Part 4 - Around Tasmania
March 17 - 21, 2008
Monday, March 17th: Hobart to Strahan
After spending 4 nights in the same hotel in Hobart, which is pretty unprecedented for us on these kinds of trips, it was finally time to venture farther afield in Tasmania. We had a busy day planned, so we got up at 7 AM, took one last look out of our window, and got on the road by about 8.
Our first destination was Mt. Field National Park, about an hour west of Hobart. Along the way, we saw some fields of plants growing vertically on wires - apparently they were hops, and it was time for the hop harvest. At the park, we hiked a loop of trails past a few waterfalls. Russell Falls was the best, followed by Lady Barron Falls, and finally Horseshoe Falls - all of them were nice, but all would have been better with more water flowing. We saw a ton of wallabies along the Russell Falls trail, hanging out beside the trail and hopping all over the place. On just about every hike I do now, I think "this hike would be better if there were wallabies," and that's mostly based on the Russell Falls trail. We also saw a lot of birds, including sulfur crested cockatoos and possibly some macaws, as well as a lot of giant ferns and big trees.
In the interest of time, we skipped Southwest National Park (which would have been a pretty significant dead end detour off our drive) and drove on toward Lake St. Clair National Park instead. The drive was nice, with lots of rolling hills and pastures full of cows and sheep. Along the way, we happened across a cool hydropower installation in a town called Tarraleah, with lots of channels and giant pipes running down the mountains. Apparently there is a lot of hydropower generation in the area, and most of the water from the mountains goes through multiple hydropower generation plants, up to like 8 times. We stopped for gas at a little tourist stop (they only had one gas pump and we had to pay inside the cafe - the cashier asked where I was from, and as it turned out, she had a cousin from somewhere in Georgia) that had some informational plaques about the hydropower system.
As we got closer to Lake St. Clair, we started seeing some unusual looking vegetation, which we later found out was buttongrass growing in low areas beside glacial moraines. In the national park, we walked several trails. The Watersmeet trail goes through an area where two rivers (barely flowing when we were there) converge and flow into Lake St. Clair. It was a short, nice stroll. Then we did the Platypus Bay trail, which had some observation blinds at which we failed (not for the last time) to see any platypuses, but we did see the ruins of an old barge on the shore, and started noticing that the sky had a very strange orange color to it. The Aboriginal trail was really just a slog through some woods; it was long, and without much to see other than some buttongrass toward the end. The Lake trail was hard going on the rocky and sandy beach. It started sprinkling rain a little, and the sky really started to turn strange colors with what we thought were clouds, or fog, or maybe smoke. After having lunch at the Lake St. Clair visitor center (pricey, as usual, but not bad), we moved on to the next National Park on the agenda.
We had 3 walks picked out at the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. We did a short version of the Franklin River walk just to see the river, skipped a longer walk, and did another walk that was worthwhile for Nelson Falls and the chance to see leeches in the water (but alas, we didn't see any). While we were on the waterfall walk, we started noticing some kind of white stuff falling on us. At first we thought it was something falling from the trees, but eventually we realized it was ash from a fire somewhere.
As the sun started to set, we drove on toward the coastal town of Strahan, our destination for the next couple of nights. It got genuinely creepy for a while as we drove toward some mountains shrouded in smoke silhouetted by the sunset against a weird orange sky. Eventually we figured out that there was a forest fire somewhere, and that was the source of the smoke and the ash and the weird sky. For a little while, we were starting to get worried about what we were driving into. Things got even weirder as we got close to Queenstown, which is a mining town. The mining had kind of decimated the area - the terrain was bizarre, there were not many trees, there were strange yellow rocks and soil all around, and the area generally looked destroyed. Queenstown itself appeared to be completely deadly, with acid in the water, acid in the soil, asbestos and smoke in the air, and possible convicts wandering the streets. We were glad to just be passing through.
