SOME INFO ABOUT WHERE I AM .. OR WAS

October 3, 2009

My little writer’s residence is at Cynthia Bay on Lake St Clair, the southern end of the Cradle Moutain-Lake St Clair National Park, which contains the popular Overland Track walking trail.

In 1982 roughly 20% of Tasmania (and isn’t that figure amazing?) was declared the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. (The World Heritage Convention was established in 1972 by UNESCO to promote the protection and celebration of the Earth’s natural and cultural heritage.) A site must meet at least one of four natural and/or six cultural criteria to be designated WHA—and the Tassie area met all natural criteria for inclusion, as well as three of the six cultural criteria.

Lake St Clair sits in a basin that was created by glaciers over the last two million (!) years. It is, at 167 metres, the deepest lake in Australia and home to some rare ancient shrimp. It’s also the headwaters of the Derwent, the river that flows through Hobart. The Visitors Centre, which is scant minutes away from my house, is a handsome building that won an award. It’s full of displays and information about the park, tempting cards and books (including some great activity books for kids), and clothing for those who find themselves here without enough layers. The Park staff, though surprisingly few in number, are knowledgeable and very helpful.

Cynthia Bay marks the southern end of the Overland Track. Its other end is at Cradle Mountain. That track is 80 km of alpine walking, and takes about six days. From Lake St Clair you can take several short walks and some longer ones through this changeable forest.

If I stand on the viewing platform beside the Bay, which I do usually once a day, I’m looking more or less north and can see Mount Olympus as well as several other mountains. (The Greek gods have made their mark on the land here—Cynthia’s another, an alternate name for Selene, the moon goddess.) I’m photographing Mount Olympus in different weathers and at different times—some days it’s barely visible.

Aboriginal people called Lake St Clair Leeawuleena, which means Sleeping Water. The local people were the Larrairremener, a band of the Big River Nation, the last few members of which were deported to Flinders Island in 1832. I don’t know if there are Aboriginal stories associated with this lake, but there is a short walking trail, the Larrairremener tabelti, that memorializes their presence here through four noticeboards along the walk. Behind one of the signs there’s a tremendously tall eucalypt, with red on its otherwise pale huge trunk. I don’t know what kind it is and the first couple of times I walked past it I thought it was dead. But it’s not-- it’s just so tall I hadn’t managed to look high enough to see that it had branches with leaves! Something about that tree itself evokes the people who once dwelt here.

In the Visitors Centre there’s a fibrework made by three Aboriginal artists (one of them Lola Greeno who was part of the tayenebe project), in 2000, from materials gathered here. It’s woven from buttongrass, cutting grass, and spreading rope-rush, and also incorporates moss, currawong and ground parrot feathers, possum fur, and snakeskin.