Pic: The gardens at Redlands
Redlands Estate bakery
The Distillery
Location filming at Redlands
Last weekend’s jolly jaunt took us in a north-westerly direction from the bosom of Hobart, part way into the reaches of the picturesque and historic Derwent Valley.
We fired up the trusty Cressida and cruised comfortably out of town and through the sweeping bends of the Booker Highway towards Bridgewater. The sun was warm and comforting inside the car, but the whitecaps on the river were a dead giveaway. It was as windy as fuck outside, and the 35-year old icon of Japanese automotive excellence was taking a serious buffeting, but we forged ahead regardless.
Our destination was the Redlands Estate whiskey distillery (www.redlandsestate.com.au) at Plenty, right next door to the Salmon Ponds. But first we had to run the gauntlet of the Lyell Highway’s fluctuating speed limits, and limited (to one) overtaking lanes. Not that the Cressida is capable of much overtaking, but you never know when you’ll find yourself behind something less appealing, and even more pathetically underpowered.
Don’t get me wrong – we love the Cressida to pieces (did I mention it was an icon) – but we have no illusions about its standing in a world of tricked up SUVs that bounce promptly off the line, and would offer to wipe your bum if they had a free hand.
Through the roundabouts at New Norfolk, we buzzed cheerily along the narrow Glenora Road betwixt river and farm. The valley was a picture of rolling green hills, with the promise of plenty in their verdant curves – like a picture postcard, crowding my brain with sugary visions of settlers gazing at the same image, and declaring solemnly, ‘We shall call this wondrous place ‘Plenty’ and rejoice in its bounty’. More likely, though, they found a shitload of fish in the river, and ‘shitload’ roughly translates to ‘plenty’ in the lingo of the early 1800s.
As we drove, the Derwent flowed swiftly to our right, reflecting the changing sky, as waves of wind and rain coursed over the surrounding ridges, interspersed, in a typically Tasmanian way, with blasts of brilliant blue-sky sunshine. I’m not sure I will ever get used to rain falling from a clear sky –it’s a curious, inexplicable, bizarrely idiosyncratic phenomenon. Like Tasmanian politics, but without the idiotic human element.
One of the river’s many sweet spots soon came into view – a curiously compelling place where river and road part ways, with the road climbing a short ridge and the river bouncing over a chain of rocks under the now-abandoned Plenty railway bridge. A newish, barn-like home sits on the riverbank, treating its inhabitants to a daily serving of tasty Derwent eye-candy – I unashamedly covet whatever luck, or brilliant management, has bestowed on them.
The grandpa chariot surged bravely upwards past the glowing vista, and we shortly arrived at Redlands Estate. I love this place. ‘Serenity’ is a disgracefully overused word in tourist promotion, but at Redlands it is entirely the right word. The estate casts an almost hypnotic, other-worldly calm over those who set foot on its gravel paths and thick lawns. It belongs to another time, and we could feel the history oozing from every convict brick and flagstone.
And there’s a charming young bloke there distilling whisky. New whisky and dazzling heritage – it couldn’t be any better.
Our arrival was politely acknowledged by the young man and by two birds, the likes of which we have never seen before. Plump, rounded birds with neat, sharply patterned feathers, and no apparent inclination to take flight. Like uber-sophisticated turkeys – I think they may have been grouse. Later, we noticed they had two companions, with all four foraging politely in the abundant grass. (And not a fox in sight, but let’s not speculate on the atypical vegetarian preferences of the elusive Tassie fox).
A film crew was working in the grounds, shooting scenes for a between-the-warsfeature adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ – a Wilson family project, featuring the lustrous cream of the Tasmanian acting fraternity (see them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thatendswell).
We were suitably star-struck. The play is one of Shakespeare’s lesser known works, but it’s got everything you need in a piece of theatre – a clever, virtuous heroine, a dastardly shagger of a leading man, an outrageously successful, female-driven plot to tame the philandering cad, an array of intriguing relatives, friends, mentors and other associates, and old-style trench warfare.
And, it has been filmed almost entirely in the Derwent Valley, from New Norfolk to Fentonbury.
We spoke to the movie people, took photos of the gardens, and a sneaky pic of the distillery, and stalked the pretty birds, looking for a close-up shot – until the air began to chill, and all our batteries ran out. Including the car battery – someone forgot that older vehicles don’t have the whizz-bang electronic thingy that turns the headlights off when you remotely lock the vehicle. It may have been me.
Words were exchanged, the jumper leads were retrieved from their permanent home in the boot (which is no indication that I regularly flatten batteries), and a donor vehicle was found. The friendly distiller lent a hand, and the Japanese beast was soon sparked up and ready to roll on home, happy and relaxed.