As we drove on, things started looking a lot more natural and wild. After nearly being killed by a couple of cars flying around curves on the wrong side of the road, we finally made it to Strahan, where we were staying in a cute cabin in a row of little cabins. Check-in was smooth and we got into our lodging with no problem. (Continuing the "small world" theme, a couple that we saw earlier at the Franklin-Gordon trails was checking in right behind us.) Our cabin wasn't quite as quaint as we expected it to be (as I recall, it was actually a duplex), but it was comfortable. Strahan seemed to be a small town with a little tourist-focused area by the shore. That area was nice and convenient, tourist-oriented but not tacky, and we finally got a good, cheap meal at a little pizza and seafood place on the Esplanade, the main waterfront road through the tourist area.
Tuesday, March 18th: Strahan
We got up early for a catamaran cruise on the Gordon River, so of course the weather was gray, overcast, and generally nasty looking (a combination of clouds and smoke from the fire). We walked across the street from our cabin to the wharf to pay and board the boat. The boat was shiny and new, and we got good assigned seats in the front row by the window on the middle deck. (But I spent a lot of time on the back and on the upper deck taking pictures, so the seat didn't really matter all that much.)
The cruise first took us out past a couple of little lighthouses to Hell's Gates, the 75 meter wide navigable entrance into Macquarie Harbour, so named by prisoners arriving to the penal colony on Sarah Island. The mouth of the harbor is wider, but the channel is narrow, and boats can only safely enter through this small gap between the shore and an island. A rock wall built across the harbor in the late 1800s helps keep the channel open. We cruised out into the Southern Ocean for a bit, then turned around and came back into the harbor. We then cruised over to a fish farm in the harbor and watched a guy feeding fish in an enclosure, using a fire hose pumping water from the harbor to propel the food. We also learned that the harbor apparently doesn't have lunar tides, but the water moves in and out based on barometric pressure. (Not sure how that works, but that's what they said.)
Our next stop was Sarah Island, a former prison colony for secondary offenders (people who aid and abet the commission of a crime). The boat docked, and we got a 1 hour guided tour of the island. Our guide was a local, and was entertaining. Not much was left to see on the island other than brick ruins of various ovens, forges, and fireplaces from a few buildings. We learned a bit about the history of the island - apparently the island was enlarged by "reclaiming" land (using large logs held in place by rocks to provide a platform for building dockyards), and remnants of the former shipbuilding operation on the island are also still visible.
Back on the boat, we cruised up the Gordon River into an area of rainforest that constitutes a UNESCO World Heritage Area - some really rare, protected wilderness. We had lunch (a buffet of cold foods) on the boat along the way. The river wasn't breathtaking, but the conditions didn't help - the river water is dark with tannins, and on a calm day, the surface is supposedly like a dark mirror reflecting the surroundings. Unfortunately for us, the water was ripply due to wind and rain, so we didn't really get the full effect.
The boat docked again at Heritage Landing, where we walked a boardwalk trail through a rainforest with a few Huon pines. We may have been getting rainforest fatigue by this point in the trip - there are only so many giant ferns you can look at before they start running together. We did see some fuzzy caterpillars on the rail of the boardwalk that, according to the guy behind us on the walk, will sting you if you touch them. He might have been yanking our chains, but it's Australia, so you never know. And we saw a sign about preserving the plants by not touching them that had a turn of phrase that's since become part of our vocabulary on just about every hike we do: "Don't Be a Plant Patter." After reboarding the boat, we cruised back down the river, very sleepy, and watched a video that showed us how pretty the area is supposed to be when it's not gray and rainy.
Back at the wharf, the boat unloaded at a sawmill, where we saw an old-timey sawmill sawing a big Huon pine log. Next door, there was a wood turning shop that had lots of crafts. I bought a small box and a trivet for my mom, and Julie bought a picture frame, all made of Huon pine. We also bought some fudge, which was expensive but good. I wonder what percentage of fudge is sold in tourist areas around the world.
After stopping by the cabin to put on some warmer clothes, we set out in the car to explore Strahan. First, we drove out a rough dirt road to Macquarie Heads for another view of Hell's Gates and the harbor. It was raining, so the view was only OK.
