HFDU - Travels around Tasmania

Originally sent: November 13 ,2004

Hello everyone! As mentioned in the 19th Edition, this is a separate email covering B & I's trip to Tasmania. I wanted to make this separate so that I could spend some time explaining the interesting things that I learned about Tasmania, which is one of the seven states/territories of Australia. Just so you can get an idea about the size of Tassie, you can drive from the northern tip to the southern tip in about 5 hours, and probably the same driving from east to west. Tassie is well-known for its variety of beautiful landscape and with a population of only 473,000 people, most of it is untouched. Approximately 1/2 of the state is National Parks, so Tassie is very well preserved.

First of all, I did take a trip to Tasmania last December, but I was only there for a short time and didn't get to do any of the tourist things and driving around the entire state. So B & I decided to make the most of a long weekend and took the ship (the Spirit of Tasmania) from Melbourne for our 10 hour cruise along the Bass Strait between Victoria and Tasmania. The Bass Strait happens to have the largest concentration of great white sharks in the world! This is because of the seals and penguins that reside in large quantities in the area.

The Spirit of Tasmania offers daytime and night-time sailings, and carries your car over as well. B has a love for water and boats, so we decided to take the daytime crossing on the way over so that we could actually enjoy the trip over and see the water as we were sailing. If you remember from my last trip over, I got a bit seasick, so I was determined not to this time! I was well-equipped with motion sickness tablets and B's theory of keeping our stomachs full seemed to help as neither of us got sick in the slightest. The daytime crossing was enjoyable and relaxing. I think we spent about a third of our trip over outside on the decks watching the water and enjoying the pleasant weather. The rest of the time we wandered around the various decks, watching a bit of tv, reading, snacking, and chatting.

We arrived about 7pm and spent the first night about an hour from the port in Launceston, the 2nd largest city in Tassie with only about 70,000 people. The next morning we went just outside of Launceston to a place called Cataract Gorge. Cataract Gorge has the longest single chairlift in the world (or at least that was the claim) so B and I hopped on and rode across a little valley with a lake that ran in between some beautiful hills and cliffs. When we made it to the other side we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of several wild peacocks. The males were strutting their stuff with their tail feathers fully extended and dancing! It was quite a sight. We made it back across the little valley over a suspension bridge. Overall a beautiful little excursion before we were off to the country for the day.

Freycinet National Park is supposed to have some of the most splendid views of Tasmania and it sits on the east coast. B and I made it there early in the afternoon and went for a bush walk (hike) up to the lookout over Wineglass Bay. The hike consisted of pretty much straight uphill steps for about 40 minutes and proved to be a bit difficult for me! But, we made it there and the effort was well worth it. The water was bright turquoise and you could see to forever! Photos of Wineglass Bay have been added to the website. After our visit to Freycinet National Park, we headed down to Hobart for the evening, which is the largest city in Tasmania with 128,000 people. It's situated on a bay and has a quaint small-town feel, but the amenities of a medium-size city. We took ourselves out for a Greek tavern meal and definitely enjoyed the nice weather. At this point, we were still stunned at the natural beauty that we had seen so far in Tasmania.

The next morning we headed about an hour south of Hobart, about as far south as you can go in Tasmania, to Port Arthur. For those of you who don't know the history of Australia, it was originally settled by the English and used as an island prison basically for all of the English convicts. They were sent over on ships from England, and a lot of them were dead before they even arrived in Australia because of the conditions on board the ship. Port Arthur was set up as a place to keep the "worst of the worst" as there was virtually no escape from there. The prisoners were told that the waters surrounding Port Arthur were shark-infested, and the only escape was a piece of land called EagleHawk Neck that connected Port Arthur to the mainland but was only 100 meters wide. So there was a chain of dogs that spanned across this 100 meters so that the convicts could not escape. Anyway, B and I headed down to Port Arthur's complex (on Halloween - which was a bit eerie), took some good photos of the old penitentiary and learned a lot about the history of the place, which was actually quite fascinating. We took a boat cruise around the area and were told that if we headed about 6,000 miles further south to the closest piece of land, we'd be at the South Pole!

Later that afternoon we headed back up towards Hobart to Mt. Wellington. The views from the top of Mt. Wellington were incredible. We were lucky to have a sunny day so that we could to forever (again!). The drive up was a bit windy, but we tolerated it with some Halloween candy that mom had sent over for B and I. The Aussies don't really celebrate Halloween, so no one would have noticed by little black t-shirt with orange pumpkins that I was wearing. I felt quite festive! From Mt. Wellington, we were on our way to try and get to Lake St. Clair by sunset so that we could see it with a bit of sun left. We made it, and it was such a stunning sight. It's basically a lake that was created up in the mountains by a dam, so it's full, and full of life. In fact, as we were walking back to the car, we saw a Tasmanian devil crossing our path! It's very rare to see them in the wild, so we were quite excited once we realized what it was. The rest of the evening consisted of a long, windy drive to Queenstown, which would be our stop for the night.

Queenstown is a copper mining town situated in the middle of barren hills. We literally just slept there, and made our way to Strahan in the morning. Strahan is a little town on the east coast of Tasmania. While we were there, we went on an adventure jet boat ride that included a drive up the mountain in a 4-wheel drive. B & I had a great time, enjoying the fast ride, the spins in the water, and the climb up the mountain. At the top we walked around a bit and stood in a lookout station that displayed the vast pine forests below. It was eye-opening to ride up the river in between the large mountains and hills, and not see a single element of life. The river was biologically dead because of the mining waste that had contaminated it. The history of the region was very interesting and our guide was certainly good at portraying images of the past.

After our morning in Strahan we headed up to the highly popular Cradle Mountain National Park. Again, along the way there are many different landscapes so the scenery during the drive never gets boring. Once at Cradle Mountain, we did a couple of bush walks around Dove Lake and enjoyed the lovely afternoon. During one of our walks we saw a native echidna (Australian version of a porcupine), which again, are very hard to spot on the wild. We were just lucky, and the little guy was busily digging for worms, and absolutely adorable! We then headed back up to Devonport where we hopped back on the ship for the evening crossing back to Melbourne.
Overall, an amazing trip from a nature and history perspective.

There are a few other tidbits of information to share:

- Due to the low population in Tasmania and the vast expanses and variety of nature, there is a huge population of wildlife. About every 1 kilometer, there was a piece of road kill on the side of road, usually wallabies or possums.

- Driving at dusk, we probably saw about 20-30 live animals along the side of the road, including wallabies, possums, another Tasmanian devil, and other unidentifiable creatures. That requires a lot of caution and quick reactions when they come hopping across the road. B's reflexes were tested when a wallaby hopped in front of us and he managed to avoid most of it, only nipping it's tail!

- The roads are extremely windy in Tassie, which made B very happy, but me very carsick. So, in order to let him have his fun around all of the corners, I just took motion sickness tablets the entire trip. It seemed to work most of the time, and everyone was happy :-)

- There is no mobile phone coverage in most of Tasmania because of the many hills, mountains, plateaus, etc. It was sort of nice to be separated from the rest of the world for a few days!

Well, this email has certainly been longer than expected so I hope it was at least a bit interesting. I realize that these emails are time-consuming to read, so feel free to request that you be deleted from future editions - I promise my feelings won't be too hurt :-) Take care everyone and enjoy the upcoming holiday season!