Australia - Part 1 - Tasmania

10^th December Train to Melbourne

All day train journey through countryside with surprisingly green rolling hills. Train is a second hand 125 and they don’t seem to do cuttings or embankments so train meandered around every hill and bend. However did see a couple of kangaroos! Train staff very friendly – ‘g’day’, ‘mate’ and ‘no worries’.

 

11^th December  Off to Tassie

Took the train out to Tottenham to pick up the campervan. Long wheelbase high-top Toyota Hiace which seems to drive nicely and compact enough for Margot. Checked out the ferry and then went along to Brighton beach to stroll along past some brightly painted beach huts and watched the wind- and kite- surfers.

 

12^th December to Cradle Mountain

Early disembark so drove inland towards Cradle Mountain National Park, stopping for breakfast in Sheffield, a little town decorated with murals. Got to the park and set up camp by lunchtime so went for an 11.5 kilometre hike round Dove Lake.

 

Amazing boardwalk all around lake with thick shrubs and woodland full of birds you can hear but rarely see as they have so much cover. Similarly discrete mammals but seem to like leaving piles of droppings on the boardwalk – evidently possums and wombats. As it got nearer dark we saw our first possum and echnida (halfway between a porcupine and a hedgehog) and finally a wallaby

 

13^th December - To Lake St Clair

You can hike from Dove Lake to Lake St Clair but it takes eight days and you have to carry in everything so we drove round, a fantastic day-long drive along mountain roads through temperate rain forests of the Central Highlands.

 

14^th December - Down to Hobart

Woken early by a Kukaburra outside the van. Went for a walk on an interpretative Aboriginal trail down to Platypus bay but no Platypi to be seen. Mainly cloudy with showers and surprisingly cold. Wasn’t expecting to be wearing gloves and woolly hat in Australia.

 

 

 

After lunch we headed south towards Hobart but with limited time on the island decided to head on towards the East coast.

 

15^th December Richmond to Freycinet  National Park

Started the day in Richmond, and early colonial town visiting the Prison Museum and filling up on food from the local IGA store. Had a long chat with the storekeeper – seems like the credit crunch is affecting tourism badly and there is not much else going on around there.

 

16^th December  Freycinet  National Park

This is a beautiful peninsula with white sands and turquoise sea. Peter started the day with a run along the beach, barefoot through the surf. Very nice. Then we took another 11k hike up to Wineglass bay lookout from where we could see dolphins, down the other side to Wineglass bay itself, by which time they had wandered off, and then round along the coast back to camp. Started nice enough but ended up in a downpour. We saw wallabies on the beach attempting to share our sandwiches. Resisted as we knew it was bad for them then a kamikaze seagull took the sandwich right out of Margot’s hand as she put it to her mouth.  On Hazards Bay we saw Aborigine ‘middens’ – mainly oyster shells in case you were wondering and a lake full of hundreds of noisy frogs.

 

17^th December  Up the East Coast.

Spent the morning driving up a sunny East coast. Beautiful round pink rocks and white sand. Could live here, but had to keep moving though we did see our first pelican – sitting on a lamp-post. After lunch turned inland towards Launceston through twisty mountain roads and rainforest – and an 18-hole golf course in the middle of the wilderness. Noone playing and no habitation or resort  within a couple of hours drive. Must have been some government regeneration project, there is a lot of talk of corruption on the island and maybe someone benefited but evidently not the local community or even golfers for that matter. We did stop at the Berry Café in Derby which was great with all sorts of  trinkets and puzzles on the table and really good coffee and home baking.

 

These place names are really disorientating, not only are they all in the wrong places in relation to each other (Richmond is just up the road from Swansea, and Sheffield just outside Devonport),  they bear no relation to the places they were named after. Sheffield and Derby are towns of about 500. At least Devonport is a port town and Swansea is on the coast, and I suppose when they were named the originals were not much like they are now either.

 

18^th December Kelso Sands,

As holidays start next week the site here was pretty empty and the lady put us near the woods so we would see the nightlife and as promised we could watch from th safety of the van as wombats waddled and possums cavorted around and under the van until it got too dark to see. Fortunately no Tasmanian Devils which apparently can get quite nasty. So far lots of little lizards

 

19^th December Back to Devonport

York Town is an ex-town, it is no more, and Point Beautiful isn’t particularly beautiful so we went back into Launceston to walk up Cataract Gorge which was a revelation, a mile long walk up the side of a narrow gorge only to find public gardens, a swing bridge and a walk back along the other side.

 

From there back to Devonport, failing to see the giant Platypus in Laporte and on to the ferry after searching the town for a hat for me. In Sydney I didn’t wear my hat and got a burnt forehead. Needed to get a proper wide brim but haven’t seen one yet I like and could afford. Anyway since then it has been mainly cloudy and surprisingly cold with winds that seem to come straight off the Antarctic. Must get something sorted before Kangaroo Island where 32c is forecast.