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Published: August 26th 2008
Tree ferns
The wonderful tree ferns 'Antartica Dicksonia' of the North East Temperate RainforestsG'day folks. It was jumpers, coats, hats and gloves for our recent excursion! We have spent our first Winter here in Brisbane and I understand why the locals love it so much. Whilst it is very cool at night, down to 8 or 9 degrees, the day times are perfect at about 22 degrees. We truely haven't seen much in the way of clouds for a couple of months and certainly not seen much rain. We tend to have perfect blue skies which whilst they are not much while we are at work, they certainly make for play time at the weekends. So having spent much of winter in t-shirts and shorts, we decided to practice for our October holiday in the UK and head south to the cold climate of Tasmania. Here in Brisbane we have 'Showday' on a Wednesday in August. Not quite sure what showday is all about but for us it is another bank holiday - hooray!
So we decided to take a few days off on the Thursday and Friday and head South. We received heaps of warnings from our fellow Brisbanites, telling us to wrap up warm and looking at the map which shows Antartica
Lavender Fields
The Lavender fields of Scotsdale - North East Tasmania as the next land mass beyond Tasmania, we knew that we probably wouldn't need the 'board shorts'.
We flew from brisbane, via Sydney, and two and a half hours later we landing in the North of the Island, Launceston. It was 8 degrees, but suprisingly as we were wrapped up, it felt ok. We picked up a little hire car and were warned not to attempt to travel through the central highlands as this road was closed due to ice and snow - yes ice and snow in Australia - sounds kind of strange doesnt it!
So we headed for the Northeast village of Scotsdale. The Northeast was a beautiful place to drive, rolling hilss, heaps of cool temperate rain forest and the most fantastic forests and river banks of tree ferns. Whilst cold, the good old Australian sun was still taking the chill off things for us.
We arrived in the village of Scotsdale at lunch time. This is Tasmania's quietest time of the year, and August is when most things are closed and the Tasmanians head North for some summer sun, so there isnt much and certainly wasnt much to see in Scotsdale, but just outside of Scotsdale
Wedge Tailed Eagle
This was roadside eyeing up fresh road kill, or me! It seemed extremely tame allowing me within maybe 5 metres. is where the Lavender farms are, with hundreds of acres of fields planted out to rows and rows of lavender. Perhaps it was the imaginitive smell of summer, but I swear I could smell the scent and certainly you can see from the picture in winter, that this must be an impressive sight later in the year.
From hear we headed East to the coastal town of St Helens. Once again, it was a bit of a ghost town, which in Summer is alive with trawlers bringing in the famous tasmanian crayfish. The coast road from here follows the East Coast for a few hundred km, and the scenery is fabulous. The towns you pass through are strange, old fashioned and slightly backward! But the scenery and ocean makes up for that, but it is sad to see the amount of roadkill, which exceeds that of the outback on the mainland. Every few hundred yards was a dead kangeroo and within metres of that a dead Tasmanian Devil. Tasmanian devils are meat eaters, hence their love with the road kill which inevitably subjects them to the same fate. The problem however, is that the Tasmania Devil is already an endangered
Our Cottage
On the beachside, nestled in the dunes, this was true seclusion species due to a severe cancer of the face that the species is currently encountering. We also spotted stunning sea eagels and as you can see from the picture, I had a very close encounter with a Wedge Tailed Eagle.
We were heading to a little seaside village called Swansea. Swansea has a couple of very nice looking restaurants ( I say nice looking because they close for August so who knows how nice the food was!), it has a couple of stores, a chemist, a golf course ( the club house is the fuel station where you pay green fees and hire clubs that Arthur Negus would be proud of!) and a pier! It is located on Great Oyster Bay, a huge, stunning crystal clear stretch of Ocean, sheltered from the cold winds from Antartica and famous for , suprise suprise, Oysters. We were staying at a little place called Piermont, just 3km south of Swansea. We had found on the internet a little place on the beach, a fabulous stone cottage in the dunes, on the beach.
