FEBRUARY 25: the visit or return to Tasmania
In February this year, we returned or rather “visited” Tasmania for our dear friends’ wedding. We had visited Hobart a few times in the last couple of years, checking it out as a place to live. And knowing we would move there in Spring this year, well this “visit” felt more like a “return”. It really made me feel we are visitors to everywhere we go, travel or inhabit for some time. There is an uncomfortable feeling of gentrification and colonisation, as well as a remembering feeling of traveling ancestors. And the main feeling was a return to our selves. Perhaps some space to feel me again.
NOVEMBER 2023
Our initial trip when I was pregnant with my son was one of discovery. We mainly lived in our van as we moved along the spacious landscape. My daughter would often play home in the bushes longing for a home. Sometimes we stayed in a structure, our favourite whilst we did work exchange for a beautiful family’s incredible garden and rendering a mud cubby house we stayed in the bell tent. Despite exploring deep in rainforests and smaller cosy towns, we found something in Hobart. A feeling that friendly warm good-weird was within reach… or a short bike ride away.
When you visit a place what makes you think you’d like to live there? Or not?
AUGUST 2024
Our testing trip was for my partner’s birthday, just to see if what we had felt was still alive as a spark within us. Now the 4 of us waddled along playing house for a week in Hobart. Funnily enough, we played tourist and visited museums, but forgot to take many photos.
How do you act like a tourist?
FEBRUARY 2025
The February wedding was heart nourishing. The welcome I found was in the marriage of the couple, to their new found home, new found friends, long found friends and long time history. It was a remembering and a creation at once.
A moment that stuck in my memory was going to the beach with just our family and seeing no other humans around. No development either. And I felt at home in this aloneness. I kissed my partner, watched my kids and breathed as if to finally be us. Over the short visit, I swam in the water at 3 different beaches and I felt like goldilocks tasting porridge. Where will be the right fit? I don’t know but the water felt right. It felt like a moment of crossing a border. Tasting the current that runs in this river mouth… and finding that it was definitely not too hot, but just right.
NOW 2025
Over talking about leaving Sydney for years YEARS, we are in the midst now packing up our parts to move in September. Now the journey of the unknown awaits… and I’m scared. I’m aware there is romanticism and big compromises we are making. In some ways we are trading nourishing family proximity for closer connection with nature, a slower pace, and a sense of space. To the potential that nature can be family too. It might be totally dumb but I believe there is no right or wrong we know one, now it is time to know another.
What compromises do you make?
If you know of anyone in or around Hobart who might like to connect with us, or even rent us a home, please get in touch!
With gratitude,
Clio
