After having split my time fairly evenly between the north and the south of Tasmania my schedule was about to put much more time in the south of the state. We were heading to the Kinborough-Huon club based around the Kingston area, which is to the west of Hobart. And this rotation was going to be especially fun, as I was going to have a chance to reconnect with some past exchanges to Canada.
The Monday morning of my first week in K-H I was met with a familiar face from someone I had hosted a few years ago, Owen Wolley. We were spending the first few days of the week with him and his uncle on Bruny Island. For those who don’t know there are several other islands dotted along Tasmania’s coast. And one of the more accessible, southerly and picturesque ones being Bruny. While on the island we got to experience the beautiful views from the Pennicott boat tour of the island. Which were the Bruny lighthouse, the southernmost winery in Australia and the oyster farming business. We all even got a chance to get our hands dirty and helped with some ground clearing for the next phase of vines going in for the winery, and some sheep sorting.
On the Wednesday we came back to Tasmania and the next few days were spent travelling down to the south side, which is down the Huon Valley.
Thursday was spent down the the far south with a tour of Huon aquaculture, one of the three biggest salmon farms in Tasmania. From there, we traveled up the river system to the lush forests and the stunning Tahune air walk, were you walk suspended 20 m above the forest floor. Then as we reached the apple production center of Tasmania, we then toured a cider mill.
The next day we went the opposite direction and headed inland to the central midlands and toured Llanberis, a large sheep and cropping farm.
They run 20,000 sheep on 12,000 acres of land with quite a few centre pivot irrigation plots. And as an added bonus we got to tour the old farm stead where they had just finished filming a movie called the nightingale.
To cap out first week in K-H we spent the Saturday touring some of the countryside around Kingston, we hiked the Snug Falls trail. Toured the renown Frank’s cider and went to a sheep dairy farm where not only did they make several great sheep milk cheeses, they also distilled the whey (a byproduct of the cheese process) into several kinds of alcohol.
Stay tuned for next weeks adventures in the rest of Kinborough-Huon.
