Out of sight as one looks south from Hobart's wharves is the end of the world, or at least Antarctica. From this point in the city the Derwent has already begun to spread grandly as it nears its mouth in Storm Bay. This mild late April morning we were to head down river by catamaran to the far south-east of Tasmania, to Recherche Bay.
This is one of the French names sprinkled along the coasts of the island. It comes from a ship of Rear-Admiral Bruni D'Entrecasteaux who made landfall in 1792 and 1793 while vainly searching for the expedition of lost compatriot, La Perouse. D'Entrecasteaux bestowed his own names on Bruny Island and on the long, sheltering strait that separates it from the Tasmanian mainland.
The catamaran pulled away from the pier, leaving behind a shipchandlers and the art deco Telegraph Hotel, passing the wheat silos that disfigured the southern end of Salamanca Place and are now apartments. Behind the city the mountain loomed blue-black. As the boat picked up speed so did the yellow-billed Australian gannets that playfully kept pace. By the sheer alum cliffs of Taroona we idled, better to see the sharp geological dividing line between sedimentary rock and red molten dolerite. In the lee of Bruny Island are Atlantic salmon pens, the small, yacht-filled bay of Kettering.
From here on south the industries of the nineteenth century have left traces: observation posts for bay whaling, overgrown tramways that had brought coal and timber down to the water's edge. Pods of dolphins frolicked in the bow waves and a seal indolently basked with flippers in the air. Far behind the mouth of the Huon River (name courtesy of the French) the Hartz Mountains rose into the clouds.
Then we were out of the channel and into Recherche Bay. We cruised past the remnants of the garden that the French had planted here in 1792, a nine by seven metres plot, in the event that they would return. So they did the following year, enjoying two peaceful contacts with large groups of Aborigines by Little Lagoon Beach. The two French stays totalled fifty days (about the same time that Cook spent far to the north while the Endeavour was repaired).
Here they botanised, collected specimens, made geo-magnetical investigations, and wondered about the 'noble savage' whom Rousseau had tutored them to expect. The French left no traces in stone. These