Mid-winter festival weekend …
I have already mentioned the mid-winter pagan festival of waissail in a post on 17 July 2021 called “The burning man …”. In the depth of winter, communities come together in a celebration to drive away evil spirits and ensure a bountiful harvest at the end of the next growing season. My understanding is that rituals differ in parts of England that are famous for apples and apple cider. In Somerset, people dress up in elaborate costumes and carry a wassail bowl filled with hot spiced cider which they pour it onto the roots of apple trees, reciting incantations to ensure a fruitful harvest. In Kent, the wassailers light bonfires, and sing traditional songs to scare away any lurking evil spirits.
The Huon seems to favour Kent over Somerset because down here it’s all about fire! Willie Smith’s Apple Shed, just outside Hounville, now hosts the largest wassail gathering in the Southern Hemisphere and the centrepiece of the celebration is the ritualistic burning of the 15-metre-tall effigy of Big Willie. Cath and I were lucky enough to score tickets this year and so last Friday evening we witnessed the burning. It was a primeval experience which dazzled and delighted.
Saturday evening saw us head to a neighbour’s property for another pagan celebration of mid-winter. The actual effigy being burnt was not in the form of a human, but the fire was just as real albeit slightly smaller. This had the added advantage that when the blaze settled down slightly it provided a beautifully warm cocoon within which to relax and catch up with neighbours.
Not wishing to spoil a festival weekend with any hard work, we decided to take the day off on Sunday and head towards New Norfolk, a small town in the Derwent Valley about an hour or so north of us. It has a lovely little coffee shop, numerous antique and bric-a-brac shops to browse and one of our favourite eateries called the Agrarian Kitchen. The latter is famous for its fantastic food – it was one of the first paddock to plate experiences in Tasmania – and because it is housed in the grounds of one of Tasmania's most historic buildings. In 1827 a facility was built in New Norfolk to house mentally ill or invalid convicts who had been transported to Van Diemens Land. Although it has had many names (the New Norfolk Lunatic Asylum, the Hospital for the Insane, New Norfolk, and Mental Diseases Hospital, New Norfolk, to name a few), the hospital remained active until its closure in 2000. Now this historic building is deserted and in dire need of repair. This time we didn’t partake of the full culinary experience, but instead opted for the informal kiosk and a quick bite. We lingered in the grounds long enough to feel once again how incongruous it was to be eating excellent food in a place that had witnessed so much suffering. But the success of the Agrarian Kitchen gives hope that the historic site will endure to remind us of the need to be kinder to those less fortunate.
Our final stop on Sunday afternoon was Mt. Field National Park about half an hour’s drive from New Norfolk. We have been wanting to visit the Park for a while and we weren’t disappointed. A short 1.5 hour walk is enough to visit Russell Falls and Horseshoe Falls.
Continuing on the path takes you to the magnificent Tall Trees Walk. The mighty Eucalyptus regnans (aka Tasmanian swamp gum or Tasmanian mountain ash) is the world's tallest flowering plant and the second tallest tree. The Huon Valley has more than its fair share of these giant trees, three of the most famous being the 84-metre tall Gandalf’s Staff (believed to be about 350 years old), a 75-metre one known as Fangorn and the Centurion, which at 99.8 metres is the tallest tree in Australia. The biggest specimen we saw on our walk was 77 metres, but all around were trees of similar girth and height. It was just an awe-inspiring outing and a fitting way to end our festival weekend …
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