A Little Piece of Wonderland

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My seat on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry is an Ocean View Recliner, which is bigger than an airplane seat and reclines quite far. Considering I’m on a ship, I sleep pretty well, and it’s not rocky at all. I arrive in Devonport at 7am, but before I de-board I check out the tourism office in the ship to see if I can book things with them. I’m wearing my university hoodie, because it’s the most comfortable thing I own, and the Tasmanian woman behind the counter just looks at me and says “did you go to Guelph?” as I walk through the door. I’m a little stunned, because no one knows where Guelph is, let alone how to pronounce it. I say, “yes, do you know about Guelph?” Turns out the Tasmanian lady and her friends compete in dragon boat racing for breast cancer research and last year at the world finals they were partnered with a group of girls from Guelph. This year the finals are in Peterborough, Ontario and they intend on going to Guelph for a few weeks to see the same girls. It is such a crazy coincidence that she even takes my photo on her cell phone to show her friends. I can tell that this is going to be a good trip.

I get the bus from Devonport to Hobart, which takes about 5 hours. Devonport is at the very north and Hobart is almost all the way south - Tasmania is small. I still don’t have a hostel booked at this point, so I walk over to the YHA, but they’re full. They point me in the direction of Central City Backpackers. They have space for me for two nights, and while I’m checking in I meet Kyle, who comes from northern British Columbia. Apparently he could spot my Canadian-ness from a distance. I still have time to check out the Salamanca Market (where I buy an ink and watercolor painting) before it closes and Kyle wants to come with me, but somewhere in the mix of me going to the washroom and him finding his lighter we loose each other before we even leave the hostel. I spend the rest of the day showering and relaxing at the hostel. That night I hear Kyle playing guitar and singing with a couple of girls in the back room, so I go to sit with them. Both girls are named Sarah, one is Canadian and one is English. The Canadian Sarah’s friend Annette (from Sweden) finally arrives from the airport and we all sit around drinking wine for hours. We plan to go to Port Arthur the next morning.

I meet Kyle, Canadian Sarah, and Annette the next morning (English Sarah is doing a 5-day package tour) and we work out the plan. What I want to do most is go to Cradle Mountain, but without a car you have no other choice than to do a tour. Tasmania is really hard to tour on your own without a vehicle. If I want to do the one-day Cradle Mountain tour I need to be in Launceston, which is where the girls are headed, so they invite me along for a few days. Kyle needs to get to Launceston too, so the four of us check out early, pick up the car and drive off to Port Arthur.

It’s great to travel with a car - you can stop wherever you want to see any random sight along the way. The first place we stop is Boomer Bay, which is basically nothing, because Sarah wanted to touch a sheep. She never did. We kept driving until we got to Eagle Hawk Lookout, which has a pretty view, and then we got to Port Arthur, which was a major prison in the 1800’s. It costs $15 to get in, which Kyle and I pay, but the girls don’t want to so they literally break into the prison. Our last stop for the day is the Remarkable Caves, where we hopped more fences we weren’t supposed to. The wind is so strong and cold that we’re all freezing. It doesn’t feel anything like Australian weather is supposed to feel like! We look for a place to sleep for the night until Kyle gets a call from his potential employer saying that he has to do a medical test the next morning in Hobart and there’s no room for compromise. So we have to drive back to Hobart (luckily its only about 20 minutes away) and the three of us sleep on Kyle’s floor.

We leave early the next morning because we want to make it all the way up to St. Helen’s Point by the end of the day. The day starts off beautifully and within half an hour of driving we pass right under a rainbow. We make an unplanned stop at Spiky Beach and the Spiky Bridge before we get to Oyster Bay, where we play on a jungle gym and see some really colorful bugs. At Freycinet National Park we walk up to see the view of Wineglass Bay and then do the boardwalk tour around the lighthouse. It’s gorgeous, but still freezing. We make it finally to St. Helen’s and visit the Peron Dunes. Just before the sunsets we find a free campsite at Binnalong Bay where we sleep in the car for the night. Don’t worry, its perfectly allowed because we were in a designated campsite, and it wasn’t even cold, but it was a little cramped. The girls had rented a Toyota Corrolla, so we put down the back seats and the two of them slept with their feet in the trunk and I slept across the front seat with my legs stretched out and my back against the door. All things considered, it wasn’t that bad. The next morning, however, we felt disgusting - since it was a free campsite there was no fresh water or toilets.

