Ode to Dunalley

I took a holiday in Dunnalley, on the way from Hobart to Port Arthur, just 3 days after the Legal Profession Act, 2007 (Tas) finally came into operation on New Year’s Eve (more at the end of the post). Dunalley’s my kind of place: a tiny fishing village full of geraniums, a few remaining fishing boats, a waterfront cafe cum second hand store, a spectacular beach, a general store with a large collection of hunting magazines, a considerably above average (but not quite excellent) bakery, a post office with a keen cottage gardener at the helm, a superficially picturesque pub, a couple of beautifully situated and almost untouristed wineries, rural drives through countryside akin to my 7 year old imagination of The County when reading Tolkien punctuated by little roadside stalls selling cherries and raspberries worthy of interstate travel, many magpies, and a 40 minute drive from Hobart (and the Jackman + McRoss bakery in particular) and more or less entirely unknown to Google.

But it is the Dunalley Fish Market which made me fall in love with the place, in this era when buying fresh fish caught by fishermen in fishing villages seems inexplicably difficult. Every day or so, I got into our sardine can-like hire car and drove to the end of the road to the ramshackle place which is perched on the side of the bay, and purchased some fresh fish, or a $4 tub of ‘fish pate’, or some smoked octopus, or some excellent fish and chips, or shucked as you wait oysters, or lobsters — live or freshly cooked. One enchantingly laconic individual who commutes from Hobart runs the place. Presumably it is his Elvis posters which interrupt the otherwise marine decor.

If all that appeals to you, go stay at my mate’s inlaws’ quiet and beautiful place, Potter’s Croft, and have my mate Gus and his wife Vanessa take you on one of their incredible guided tours of a giant private property called Bangor with 35 km of spectacular coastline which has been in the same family since white settlement.

The transitional provisions associated with the Legal Profession Act, 2007 (Tas) may be found here. Clause 6 was amended by the Legal Profession Amendment Act, 2008, which came into operation before the principal Act. The Legal Profession Board of Tasmania, which will handle complaints, has a nascent web site. Pity the poor punters of Tasmania; there does not seem to be a lot of information on the internet about how to complain about a lawyer just yet. Their disciplinary tribunal made just two decisions in the last financial year, and the Law Society’s annual report refers to them discreetly as ‘Practitioner A’ and ‘Practitioner B’. There is an independent bar of 39 down there, and about 450 lawyers all told.