Next, we drove out of town to Henty Dunes, an odd area of giant sand dunes nestled between a forest and the ocean. On a good day, you can explore the dunes and sled down them and stuff, but in the damp, we just spent a little while walking around. Walking was exhausting, and we climbed a couple of big dunes, which was even more exhausting. I drew a giant Georgia Tech "GT" logo in the sand and then climbed a dune to survey my work, and almost passed out from the effort. We decided to go back to the car, and found that, even with the breadcrumbs on my GPS, it was really easy to get lost in the dunes - everything looks the same, and your tracks fill in very quickly. I wouldn't want to do the 5 km hike to the beach through the sand. After a couple of wrong turns that elevated our heart rates, we found the path back to the car. Our shoes were full of sand. The car was full of sand. My mouth was full of sand. Basically, there was a whole lot of sand.
We stopped by the Strahan cemetery, which had a few headstones made out of Huon pine (because the wood is so durable and resistant to decay), but otherwise wasn't all that interesting. Then we drove to a lookout located up on a hill by the town's water tower, up a paved road that was in worse shape than any of the dirt roads we had driven on up to that point. The lookout turned out to be a picnic table under a transformer in front of a cell tower and a water tower. The view was OK, if marred by power lines and guy wires, but probably would have been better on a sunny day.
Back in town, we stopped by a small grocery store for more supplies, but were only partially successful - they didn't have any cases of bottled water, and no baked goods for breakfast. I was intrigued by a Heinz product called "cheesy baked beanz," though. We returned to our cabin to do some laundry, and while we were waiting on the laundry, we realized that our plan for the next day was too ambitious and totally unfeasible. We resolved to get an early start and skip a few things in order to fit in the highlights.
We waited for dusk to do a hike in a city park to Hogarth Falls, based on the hope that we might see some platypuses in the creek. We walked out as the sun was setting, but didn't see any animals. The falls were nice, but it was too dark to take any photos. We walked the trail back in the dark by flashlight, which was a little creepy - walking through giant ferns in a strange area at night. We still didn't see any platypuses, and were starting suspect that they were just a ruse to fool gullible tourists. We ate dinner at a fish place on the wharf, which was more expensive and not as good as the greasy spoon that we ate at the night before. It was fine, but I was really craving a vegetable other than French fries.
Wednesday, March 19th: Strahan to Devonport
Unlike the previous day, the weather in Strahan was beautiful as we were leaving town. It figures. We probably would have enjoyed Strahan a lot more if the weather had been like this the day before. I wandered down to the wharf to take a few photos of the harbor while Julie got ready, and then we set out on a lengthy drive (about 3.5 hours) to the north coast of Tasmania. The drive started out really pretty, with fog rising from the mountains around us, but eventually turned into a somewhat dull drive through a forest. At one point, the trees closed into sort of a tunnel over the road, which was pretty cool.
When we hit the road along the north coast, we headed west toward the town of Stanley. After a lot of small and twisty roads, it was nice to be on a good, fast road (although there was one spot of construction where it appeared they were building the road out of mud). The ocean was beautiful, a bright greenish blue with beaches that were alternately white sand or rocky. There were lots of cattle and sheep in pastures on the other side of the road. We passed an interesting iron processing plant, where they get iron ore from inland mines, pelletize it, and then run it through a pipeline to be loaded onto tankers waiting 1.5 km out to sea.
Our destination in Stanley was a place called the Nut, an old volcanic plug on the coast that is now a big, flat hill that looms over the town. We saw the Nut from quite a distance away, and it was kind of like a full moon - if you looked at it one way, it looked small and distant, but from another perspective it looked huge. We drove out onto the peninsula where Stanley, a quaint little oceanside town, was located, and then rode a chairlift to the top of the Nut. The ride up was short and pretty, and it was kind of weird to ride a chairlift without skis. At the top, we walked a loop trail around the perimeter that took us about 50 minutes and offered nice views in different directions. Smoke from the wildfires was still obscuring some things, but the nearby stuff that we could see was very pretty. Atop the Nut, we had our first encounter with Australia's little black flies for this trip. Thankfully, they don't bite, and there was a breeze that kept them somewhat at bay, but they're still maddening. We also saw burrows all around the top of the Nut that belong to birds called shearwaters, but the birds were all out doing their thing in the middle of the day.
Eventually, we walked down the ridiculously steep trail back to the bottom of the Nut and into town for lunch. It was lunchtime, so we looked into a few different places before settling on a cafe. It seems like we must have missed something in the way the place worked, because the service was very odd. We had to go to the counter for everything - menus, ordering, paying - even though that didn't seem to be the way things were supposed to work. The food, for a change, was quite good, but was pricey as always.
