Dehydrated

People holidaying from mainland Australia are often surprised when they visit Tasmania during summer. With Tassie widely regarded as being wet and cold and miserable, they cram their cases full of every item of clothing they think might be needed for even the shortest stay. Or maybe not. There are those who come completely unprepared, and sometimes get away with it, but being an island State we are at the mercy of so many surrounding weather patterns that I’m always amused when the TV weather report has ‘CONF’ written on the screen off the coast. The weather and the seas are confused.

What visitors don’t expect to see is mile after mile of dry farmland and hills as they head down the highway, and the abundance of skeletal dead trees. Maybe they’re expecting something like Escape to the Country, with sweeping vistas of lush green pasture and rolling hills, but instead they find that even further south from where they came, it can still get jolly hot and very dry, and you can burn to a crisp in next to no time.

It’s not a gradual change from the verdant green of spring to its summer mantle in my neck of the woods towards the centre of the State. It only takes about a week, or two at the most, once the sun really packs a punch and the drying winds blow. Crops are then the only greenery in evidence. Despite the feeling that much looks dead, it still has a beauty all its own, with the stark contrast in colours compared to the softness of the rest of year, and the knowledge that beneath that dry, hard ground life will take off again in a few short months helps me get through my least preferred season.

Summer’s world dry

muted, beige

leached of colour