Corinna
No Wi-Fi, no outside world, and that’s just fine, writes AMANDA DUCKER
IHAVE NO TIME TO WASTE. The boat is the Sweetwater, which is the sweetest name. The destination is Lovers Falls, which is the swooniest. And I have six hours to get from Hobart to Tasmania’s west coast to see it or miss out.
Unable to face the psychological twists and turns of the road through Queenstown, I take the longer but less serpentine route north via Deloraine, Burnie, Waratah, the Savage River mine and – whoosh – down into the western wilderness of the takayna/Tarkine I go.
Pulling up on the Corinna side of Pieman River with minutes to spare, I step aboard the eight-seater open boat for an hour-long cruise downstream to the juncture of the Pieman and Savage rivers.
From there, we head up a creek flanked by myrtle, black-hearted sassafras and laurel and enter the canyon that holds the romantically named cascade.
Our guide, Les Sims, says it roars in here after heavy rain, but today the flow is limpid and lovely, falling into a pool of sunlit water, gold-tinted from the buttongrass plains of the McDonald ranges above.
From an elevated timber platform, I am tiny beneath massive old tree ferns. On my third try, I correctly identify a celery-top pine by its leaf formation. I have much to learn about temperate rainforests.
The world recedes, at least until Les mentions the Republic Bar in North Hobart, and pesky city thoughts intrude.
I remember the morning I ran out of petrol with two toddlers in the car at the busy intersection where the Republic Bar sits.
A policeman pulled up at my window and berated me for using my mobile phone to call for help, then rode off. Thanks for nothing, mate.
A whole life could be filled with that sort of rushing stupidity if places and interludes such as this one at Corinna didn’t hold such a tempering sway over me. There is no mobile reception or Wi-Fi. Time feels more expansive, and its remoteness is soothing.
I wonder if the honeymooning couple after whom Lovers Falls is named felt the same way a century ago when they ventured up to the canyon with their prospecting pans.
Imagine their excitement when they found a huge nugget; their union must have felt blessed. Les tells me they sold it, funding their purchase of the Empire Hotel, which later became the Republic Bar.
An hour later, I’m in another pub, getting cosy by the fire at the rustic Tarkine Hotel. Dinner is at its Tannin Restaurant, where I have a steak so good I order it again the next night.
The whole Corinna settlement is run as a single tourism enterprise. Known as Corinna Wilderness Experience, it sits inside the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area and comprises the hotel and restaurant, cottages and campsites. Extra-cost activities include cruises and kayaking.
Corinna is also where the cable-driven vehicular barge crosses the Pieman, for travellers coming from Zeehan and Strahan.
What do they make of it, I wonder, coming blind across the river to this old gold mining town, settled in 1881?
They might think it just a middle-of-nowhere pub in a near ghost town.
The original pub and roadsman’s cottage now operate as guest accommodation. The shipshape upkeep and well-tended frontages of these delightfully wonky old buildings lends them a bit of a movie-set aura.
Tucked out of sight are 16 newer timber cottages built in the old style, not to a uniform design. Solar-powered, they’re super-cute outside and comfortable within. For tent campers, there are absolute riverfront platform sites, with barbecue shelters and use of hotel bathrooms. There are plenty of RV spaces.
I am up at sparrows the next morning for the hour-long Whyte River Walk. It is damp and divine along the forest loop. The reflections on the water at this time are astonishingly sharp, but softened by mist.
Our big expedition for the day is a cruise aboard Arcadia II, a Huon pine vessel built as a pleasure craft before World War II, when it was requisitioned to serve as a supply ship in New Guinea, later becoming a scallop-fishing boat on Tasmania’s east coast. After a decade cruising Macquarie Harbour and the Gordon River, she arrived on the Pieman in 1970.
We set off from the Corinna jetty, spotting wallabies braving the cold water to nibble on ribbon grass.
The day is still and calm and, along the way, Les points out various trees in the dense rainforest, including a Huon pine he says is 1800 years old.
Much of the drier southern bank is a vibrant towering eucalypt forest. In four hours, the only disruptions are one other boat motoring past and the screech of 10 black cockatoos. A sea eagle swoops to catch a trout and carry it off in its talons. Lunch is an indulgent affair on the deck.
The next morning I get up at first light again to kayak a few kilometres west, soaking up the vista and deep peace one last time. Long live Corinna. Long live the Tarkine.