We had originally decided to skip the cheerfully named Dismal Swamp, which was even farther to the west of Stanley, but because we made good time on the drive and the roads were good and fast, we decided that we did actually have time and motivation to visit it. I'm really glad that we did, because it turned out to be really cool, and a highlight of the trip for me. Dismal Swamp was not at all dismal, and not particularly swampy. It's a large sinkhole (the largest in the southern hemisphere) that's damp at the bottom, and supports a forest of large blackgum trees. The visitor center at the top of the sinkhole was unique, like a prefab tube on stilts. Access to the bottom of the sinkhole was via a tubular slide. You had to put on a hair net and a bike helmet, get into a cloth bag (with your stuff in the bottom of the bag by your feet), and then slide down the spiraling 110 meter slide. The ride was surprisingly fast and rough, but it was a lot of fun. When I got to the bottom, I expected to hear Julie (not a fan of thrill rides) screaming all the way down, but to my surprise, she also enjoyed it. We could have ridden it twice more on our ticket, but we were too lazy to walk all the way up the hill out of the sinkhole more than once.
The bottom of the sinkhole wasn't just nature displays - they also had a number of boardwalk trails and a lot of different semi-interactive art installations to help you appreciate and understand the natural stuff, which included big trees, ferns, and crayfish burrows. It was actually more fun than just walking a nature trail. We also ran into a couple that we'd seen earlier when we were at the Nut - the small world of Australian tourism. The only bad part was that we had to hike up a long, spiraling path back to the top of the sinkhole to leave.
Back in the car, we drove to the east, back the way we came. As we approached the construction site on the highway, we were actually able to see wildfire flames and smoke on a hill not all that far away. We drove through fields and pastures to an area called Table Cape, located on a bluff above the ocean. We walked a short trail from the cape to a scenic lighthouse and back, and passed by some fields strewn with bulbs - apparently they grow fields of tulips there, and it would have been breathtaking in the right season. Along the windy, chilly walk, we saw some cool trees, an interesting blue bird, and a few more ocean views obscured by smoke. Driving back down to the highway, we passed an awesome cow and then saw signs for something called Fossil Bluff and decided to go take a look. We walked on an interesting looking beach with a cliff and a pile of rocks, some of which were covered in shellfish. There wasn't enough info on the signs to really learn about what we were seeing, though. Julie thought she found a fossil sea creature, but it turned out to still be alive.
We drove along the beachfront highway through a bunch of small towns before arriving in a place Julie was really excited about: Penguin. Julie loves penguins, and the town offered plenty of penguin photo opportunities. Sadly, it was getting late in the day, and there were no stores open so she could buy some Penguin souvenirs.
We stopped at a scenic overlook for Goat Island and the Three Sisters (much less dramatic than the Three Sisters we saw in the Blue Mountains on our last Australia trip), and also saw a big goat on the side of the road, apparently tied up to act as a lawnmower. Eventually we arrived at our home for the night, the town of Devonport. Devonport has a small downtown, so we were a little worried when we were less than half a mile from the hotel and still driving through residential areas. We drove around the hotel a good bit trying to figure out where to park, then finally gave up and parked illegally to go check in. Then we drove around some more before we finally found a parking spot. We'd read bad things about the town, so we were a little nervous about the area, and the first thing we saw in town was a guy screaming at somebody out on the street, but other than that, it turned out to be fine. Our hotel was oldish but clean, with no heat (just a portable heater), no A/C (just a window), and no internet access (just a guy yelling on the street outside). The toilet was weird, with the flusher on the wall.
We went to an Italian place for dinner, where I had a pizza that wasn't bad but wasn't great, and Julie's food was about the same. After waiting all night for the check (very European in dining approach), we went back to the hotel and turned in.
Thursday, March 20th: North-Central Tasmania
We got up at 7:30, because we had a busy day with a lot of driving planned. On the way out, we stopped for gas - it was a full service station, which was a novelty to me, and I wasn't really sure what to do. When the woman who pumped our gas found out we were from the U.S., she said she really wanted to go to Las Vegas, and was surprised that I hadn't been (at the time). I guess we were often similarly surprised to hear that we'd seen more of Australia than a lot of natives, too.
