jeremy.id.au

For quite some time now I’ve wanted to visit Tasmania. It’s probably one of the few remaining places in Australia that I’ve been wanting to see. Perth, Darwin, maybe a bit of Central Australia and far north Queensland are still on the list. Though I suppose I’ve done considerably well, having visited Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, a large chunk of New Zealand and now of course Tasmania. Having had the desire to visit Tasmania for quite some time, I’d have to say I wasn’t the least bit disappointed and my expectations were met quite well.

Day 1

Well the trip started on a mid-afternoon flight on the 15th of January. I was really surprised at how short the crossing of Bass Strait really is. It seems that one minute you’re flying over Port Phillip heads, with King Island visible very soon after. Yet before King Island even fades away you see a large mass of land, known as Tasmania. Launceston Airport had quite some charm to it, greeting us with a nice bit of garden then all it’s quietness being probably the smallest airport I’ve used, not to mention the tin shed baggage pickup area. First impression of Tasmania, not bad.

Having picked up the rental car, we drove into Launceston itself. Again, quite a charming little city with all it’s historic buildings. We had just enough time to have a good walk around Cataract Gorge, before leaving for Deloraine. The surprise here, was seeing a seal that had found its way up into the mouth of the South Esk River. The main highways in this part of Tasmania are certainly very well formed, although the 110km/h speed limit is possibly somewhat questionable. It was certainly surprising as to how few vehicles there were on the road. We arrived at the house of Mum’s friend, which would be our accommodation for the next three nights. Again, ‘charm’ is probably the word to describe the view out the lounge room window. A church, a few old houses on the town’s edge, dry country side and jagged hills in the distance. The roast that Mum’s friend cooked was certainly appreciated. While later in the evening we were surprised to see a freight train almost appear from nowhere in this patch of country side, before veering off along the edge of the town.

Day 2

This day was always going to be a long one. We set off from Deloraine out to Chudleigh where there is a business known as “The Honey Farm”, though it was actually more of a shop no doubt set up to capitalise on hoards tourists passing by. Next step was Mole Creek, where we had initially planned to visit King Solomon Cave, however, we had just missed the tour so we then set off to Sheffield. Though not without taking a dirt road shortcut and stopping at a few lookouts in the hills. Finally from Sheffield we left for Devonport, making it to Boat Harbour Beach in time for lunch. Boart Harbour Beach is an incredible white quartz sand beach, with a very light coloured blue water, that you first look down on from the hill above. It’s surrounded by a small village and certainly looks like a comfortable place to spend the day perhaps basking in the sun, though we only had time to spend lunch there. Though no drama as the next wonder of Tasmania awaited us, the Stanley Nut.

We took the chairlift up to the top which was incredibly steep and almost a little nerve with the wind forcing the chair to sway from side to side. However, the views certainly made it worthwhile (and hey it was fun anyway). We did a half hour walk at the top, before heading back down. In the way back, just out of Stanley, we passed through Wynward which is another fairly nice seaside town. We actually had a proper stop in Devonport as well, where we were able to see the Sprit of Tasmania II ferry moored. Perhaps my brief description of the day is no indication of how long it actually was. To give an indication, we covered over 400km of ground or 6-7 hours of driving (fortunately and thankfully done by Mum’s friend). We did get back to Deloraine to have dinner at the local pub, which serves Thai cuisine.

Day 3

As we had missed the caves the day before (Day 2), we managed to fit them in on the way up to Cradle Mountain on this day. King Solomon Cave was rather spectacular cave with pinkish stalactites, as result of the red soil leaking through with the limestone. After the caves, we set off for Cradle Mountain, stopping via Lake Cethana on the way. After transferring to a shuttle bus for the national park, we eventually got to Dove Lake by around 2:30pm. I decided to do the walk up to Marion Lookout, taking the steep route on the way up and a less direct though not so steep route via Wombat Pool on the way back. Most people seemed to be doing this walk in the reverse to me, though I had figured it would actually be easier to climb a steep embankment rather than descend it. I certainly have no regrets over this decision. Once at the top of Marion Lookout the views were absolutely spectacular. It seems that the whole area is surrounded by natural glacial lake formations. The walk back was certainly interesting as well, passing a few of the lakes on the way back and a range of alpine vegetation ranging from some kind of pine, snow gums, beech myrtle and grasslands. The only problem is that I had run out of water towards the end, which is less than desirable considering the 30 degree heat (or so it felt). In the end I’d have to say that Cradle Mountain was the highlight of the whole trip. The geological formations combined with such a diverse range of vegetation just cannot be beaten.