We start off by visiting the Bay of Fires, which is a bay filled with red rocks. It might be the highlight of the road trip for me. Later on, on the side of the road, we spot a little nature walk through a myrtle forest, which turns out to be really entertaining! I’m knackered by mid-day and take a nap in the backseat, only to wake up to us parked on the side of a street lined with the most unusual wood carvings in trees. Every statue is a dedication to a soldier. The last stop before Launceston is Ralph’s Falls and Cash Gorge in Mt. Victoria National Park. I’ve booked a room in Arthouse Hostel in Launceston, since I have to be there for two nights, and as we’re checking in Kyle finds us - he’s in Launceston finishing a course so that he can work at a mine in Perth. The three of us shower and make dinner and spend the rest of the night drinking cheap wine with Kyle and a guy from Vienna named Erik and looking at photos. There’s a spare bed in my room and one in Kyle’s, so Annette stays with me and Sarah stays with Kyle for free. It’s easy to get away with if reception closes early.

I get up early the next morning to meet the tour for Cradle Mountain at 8am. I shake Annette awake to say bye and pay her for my time in the car. I give them $60 for gas and the cost of the car, which is so much cheaper than what I would have paid if I had gone with a tour, so I don’t mind. It’s too bad I can’t continue with them, but oh well.

My tour picks me up outside the hostel just after 8am. There’s ten people, form all different places, and our guide, Aidan. It’s a long drive to Cradle Mountain so we stop in Sheffield along the way for an hour. Sheffield is cool because it’s a town full of murals depicting local events. I just pick up a tea and go back to the bus to sit outside and drink it. Aidan and I get to chatting and it turns out that his grandparents own the house at the end of the road going to the Bay of Fires and he knows English Sarah that I met in Hobart because he was her guide too. It’s such a small world. We keep chatting during the drive - he’s a cool guy. Once at Cradle Mountain we have just under four hours before we have to leave again, so the whole group decides to do the Marion’s Lookout track. There are two ways to get to the top - a steep and challenging way and a gentler way. I go the steep way with a couple from Sydney and everyone else goes the gentle way, taking Aidan with them because they feel nervous. We seem to be a lot quicker than the second group because they only make it to the top as we’re on our way back down after eating. The view from the top is spectacular and the clouds have blown away and the sun has come out, so it couldn’t have been any better (I even got a little sunburn in the end).

Andrew and Sasha (the couple) and I take a different way down and finish at Waldheim, the cottage that belonged to the man who turned Cradle Mountain into a National Park. Everyone else meets us there about 40 minutes or so later and after a quick look around we pile back into the mini bus and drive back into the city. When Aidan drops me and two other girls off at Arthouse he asks for my email address so that he can mail me this book about a convict in Tasmania that he thinks I would really like. It’s such a nice thing for him to do and I am excited to read it. Too bad meeting interesting people traveling means that you don’t get to see them for very long.

That night I’m so exhausted that I just shower and make dinner and then plunk myself in the movie lounge where all the other exhausted hikers are. Kyle eats dinner with me and later on I see Erik form Vienna and watch The Matrix with him. The girls are long gone, but I knew they would be. I zonk out completely on my pillow before midnight and sleep till 9am the next morning.

After checking out at 10am I had every intention of walking around Launceston and checking a few things out, but I still feel tired - not enough sleep and too much exercise. I finally peel myself off the couch mid-afternoon and go to the City Park where they have Japanese monkeys. The bus leaves Launceston for Devonport at 5:30pm and I board the ferry just after 7pm. I call Nicole to let her know I’m coming home and to make sure she’ll be there to let me in and then that’s it, I’m on my way back to Melbourne. I’m moving into my new room as soon as I get back and I’m on the hunt for a job soon after. It’ll be nice to sit still for a little while.

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Photos

Roadtrip Crew
Annette, Sarah, and Kyle at the Remarkable Caves

Sand in my shoe
the aftermath of the Peron Dunes

Sheffield
this man is his llama just stood around getting their photo taken

Cradle Mountain
from the top of Marion's Lookout

Spirit of Tasmania
the Ocean View Recliners on the ferry from Devonport to Melbourne