Our first destination was Sheffield, the Town of Murals. (They have murals painted on the sides of a lot of their buildings.) We didn't spend a lot of time there, but just appreciated the murals as we drove by. As we drove around, Mt. Roland dominated the landscape almost everywhere we went. We stopped to take a photo of it at a random scenic overlook located in the middle of a neighborhood. We also saw more nice, rolling pastures.
Our first real stop was Mole Creek Karst National Park, to do some cave tours. We got there just in time for the 10 AM tour of Marakoopa Cave. Our guide, Dave, was entertaining, as was our tour group. One woman was apparently terrified of caves, and another woman from Queensland shared my desire to see a platypus. The cave was good, with a lot of the usual cave formations, as well as the largest display of glow worms in an Australian show cave. It wasn't really that big a display, but it was still cool to see them.
We drove back out to buy tickets for King Solomon's Cave, which was a few miles away. Our tour guide there was OK (since we were usually in front and could see what he was pointing at - the people in the back were kind of out of luck). Our tour group wasn't great, though - there was a couple from America working in Jakarta with a screaming, irritating 2 year old, and a woman who constantly left her camera screen on, which kind of ruins the "experience total darkness" part of the cave tour. Otherwise, the cave was interesting, with some novel formations like cave bacon. The path was really narrow, so you couldn't really help bumping into the walls in a few places. Hopefully we didn't do any permanent damage.
Next on the itinerary was Tasmazia, a cute little maze-based tourist attraction about 45 minutes away from the cave. There were no good, direct roads, so we had to kind of wind our way up and down some twisty little roads. The weather was hit and miss - intermittently rainy and sunny, and a little bit cool. Along the way, we saw a baby cow and a baby horse sharing a pasture, which was adorable. Tasmazia itself was fun. They had one big hedge maze with several smaller mazes and other attractions inside of it (and a lot of pun-based humor), plus some other smaller mazes (hedge and otherwise), and a little miniature village called "Lower Crackpot." The park was located in a town called Promised Land, and the scenery around the park (grassy fields and lavender) was lovely.
We finished the big maze and its sub-mazes pretty easily, but only sheer bloody-minded stubbornness got us through the Hampton Court and Hexagonal mazes, which I found really aggravating, especially when I was hungry, it was kind of hot in the sun, and I had to go to the bathroom. (But then, I seem to remember being aggravated in the original Hampton Court maze in England, too, so I guess their reproduction was accurate.) We ate at Tasmazia's pancake-based restaurant, where we had weird, outrageously expensive (like $40+) pancakes for lunch. Julie went for kind of a dessert pancake, with ice cream and berries, and I went for a savory pancake, with refried beans, taco beef, and such. It was unique, at least.
Next, we wound our way to Cradle Mountain National Park, with the weather getting worse as we ascended up into the mountains. Despite the weather, we did the rainforest walk at the visitor centre, on which we saw a wallaby or pademelon or something and a nice waterfall called Pencil Pine Falls. Back at the visitor centre, we saw two more wallabies or whatever kind of snuggled up together eating grass. We also saw the freaking-out woman from our cave tour earlier in the day - the small world of Australian tourism again. We decided not to do any more walks, since it was quite chilly and rain was coming through in waves.
We drove out to Dove Lake (passing a kangaroo beside the road) for a view of Cradle Mountain over the lake (which, as it turns out, we had already seen, in a picture above the bed in the hotel). Just as we got to the parking lot, it started to sleet, and as we were getting out of the car, a bright red and yellow rescue helicopter landed in the parking lot about 50 feet from our car. I guess they were patrolling or practicing in the area, and the weather closed in and forced them to land. We walked down to the edge of the lake for a better view, and then sat in the car waiting on another band of clear weather. Instead, it got worse, with a mix of rain, sleet, and really heavy, wet snow that was barely frozen. It never cleared up, so after watching the helicopter take off and leave, we left, too.
On the drive back to Devonport, we drove through a lot of areas with clear, sunny skies and rain, so we saw a lot of rainbows. We stopped at a scenic overlook for a hydropower lake, and passed through Railton, Town of Topiary. (It seems like a lot of these little towns have a "thing" that they do, whether it's murals or topiary or whatever.) A lot of the topiary was new and hadn't fully grown in yet, though.
