Musselroe Bay

Musselroe Bay is a gorgeous little holiday town up on the north-east shoulder of Tasmania. 

At dusk, hundreds of roos and wallabies emerge from their mysterious daytime seclusion to graze, just like they have always done. The wind roars like a forty, just like he has always done, although the wind farm is new.

When I visited for the first time in 2012, the Information Board down near the beach contained a story both unique and ubiquitous to 19th century Van Diemonian coasts. It was all sealers, fires on the coast, tea and flour, kidnapping... There must be a hundred places here with that story.

The story was unique in the use of active language. History, especially the gruesome stuff, reads better in the passive voice ("Lives were lost...") rather than a voice which suggests people actually did stuff ("The sealers killed them..."). 

But the story was really unusual in that the writer had actually given a voice to the Aboriginal people involved. They were polite. Then they were concerned. Then they were horrified. And then they fought back.

Musselroe Bay is a gorgeous little holiday town up on the north-east shoulder of Tasmania.