塔斯马尼亚——美如伊甸的“恶魔”之岛

2013-01-31 09:23
疯狂英语·阅读版 2013年1期
关键词:塔斯马尼亚麦加小袋鼠

当初记住了澳洲塔斯马尼亚这个地名,是由于某电视台的一档饮食节目。这个充满阳光与海滩,布满新鲜美味海产的地方实在让好吃恶劳的小编一见倾心!后来经过一番资料搜集,发现这里更是一个“有故事”的地方,集“天使”与“魔鬼”的魅力于一身。身处中土的寒冬,澳洲的盛夏让人向往,而塔斯马尼亚的美着实不能忽略。

It is always wet on the west coast,” says my guide, Rosemary, drily. “Hence the rainforests.”

We are standing on Sarah Island, in Tasmanias Macquarie Harbour, as the wind whips the rain into a 1)frenzy. All around us are the overgrown ruins of the most feared penal colony in what Europeans used to call Van Diemens Land: the 2)solitary confinement cells, the administration buildings, the tannery, a bakehouse. This penal colony was for the worst offenders, 3)scourged and 4)dragooned into 5)logging and shipbuilding.

“The ‘new penitentiary was blown up in 1926 by a local mining engineer who wanted to 6)eradicate all traces of that dark period,” says Rosemary. “We werent even taught Tasmanian history at school—it was considered shameful.”

We drip back aboard the Lady Franklin and negotiate the notoriously narrow and 7)treacherous entry into Macquarie Harbour, which the convicts, for obvious reasons, dubbed Hells Gate. Then, from the drama of the Southern Ocean, we sail up through the Edenic serenity of the Gordon River. Today, 160-odd years after the end of transportation and the name change from Van Diemens Land to Tasmania, Sarah Island is part of a Wilderness World Heritage Area, and convict sites form one of Tasmanias biggest visitor attractions.

西岸这里常年潮湿,”我的导游露丝玛丽干巴巴地说到。“于是便有了这些雨林。”

我们站在位于塔斯马尼亚麦加利港的萨拉岛上,雨丝在海风的鞭打下狂舞。环绕我们周围的是杂草丛生的遗迹,曾属于一处令人相当恐惧的罪犯流放地,欧洲人称之为“范迪门斯地”,包括:独立的监禁单间、行政大楼、皮革厂和一座面包烘房。该罪犯流放地是专为罪行最重的罪犯而设的,以鞭笞和各种残酷的手段强迫他们去伐木造船。

露丝玛丽说:“‘新监狱的称谓是1926年由当地一名采矿工程师提议的,目的是要根除掉黑暗时期的所有遗迹。过去,学校课程里根本就不会讲到塔斯马尼亚的历史——被认为耻辱感太重了。”

我们慢慢地走回到富兰克林夫人号上,小心翼翼地穿过那出了名险恶的狭窄入口,驶入麦加利港,那里被罪犯们封为“地狱之门”,原因显而易见。接着,经历过南冰洋的喜怒无常,我们沿戈登河那伊甸园般的宁静顺流而上。流放的终结,“范迪门斯地”更名为“塔斯马尼亚”,时至今日已过了一百六十余年,萨拉岛亦成为了一个荒原世界遗产区的一部分,而这些罪恶遗址则成为了塔斯马尼亚最大的旅游胜地之一。

Sarah Islands surroundings of impenetrable temperate rainforest, which made escape all but impossible, have—since protesters in 1982 blockaded the Gordon River to prevent a hydroelectric project that would have flooded this pristine region—become a 8)rallying point for ecologists. Grateful visitors flock to see the primeval forests of myrtle, sassafras and a 2,000-year-old Huon pine.

A scenic flight by seaplane is 9)de rigueur to appreciate the scale of the landscape—from the little fishing town of Strahan to the sweep of Macquarie Harbour, the immensity of the rainforest backdrop and the vast contortions of the rivers that carve through this landscape. Flying is also the only way to reach Sir John Falls, a magical spot where a limpid waterfall cascades into a pool tinged a vivid orange by the peaty ground, and dappled light filters through trees jacketed in brilliant moss.

We then 10)bid farewell to Strahan, and drive along country roads to Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, in the Central Highlands, for walks over button-grass plains and wildlife encounters, dining on marinated wallaby and sleeping in comfortable wooden cabins perched above gurgling creeks.

When not served up on a plate, wallabies hop trustingly through the undergrowth, while furry 11)wombats display 12)circumspection born of experience, and dash down burrows at human approach.

Tasmanian devils provide evening entertainment at a local sanctuary set up to safeguard these 13)endemic creatures from the facial tumour disease which is ravaging their numbers. A little devil called Windermere is summoned blinking to meet us, her apparently 14)cuddly 15)demeanour belying a 16)carnivorous bite force of 1,220lb—shown to good effect at feeding time with her screeching, squabbling siblings.

要逃离萨拉岛几乎是不可能的,因为岛的周围密布着无法穿越的温带雨林。自从1982年抗议者封锁戈登河,阻止一个会引发水灾覆没这片原始区域的水力发电项目后,这里便成了生态学家们的大本营。大批幸运的游客蜂拥而往,到这片原始森林来看桃金娘、黄樟,以及一棵已有两千岁的水松。

只有在水上飞机上好好地欣赏整道风景线才对得起这里的美景——从思特雅寒的小渔镇到麦加利港的狂风,从巨幕般广阔无垠的雨林到雕刻在大地上众多蜿蜒的河流。飞行也是唯一能接近约翰公爵瀑布的途径,在这个美妙的地方,透明清澈的瀑布飞流而下落入透着鲜橙色泥潭底的水塘里,并在覆满鲜艳苔藓的树上照出斑驳的光影。

告别了思特雅寒,我们沿着乡村道路一直驶向位于中央高地的摇篮山圣克莱尔湖国家公园,到那里是为了在扣子草平原上漫步,与野生动物们邂逅,享用以卤汁烹调的小袋鼠肉,并在筑于潺潺溪流上的舒适小木屋里睡美觉。

那些还没被奉上餐盘的小袋鼠们会天真地在树丛里跳来跳去,而毛茸茸的袋熊则表现得谨慎老练得多,一发现有人类靠近就立马冲下来躲到洞穴里。

“塔斯马尼亚恶魔”——袋獾因长期受着脸部癌症的折磨而数量锐减,因此人们为保护当地独有的生物品种建立了本土避难所,而它们则在夜晚时分为大家提供娱乐。一只名叫温德米尔的小“恶魔”听到召唤后扑闪着小眼睛前来与我们相见,表面上她讨人拥抱,举止可爱,掩饰了那肉食本性的1220磅撕咬力——进食时伴随的尖叫声及同类的吵闹声,那兽性完全展露。

If the west coast of Tasmania was hell, the dry and sunny eastern shores were known to the convicts as paradise; the paradise of the Freycinet Peninsula, a projection into the Tasman Sea, named after a 19th-century French explorer who wrote of “picking up shells and chasing butterflies in an age of Revolution”. It seems an innocent enough pursuit, but the merest hint of French interest was enough to 17)spur the English into colonising Van Diemens Land.

A 18)rose-tinted vision of pink granite mountains, the peninsula is thickly wooded with dry 19)sclerophyll forests of 20)eucalyptus and 21)casuarina, fringed with white sandy coves and lapping turquoise waters. I spend three days walking its 22-mile length, through woods alive with birdsong and the screech of yellow-tailed black 22)cockatoos, over 23)terrain that Nick, our young guide, 24)euphemistically terms “undulating flat”, and which leaves me gasping for breath.

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