Westerway RaspberryFarm

The road to Mt Field National Park runs through some of the Derwent Valley's most fertile ground, and it's here, on the river flats where the Tyenna cuts through Westerway, that the Clark family has been growing raspberries for close to three decades. The canes went into old hop fields — a crop that once defined this valley — and what began modestly has grown into a genuine fixture of the region, with row upon row of berries now spread across the flats.

The picking calendar follows the season closely: strawberries colour up from late November, raspberries from early December, and by the time mid-December arrives the raspberry rows hit their stride, running strong through to the start of January. Blackcurrants join the lineup too. The fields open daily through the season from 9am to 4.30pm, and the arrangement is simple and fair — an entry charge, then a per-kilo price for whatever ends up in your punnet. There's little pretence about it: you're handed the run of the rows and left to work at your own pace, sun on your back and the Western Wilderness rising in the middle distance.

Back at the farm gate, the shop keeps longer hours across summer, and it's become as much a stop for passing traffic as for dedicated pickers — travellers breaking the Hobart-to-Mt Field run for fresh berries, ice-cream, coffee and local produce, alongside locals who've made it a habit. It's an easy, unfussy kind of outing: about an hour from Hobart, no need to rush, and the reward is a full container of fruit picked at exactly the moment it wanted to be picked. For a farm built on a crop the valley nearly forgot, Westerway has turned raspberry season into something worth planning a whole day around.