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Published: February 12th 2007
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The Cateract Gorge
A Cruise boat can get up the river where it is tidal. We have been based in Launceston, with our friends Adam and Kylie and their family who have been very kind, both in looking after us, and by enabling us to have a fantastic adventure travelling all over Tasmania as they lent us an estate car (much better than the lemon..!) and their big family tent and camping gear. Our adventures exploring Tasmania have probably been the highlight of our time in Australia so far...
We have the 10 days of touring and camping to catch up on, but first our time in Launceston (or Lonnie to locals) and adventures with Adam (Kylie was in new Zealand when we first arrived) need writing about....
Launceston
Launceston is a small town which has an amazing asset, that of the cateract gorge. Right in the middle of town, the Tamar river is channelled through a steep sided rocky gorge with brilliant footpaths either side. Half way up is a basin which has a wonderful suspension bridge, and a rather surreal public paddling pool and chairlift across the basin. The kids insisted on trying this out, and i must admit it was very strange, first of all to be on a chairlift
The Hut
Grizzly Adams was here.... not wearing skis, and secondly it was a bit disconcerting as the bar to stop you falling out was very small and just a hinged bar over your lap, not like the big over the head contaptions which ski lifts have. A small child could easily slip out, so needless to say Anne made me look after Ronan who's hand I have never held so tightly....
The Gorge is tidal for part of the way, so quite big boats can get up, but by the time the basin is reached it isa rocky river. There are Hydro dams further up stream which can be released and they do hold Kayak whitewater championships here which we unfortunately only missed by a few days.
Adam and I explored further upstream one evening where there is a superb network of paths through bush wilderness, not more than 30 minutes walk from the town. Being evening we saw loads of wallabies and birdlife.
John and Adam's Boy's Own Adventure
The first weekend we were here, Adam and I took a trip to 'Ben Lomond National Park' (...!) where we stayed in a fantastic hut which Adam's school owns. Nestled right on
The Cliff above the hut
Reminiscent of Rubha Hunis cliffs North Skye.... the edge of the 'treeline' by a bouldefield under some big basalt column crags which were very reminiscent of the North end of Skye except they plunged into a huge gumtree forest rather than the sea.
Adam had never visited the hut before and had had a description of how to get there up a 4x4 track. We parked his subaru at the end of the track but couldn't see any hut. After spending 10 minutes or so wandering around really rough bouldery terrain, I exclaimed that there couldn't possibly be a hut here (I think I was expecting something a bit bigger) and then spotted a tin rooof through the trees.
The hut was a real 'Grizzley Adams' style building, built of stone, logs and corrugated iron. Bunk beds, it could sleep 8 at an absolute squeeze (2 was just about right) and had a gas stove, and small woodburner.
The next day we left the hutand walked through through the boulder field up to a bealach to an incredible high plateau which had beautiful alpine mosses and tiny flowers nestleing in the bog and rock. It had areal alpine or even artic feel about it,
A Very cold John
On the top of TorLegge (Ben Lomond...!)
(wearing socks for gloves.....) helped by the fact that it was bitterly cold (above 1000M I think) and quite windy. (of course I was in my trainers and wearing just about all my clothes, plus a borrowed fleece as I was not really equiped for cold mountaineering...)
The track tooke us to the top of Tor Legge and then past some weathered climbing huts owned by the Tasmanian Alpine Club. We then walked through the small ski resort to bar which had a log fire roaring away (all good walks end in pubs of course)
We then walked a circuit of dirt track to get back to the car which included the very impressive 'Jacob's Ladder' which was a number of hairpin bends clinging to a scree slope descending through big volcanic cliffs to the gum tree level again.
Valley Campus and a Bush Fire
We were invited to a party and to spend the night at Valley Campus, about an hours drive from Launceston, Adam's school's Outdoor education centre. We had great fun, and we saw our first possum, who was incredibly cheeky, sneaking in and climbing up roof supports.
It was a great party, beer
Jacob's Ladder
The road to the ski centre.... was drunk and curry eaten and the surrounding bush explored. The following day we were advised to visit Evercreach Park where there are the tallest White gum trees in the world (93 metres)
On the drive up there along a few km of dirt road, we spotted a plume of white smoke, and decided it might be a bush fire, we continued and had a picnic by the big gum trees in a beautiful site, but felt a little uncomfortable as we had been told that fures could spread very rapidly, even at 35 km an hour in the right conditions. Even though the smoke was a few kilometres away, we decided not to hang around, and by the time we drove back the smoke had turned brown and was much thicker. We decided to be a little adventurous and drove towards it and eventually stopped by some forestry workers who were filling water tanks from a stream, from here we could see a helecopter dropping water on the flames...
We decided not to go any closer...!
All over Australia are fire risk signs with pointers from low through moderate to high, most pointers are on high
Cheeky Possum...
This one was also climbing up the roof beams.. as we are travelling around....
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Elaine
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Looks like your having a ball. Thanks for the postcards. You looked like you were on a hill in Scotland in that picture John! Suppose it's different to the quiraing! Have fun and enjoy the rest of your trip. Elaine x