Day 4

This was relatively easy day in which we drove from Deloraine to Strahan. Much of the drive was a backtrack on which we had covered going to Cradle Mountain the day before. I must say that some of the high country surrounding Cradle Mountain had a strong resemblance to what we have seen many years ago on the Dinner Plain side of Mount Hotham, Victoria. Further on we saw much more Beech Myrtle forest, while mum was excited to see Leatherwood growing by the side of the road. Upon reaching Roseberry, we met up with Geraldine, a woman I had been in contact with via the Internet for some years. We had afternoon tea in the local bakery which was quite pleasant. Roseberry is a mining town surrounded by mountain, so much that it often gets snowed in during the Winter time. After leaving Roseberry, we headed to Strahran via Zeehan. We passed through vast open fields of button grass. Although one may get the impression this area has been cleared, it is actually the natural landscape. The aborigines would regularly burn this area and as a result no sapling could become established. Unfortunately some of this landscape has been destroyed further down the road to make way for plantation pine. It seemed that we reached Strahan in no time after this. Strahan is certainly a very pleasant town located by the Macquarie Harbour, though they sure know how to charge a lot of money. This may well be explained by the fact that most of the town is actually owned by one family. The price we paid for our accommodation at Strahan Village is certainly the most I’ve paid for such a basic motel room overlooking the carpark. The lack of air conditioning was also a disappointment in such warm weather, perhaps we had chosen to visit Strahan on the hottest day of the year, though I’m sure that the cheap 1960s motel building design with a lack of insulation or awnings would certainly have been a contributing factor. My advice: perhaps try camping by the road side if you want value for money as you won’t find it anywhere else in this town. We did have a reasonable dinner that night at the Fish Café on the wharf.

Day 5

From the onset, this was going to be a long day. First of all, we’d be going on a cruise on the Macquarie Harbour and Gordon River then we’d be driving to Hobart, which would take 5-6 hours. Not to mention that we’d be returning the rental car to Hobart Airport, something that turned out to be quite an unfortunate arrangement.

The cruise was certainly great and well worth it, even if these tourist operations tend to be on the expensive and overpriced side of things these days. Despite being a dark and dull morning, the calm weather did mean we could get out to see the Sorell lighthouse (apparently this is only possible on a small number of trips each year; of course only because they don’t want to upset the passengers with a bumpy ride), just out of Macquarie Harbour and that we’d get good reflections on the Gordon River. On returning to the harbour from Cape Sorell and before the Gordon River, we stopped on Sarah Island, which was used as a prison camp for convicts. The island had originally been set up as one of the most harshest outpost for the worst convicts, however, instead the island actually became a large boat building yard. The tour of the island was interesting and conducted quite well. Later on we had a buffet lunch on board the boat, while heading up the Gordon River. Much of the vegetation (such as the Beech Myrtles) reminded me of that surrounding the fjords in New Zealand, only with the odd eucalypt scattered around along with a few remaining Huon pines.

Another highlight in the cruise was a stop we made along the Gordon River at a rainforest boardwalk. Here we were able to get a closer look at the rainforest vegetation including a few Huon pine trees. Clearly we had arrived during the driest time of the year as the rain forest floor had almost completely dried out. We were also surprised by a sleeping copperhead (I think) snake that was laying on a rock absorbing as much sunlight as it could get. There is also quite a bit of Leatherwood in this rainforest environment. It was a safe distance from the boardwalk. After the boardwalk, the boat returned back down the Gordon River. Of course the boat travels at quite a slow pace along the river and utilises specialised technology so to minimise the wake and avoid damage to the river banks. It’s worth pointing out that this part of the Gordon River was home to many protests over the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam. However, over a thousand protesters were arrested and the (Liberal) Tasmanian government planned to proceed. It was only after the election of a new ALP Federal Government that construction was halted. The Tasmanian government challenged the decision in court, however, they lost as the Federal Government was deemed to be simply meeting its obligations towards an international treaty. The Franklin and Gordon River area had been declared a World Heritage Area as a cold-climate rainforest. Had the forest been destroyed, it could take thousands of years to recover, if at all, as the eucalypts would take over as the dominant species.

Leaving for Hobart

Upon completing the cruise, by which time it was early afternoon, we took one last look at Strahan before hitting the road to Hobart. First stop was at Queenstown, an old mining town, to fill up with petrol. The area surrounding Queenstown is an environmental disaster resembling a pink moonscape, after trees were removed to fuel local smelters and remaining vegetation was killed by smelter fumes, followed by heavy rainfalls washing away the topsoil. The vegetation is only just starting to recover today. Soon after Queensland we once again entered forest and much of it; both beech myrtle and eucalypt. This is perhaps the incredible thing about Tasmania, that you can drive mile upon mile through wilderness and forest. I am not sure that any other part of Australia has such large areas of forested wilderness remaining. The Great Dividing Range may have larger areas of wilderness, though I can’t recall driving through so much forest anywhere.

Given the lack of time we had, one mistake we made was taking a detour to Lake St Clair, near Derwent Bridge. We didn’t really have time to do anything except take a quick look at the lake from a boat ramp. Not to mention that most of the surrounds were obscured by fog. At least I did get a fairly interesting photo of some boulders with the lake and the fog. Finally, after rejoining the Lyell Highway back to Hobart, we passed through many more forests. From here we also passed quite a number of hydro power stations on the Derwent River. Despite these structures being rather awe striking, we barely slowed down at this point to to take a closer look as it was getting late. As we neared Hobart, the forests faded to be replaced by dry country side. As we crossed over the Derwent River at New Norfolk, Hobart felt like a stone throw away.

Finally we had reached Hobart, though we had to travel all the way out to the airport to return our hire car, before taking a bus back to the city. It was roughly 10pm when we checked into our hotel. We concluded our travels around Tasmania with a trip to Port Authur and some sight seeing around Hobart (where we spent two additional nights).

Photos online at: http://gallery.mac.com/jeza_rocks/100024 (note there are two pages)