We arrived at dusk, just as the setting sun was turning 'The Hazards' a rock formation on the Freycinet Penisular located
Caz all wrapped up
Arriving at Piermont, get that fire on! across the bay, a bright red colour. The cottage was a simply perfect. A great little kitchen, lounge with massive open fireplace, patio doors leading out onto the sand dunes and white sandy beach! The bedroom even had a jacuzzi once again with a window overlooking the ocean. From the 'backward' looking villages, it was so nice to arrive at this pretty piece of paradise. There was no-one there. We were on our own, with a beautiful cottage, a pile of wood for the fire and four days of bliss! So we found a great little village store in Swansea, oh and a bottleshop, and stocked up on breaky provisions, evening meal supplies and fine Tasmanian Wine. Tasmania has lots of 'boutique' wineries and does some very fine wine, particulary the Sav Blancs which rival anything New Zealand produces...the thing is they know how good their wines are so you struggle to buy them anywhere else other than Tasmania as they are not mass produced.
Thursday was the first exploration day. We packed our rucksack and flask and we were off. 6 or 7 km or so of beach walk took us back to the village of Swansea. There must
Our Abode
Inside our little palace, homely eh? have been fish everywhere as we saw heaps of terns and gannets diving for their lunch. The plan was lunch in Swansea but as previously mentioned, it was closed! But we knew of a tea room up in the hills so we picked up the pace and walked back on the inland route to Piermont, jumped in the car and headed for the tea rooms.
Perched on the hill above the ocean is Kate's berry farm. Here they have raspberrys and strawberrys and make jam and wine. Thankfully they also make bloody nice scones and coffee so we sat outside and gazed over Great Oyster Bay in the distance while indulging!
Back at the 'ranch' is was only too easy to know what to do. Light the fire, make a brew and sit out on the deck, wrapped up of course, listening the ocean 'move' and watching the light change in the eastern sky as the sun went down behind us. We then went with cup of tea in hand and sat down on the beach for an hour waiting for the Fairy Penguins that come in at dusk. We missed them! We did have a resident possum though, and
Dinner!
Dinner in front of our fire! a banana and a few strawberries soon tempted him out of the darkness.
Friday was a day I personally had been looking forward to for ages. Freycinet National Park is on the other side of Great Oyster Bay, we gazed at it everytime we looked through our window. The hazards are the three peaks in Freycinet that tower over the bay. So the plan was to drive into Freycinet and park up at the National Park Visitor Centre ( where the road ends! ) and walk over the hazards, across the penisular and back around the coast to the car. We drove the 60km round the bay to get to the visitor centre and saw our first rain, but it was a passing shower and that was it for the rest of the day.
We left the carpark and headed up the 'middle' hazard and was rewarded at the top with the view over to the east of Freycinet and the very famous 'Wine Glass Bay'. Any tourist pictures and promo material you will ever see of Tasmania will have Wine Glass Bay on it. It is listed as one of the top ten beaches in the world, but in
Breakfast!
Why go out for breaky with a view like that! winter the water is very, very cold! We walked down to the beach where a Bennets Wallaby was foraging for berries and seed pods washed up by the ocean and a New Zealand Fur seal put on a display for us too. We continued our walk back across the centre of the penisular and onto the Western shores of Freycinet Beach, which overlooked Great Oyster Bay, across to our accomodation. 6/7 km and we were back were we started and lucky enough to see a yellow tailed black cockatoo - they are fairly rare! We finished our day out with oysters and mussels in Freycinet Lodge overlooking the clear azure ocean.
We could have stayed in our cottage, away from telephones, away from everything, for weeks and weeks but sadly Saturday was our time to drive South to the capital, Hobart. The drive was stunning, miles and miles of beaches, no cars and heaps of wildlife.
We arrived in Hobart at lunchtime, in time to go to the famous Salamanca Markets at Salamanca Place, by the harbour. It was bloody cold. Hobart is very different to many places in Launceston. It has beautiful colonial houses and actually quite an English
Great Oyster Bay at sunset
The night we arrived treated us to this! feel to it. We stayed in a lovely old hotel, listed by Australian National Trust and our room looked out on Mount Wellington which rises up to 4000/5000ft behind the city, and looked stunning covered in snow!
A night out and all to soon it was home time, a flight from Hobart back to Brisbane and back to 22 degrees and blue skies which it has been since our return.
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