Friday 13 September 2024 – We had only about an hour’s drive to today’s destination, which allowed for a relaxed morning. We checked out of the delightful Peppers Seaport Hotel and headed (via Woollies to get more of Twining’s finest Earl Grey) towards Jetson Farm, which is in a place or area called Jetsonville. (Anyone remember the Jetsons, the American cartoon series from the early ’60s? It treated the future as reverentially as The Flintstones treated the past.)

The landscape we travelled through was unremarkable. We started out through the same farmland that surrounded Launceston and then skirted the Mount Arthur Forest Reserve, which meant that things got a bit more foresty,

although most of the time the foresty bits were behind cleared spaces beside the road.

The wattle/mimosa continued to be a joyful addition to the scenery.

We passed a viewpoint, or Lookout as they’re called here, the Sideling Lookout, which gave us a great look out over the neighbouring countryside.

We passed a couple of interesting sights en route: a fetching line of trees

planted thus for a reason we wot not of; and, on the outskirts of Scottsdale, this

“Iconic Eco Centre”, which was for sale and a purpose we wot not of. Scottsdale is the nearest town of any pith or moment to Jetsonville, and seems a nice enough place;

we merely hope that it features a petrol station so that we can refuel before we have to move on in a couple of days’ time. Scottsdale and Jetsonville are firmly in farming land (we were told, for example, that nearby Ringarooma is the richest dairy farmland in the whole of Australia)

and our accommodation for the night was a farmhouse, part of Jetson Farm, which is a working farm. We got there at about 11.30, perfect for our appointed midday meeting time with our guide. What with the friendly reception from hosts Madeline and Guy Jetson and the immediate arrival of said guide, I didn’t have a chance to take a photo of the place. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that.

Our guide’s real name name is Craig Williams, but he told us that everyone calls him Bushie.

This explained some of the mystery behind the item in our schedule which describes the next two days as “Bushie’s Quoll Patrol”, but didn’t actually vouchsafe any further intelligence about what this entailed. In the end, that’s just as well, as you’ll find out if you read on.

Bushie’s company is Pepper Bush Adventures, a small business he runs with his wife, Janine, and son Ben. Although his training was as a master butcher, Bushie’s background is steeped in the lore of the bushman. He’s been walking around and spending time in the bush since his childhood (which is how he got his nickname, he says), and doing these tours for about 25 years. He was thus able to display a very solid grasp of the local history, geography, geology, industry, economics and wildlife. His visual acuity was astonishing; as he was driving along he was casually able to identify small birds perched on distant poles, or, as in the photo above, platypuses in roadside ponds. Similar to our experiences in Costa Rica and Madagascar, where without a guide you’d not see 90% of the wildlife around you, Bushie’s ability to spot things was impressive. It was also a bit frustrating, as he pointed out things (such as that platypus) that had disappeared by the time we were in a position to see and, most importantly, photograph them. We did. though, get a chance to admire a couple of galahs before they, too, buggered off.

So the first three hours or so of our time with Bushie was spent being driven around with him telling us about the details of the surrounding landscape – types of forest, trees, berries, leaves, uses of same for cooking and medicine – and identifying wildlife as it disappeared into the middle distance. We did pass some great scenery, though.

The area has many British names, such as Dorset and Bridport, and mountains such as Ben Nevis and Ben Lomond. Unlike Scotland, in Tasmania, you can stand on top of Ben Lomond and see Ben Nevis. Well, except today, that is.

The upper reaches of Ben Lomond were in thick cloud and rain, so we turned back before reaching the top. However, I did get a view which gave me the clearest explanation I’ve yet had of glacial moraine

and we could glimpse, through the mist, cliffs of the dolerite rock that’s unique to Tasmania, Antarctica and South Africa.

The glacial moraine bit is important. The above pictures are extreme examples of moraine, but the whole area is littered with such rock, merely much less densely packed. A rock-strewn landscape is not suitable for farming, but it is perfectly good for growing trees. So forestry is an important industry in this area of Tasmania. Bushie pointed out the very clear distinctions between native forest and plantations, and described the importance of sustainable logging, where a few selected mature trees are extracted from a plantation, leaving others to grow and the ecosystem largely undisturbed, as opposed to clearance logging, which results in destruction of a forest.

Eventually, in latish afternoon, we headed off towards our supper destination, which was, frankly, in the middle of nowhere. As we approached the track that led to it, though, we began to get a clue as to what awaited us.

A mother and 13-month old baby wombat casually pottered out of the undergrowth and across the bridge in front of us. And as we started down the track, it was clear that we had a reception committee awaiting us.

In the acres surrounding Bushie’s rustic cabin

some 60-odd eastern grey kangaroos have made their home. They weren’t always there; when a local wildlife centre had too many kangaroos to look after, they asked Bushie if he could accommodate some. He agreed to take them, and the mob has grown to its current size. They are free to come and go as they please, but they are completely habituated to humans, as Bushie regularly hosts small groups at this cabin as part of his tours and occasionally escapes there himself. When he is there he feeds the ‘roos

which is another reason his place is so popular with the local wildlife. Kangaroos are not the only animals there; there are wallabies and pademelons, too,

which makes Bushie’s cabin just about the only place you’ll see all three of these macropods together in the same place. There are also quolls (which, sadly, we didn’t get to see, as they are nursing young at the moment) and

possums. I also managed to catch a glimpse of flame robins, female and male.

It was getting quite cold at this point, so Bushie built up a nice fire for us

and prepared a delicious meal, which we ate, surrounded by these kangaroos, which wandered about and even came up to demand attention. Bushie showed us where the kangaroos like to be scratched – chest, not head – and their closeness enabled us to see how unwise it could be to tangle with them.

However, they were all friendly. Bushie knows them by name, and it was interesting to watch their interactions. There were two large males: Yoda, the alpha male

and Rip, who was alpha until Yoda deposed him. Unusually, Rip was not then excommunicated from the group, but is tolerated. Here they both are, having a meal together

You can tell how Rip got his name by looking closely at his left ear.

It was a remarkable occasion, completely unexpected, and one which would have had less impact had we known about it.

Also remarkable was the conversation we had with Bushie on the drive back to Jetson Farm after the meal. It concerned the Thylacine, the Tasmanian Tiger. This animal has widely been thought of as being extinct ever since the last known specimen died in a zoo in 1936. This is increasingly looking unlikely. Bushie told us of one that was shot in 1946, proving that they weren’t extinct in 1936, and also mentioned that some people, notably the late Col Bailey, were firm believers in the continued existence of the Thylacine. Some people have claimed to have seen them within recent times, and there are several others, such as Murray McAllister, who are actively interested in searching for extant animals. Both Jane and I knew the Thylacine extinction story and had found it very sad, and we hope that after all there are some of these creatures still living in some far corner of a Tasmanian Forest.

We meet Bushie again tomorrow, and who knows what the day will bring? Not us, that’s for sure.