Fly-fishing on the Weld River

 

IFrom Huonville we drove out of the Huon River valley to the Tasmanian highlands. It was the Aussies Adrian and Tony in front with a small lorry and my Aussie friend Glen and myself following in the Jeep, me sitting passenger on the left side.

We drove into the timeless forests and the roads became narrower and less paved, then narrower and less graveled, then narrower and only logging paths and two-tracks and down into a clear-cut in the eucalyptus, and you could see beyond the clearing just how tall and dominant the eucalyptus trees were at the edge. Across the clear cut on the paths we tried to drive down further under the tall, straight, grayish white eucalyptus like big-tooted aspens, but we couldn’t drive further.

So we got out and geared up and started down into the mossy eucalyptus woods, down into the heart of the valley of the Weld River.

The Weld River was wide here and with four of us together, Tony went ahead along the shore to the big bare rock and the first bend some hundreds of meters up, while Adrian, Glen and I waded in the river, abreast, abreast, abreast, advancing like a column, fly-casting and wading upstream, Glen on the left, Adrian on my right, and me in the King’s Chair in the middle of the beautiful Weld.

Adrian finally caught a trout, but that was all, before we came up to Tony and finished and hiked back up the hill under the eucalyptus for lunch.

Back at the lorries they brought out a flat-style barbecue brazier, and lighted it up with a blowtorch, and laid a hubcap across the burning coals. The hubcap had holes punctured in it to allow for drainage. Then when it was hot, they laid on bacon and ham and wieners and onions and hot peppers. We ate lunch there, four of us round the brazier, taking off what we needed with a fork and eating it in sliced sandwich bread.

Gosh. In the months and weeks and days leading up to my trip to Tasmania to visit Glen, in the days and nights just preceding our day of fishing, I didn’t think it would ever come. Finally it came and I was there, and I didn’t want it to end. Now it is ten years gone, and I feel like another person, who never did experience it at all. May we all feel this feeling to one extent or another.