The 9 Stages Of A Tasmanian Winter
A strategic survival guide to Tassie’s coldest season.
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The Retreat, Pumphouse Point (Emilie Ristevski)
Early May: The Denial
It's still autumn. Technically. The leaves are doing their thing, there are still some okay days in there, and you are absolutely not ready to call it. Mainlanders have been complaining about the cold since March, and you've decided this makes them weak. You are wearing a light jacket. You are fine.
Mid-May: The Capitulation
You light the fire. You told yourself you'd hold out until June but there was frost on the car this morning and life is short. The first fire of the season is a private surrender, and you make peace with it somewhere around the second glass of Tasmanian Pinot Noir.
Late May: The Layering System
You have developed a sophisticated relationship with wool. There is a thermal under everything. You have a dedicated indoor jumper, an outdoor jumper, and a jumper that lives in the car. You stop explaining this to people. They should understand. You’re all living through the same grim existence, after all.
Early June: The Soup Era
Winter arrives properly - and so does the slow cooker. You have made the same leek and potato soup four times. You have also made shakshuka, minestrone, and something with lentils that turned out better than expected. The slow cooker will not return to the cupboard until October.
Ironclad Co. and The Agrarian Kitchen (image: Anna Critchley)
June: The Great Indoors
You have cancelled plans that you were genuinely looking forward to, because it is dark and raining, and your couch has achieved a perfect body-temperature equilibrium that cannot be disturbed. This is not laziness. This is wisdom. The one exception is Dark Mofo, for which you will stand in the streets at midnight in horizontal rain and call it a cultural experience.
July: The Midwinter Reckoning
This is the hard one. July in Tasmania is not romantic. It is grey and relentless, and the sun sets before you've finished work. You start trawling Webjet for flights to Queensland. You don't book them, but you look.
August: The Smug Plateau
Something shifts. You stop dreading it and start owning it. You tell someone from Sydney that yes, it was minus two this morning, and you watch their face. You feel nothing but quiet pride. You are built differently. Stronger. More resilient. Superior, really.
The Picker’s Hut at Invercarron (image: Dearna Bond)
Late August: The False Spring
There is one perfect day: warm, clear, the kind that makes you think it's over. It is not over. You know this, and yet you are fooled every single year. You eat lunch outside. You get sunburned. The next day it snows.
September: The Emergence
Let’s be real, this is more like very late September. The season breaks and you walk outside. The sun is actually warm on your face, and something loosens in your chest that you didn't realise was tight. You survived it. You always do.
And already, it doesn't seem like it was that bad.
