Ross and surrounds

After hugging the coastline for three weeks or so we thought it might be time to move inland, so we picked the town of Ross, which I’ve always been keen to visit. We decided to stay here a week, so we could have a bit of time to do some work/schooling, as well as look around.

It’s a small town (population around 250) full of beautiful old buildings and stone walls. In fact it looks a lot like a lot of little English villages I’ve been to, and with the weather being cold and rainy, it felt like them too.

It’s also known for its two bakeries. We sampled the first one immediately, having a delicious scallop pie each. Then we tried to go to the second one to try their sweets one day but it was shut, so we had to go back to the first one for custard square (or vanilla slice, depending on where you’re from), apple turnovers, lamingtons and chocolate mud cake. Now the problem is that we’ve tried one of the bakeries twice and the other not at all, so we have to fix that up by going for afternoon tea at the other one. Well if we must…

Most of what we’ve done here has been focused around learning about the history, and adding a bit to our knowledge of convict times in Australia, where the British government used the free labour of convicted men and women to build bridges, buildings, farm the land, spin the wool and so on, all while treating them badly while they were far from home.  There are also the remains of a female factory here – even just the fact that it is called that suggests it isn’t somewhere you’d want to end up.

The minimum sentence for a convict transported to Australia was seven years, but in reality, I doubt many of them were able to go home, for while the trip out here on the boat was free, they certainly weren’t offering free sailings back to the Britain at the end of it all.  Apparently around 200,000 convicts were transported to Australia over a period of about 100 years and 70,000 of those came to Tasmania, so there are a high number of Tasmanians living here who descend from convict ancestors.

I remember learning at school about how people were convicted and transported to Australia for crimes that often didn’t fit the punishment – stealing bread or cheese or a handkerchief. In Campbell Town, just up the road from Ross the whole main street has a row of bricks with each brick listing the name of a convict, the ship they came on and when, their crime, and their punishment. And sure enough, many of these were sent to Australia for the smallest of crimes.

Yesterday we went south to the town of Oatlands, which like Ross is filled with lovely old stone buildings, but is also the home of the Callington Mill Distillery. On the pretence of showing the kids the old mill, we popped in there to get out of the rain for a bit. Since we were there, we thought we may as well try some of the whiskey, so shared a flight of four to taste. We both liked the same one best, and we must have good taste, as we saw it in a shop today for $345, around twice the price of the others.

A few days ago, we went a bit further north to the town of Evandale. The whole time we’ve been here I’ve been trying to figure out the name of a town that we visited last time we were in Tasmania, and sure enough, as soon as we drove in I recognised it as Evandale. The markets were on so I popped in there with the kids and managed to find Jim a really warm puffer jacket (for some reason he didn’t think he would be cold on this trip and is lacking in some pretty basic warm stuff). It’s a good thing too as that day was the coldest of the trip so far with the “feels like” temperature around 1-2 degrees all day.

The rain has been a feature of our stay in Ross. We’re right on the river, which is flooding, like almost every other river in Australia it seems, but thankfully only comes up to a certain point then flows out the other direction to the neighbouring farm. The rain is a bit of a pain when we’re camping (but as I’ve mentioned before, when in a tent, I’ll take rain over wind any day). The sun is out again today, so we’re able to dry out a bit, get the washing done and top up the batteries with the solar panels so all is good.

Next we’re off to Bruny Island which I’m hoping will have some pretty interesting scenery and wildlife, and I’m assured has all the food groups – wine, whiskey, cheese, honey and seafood, so I’ll be all set. After that it’s off to the big smoke – Hobart!