The drive back to Devonport got pretty long and tiring at the end, but we made it back. We had dinner at a Danish-themed cafe that was (say it with me, "pricey but not great"). The service was enthusiastic, so they had that going for them, but as is the custom, it took so long to get our bill that I was praying for the sweet release of death so I could leave the building.
Friday, March 21st: Devonport to Adelaide
As usual, we got up and out pretty early to get on the road - miles to go and lots to do. It was Good Friday and most everything was closed, so we had a little trouble finding breakfast. McDonald's was open, though, and even though I'm not a fan of McMuffins, it was still among the best and cheapest food we had on the trip.
We headed out of Devonport with plans to stop at a chocolate factory (but it was closed) and a cheese factory (which was open, but we decided we didn't have time to stop). Instead, we drove straight for the town of Launceston, about an hour away. There was a hot rod show in the area, apparently, and we saw a lot of cool old cars driving along the same route as us and visiting some of the same places. In Launceston, we visited the Cataract Gorge/First Basin area. The South Esk River (very green) flows through a rocky gorge, and there's a nice public park with trails and peacocks and other stuff. The park was beautiful, and was packed with people on the holiday. We rode a chairlift (the world's longest single span chairlift, 308 meters, or so we're told) across the river, walked some trails and went to some lookouts along the river, and crossed the river on a suspension bridge.
On the drive back down to Hobart, we stopped in a few little old towns. Campbell Town was a cool city in the middle of a bunch of pasture land, and it had the oldest bridge on the National Highway, which had never had major repairs. We grabbed lunch at Subway (again, cheap and reliable) and ate in a park across the street. The town of Ross had another old bridge, a cool old church and some other historic stuff, a bunch of hot rods parked on the side of the road, and some sheep. Oatlands had a lot of cool old historic sandstone buildings. It would have been nice to spend more time in the area, which was a nice change from trees and more trees, but we pressed on. The drive passed through pretty rolling hills with a lot of sheep, the occasional horse or cow, and some llamas. We also saw some kind of public art installation along the road, with silhouette cut-outs of sheep, emus, horse and carriage, and other stuff.
We needed to fill up the car as we got close to Hobart, and had a bit of trouble finding a gas station. The stations don't seem to be located where you can easily find them near the road, but thankfully my GPS helped us find one. At the airport, we followed signs to the rental car return, which were totally wrong. We had to be directed to the new place to return cars, and they had an interesting system - they check the car in, and then they drive you to the airport terminal in your rental car. Makes sense, I guess.
Our flight to Melbourne and then on to Adelaide was on Virgin Blue. The check-in guy didn't check Julie's ID at all, but he sure did check our bag weights. Since we were travelling with tons of stuff for a 3 week trip, we were generally overweight on domestic flights. Up to a certain weight (15 kg), it's a nominal $30 charge. But if you're more than 15 kg over, it's an $80 charge. Unfortunately, the guy didn't tell us that our bags were 16 kg over until after he'd already put my bags on the conveyor, or else I could have taken a travel book out of the suitcase and saved $50. I wasn't real happy about that, but the guy seemed rather pleased with himself.
The flight to Melbourne was short and easy, even with a girl across the aisle who didn't stop talking for the entire flight. The plane for our flight to Adelaide was late, so the flight was late departing, and although it was another short flight, the plane was hot and I was in a middle seat, so it was kind of uncomfortable. The Adelaide airport was cool (very stark and white, and pretty easy to navigate). We got an upgraded rental car for some reason, which meant that the car was bigger and didn't have an iPod input. We drove downtown and had a bit of trouble finding our hotel, but eventually got checked in.
Julie remembers a lot more about this hotel than I do. She tells me that the lobby was very expensive looking, and that the room was nice, but oddly laid out. When you opened the door, there was just a short, narrow hallway in front of you. The hall then took a 90 degree turn to a much wider hallway (with a random desk in the turn) that went past a giant bathroom (with a glass wall between the bathtub and the bedroom) and on into the bedroom. I just remember that we had a small, non-scenic balcony, and for some reason, I found the fact that the bathroom light control was on the wall next to the bed to be very exciting.