on our beaches one day:)

Wishing you many perfect days as well - it makes it easier when family and a bit of nature are the main ingredients. We are easy to please..

Gretchen Joanna, yes, some days are just special and live forever:)

Lucinda, I must admit, it was a particularly hot Adelaide summer that drove us to emigrate here to Tas, and it sounds like Sydney has been sweltering recently. Hope you are managing to keep cool xx
Fernglade Farm said…
Hi Jo,

A truly perfect day!

Chris

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