How best to mark the end of this year and the beginning of the next?

Many enjoy a rowdy backyard celebration with cask wine, dad’s fireworks and food barbecued beyond recognition. Those who choose to ring in the new year with boozy revelry and swaying arm-in-arm renditions of Auld Lang Syne probably wake on the morning of the 1st feeling a little worse for wear, and perhaps a little closer to that cute second-cousin than their grandmother ever expected they would be.....

We received a message from a German friend telling us she’d hitched to the Tasman Peninsula so she could see the dawn of a new year from the limestone sea cliffs of Cape Rauol. She would have slept to the sounds of sea birds and ocean waves and woken to a breakfast of oats and powdered milk. For her, this would be the perfect non-celebration of the passing of another year. It would be a night in the wilderness no different from the hundreds of others she’s enjoyed while backpacking her way around the country.

Our choice in new year observances was to barely notice its passing. The five of us were too busy enjoying ourselves and one another’s company to be distracted by the calendar.

Outside our front door is Launceston’s Cataract Gorge. It’s a unique natural feature in the heart of Launceston featuring a river winding a few kilometres through steep cliffs cloaked in native bush. Rather than make a big deal out of new year’s eve we packed up the girls, the dog and our camp cookers and hiked the 30 minutes to a favourite water hole 2km up the gorge.

And what a great evening we had there.

The river rushes around huge boulders and over waterfalls, or meanders slowly through the deeper and wider sections. The rocks are hot under our feet after baking in the sun all day and the river has an initial chill that takes our breath away when we slip in for the first time, being careful to navigate the hidden boulders and slippery mosses under the surface.

While Jack the dog yelps at us from the banks - not yet brave enough to join us - we love to swim into the waterfalls and cling onto the rocks while the torrent rushes past and around before sweeping us in a screaming rush down river, the girls’ heads barely above water, their arms flailing and flapping. From where Jack looks on we must look like desperate drowning victims as we rush along with the current but we all just let the water carry us downstream to where it slows and we can clamber unto some submerged rocks before gathering ourselves for another assault back upriver.

This night we packed supplies for a cooked dinner and as the sun disappeared below the steep sides of the gorge we feasted on sausages, scrambled eggs, and fried halumi. Wine for the adults and clean water straight from the waterfalls for the kids. As we sit on the rocks in the middle of the river there is a wonderful feeling of place, of being somewhere special. We are in a beautiful oasis in our very front yard yet there is a feeling like we could be anywhere in the world. We typically have the whole river to ourselves for much of the time and it makes for an unforgettable summer evening.

We packed up and headed home, everyone exhausted, and slipped back into our lovely home with nobody really noticing or caring it was new year’s eve, just another day.