Hobart, Mt Field National Park, Central and Launceston

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We left Hobart and headed up the Derwent Valley where we took the road to the Mount Field National Park. The road went through rural areas where there was a lot of hop orchards similar to the Moutere and Motueka locations at home. On arrival at the Visitor Centre we took a look at the interpretation displays then walked firstly to the Russell Falls. The walk took us through rain forest not unlike New Zealand if you swapped the eucalyptes with beech trees. The tree ferns were similar but fatter and shorter in the trunks. The Russell Falls were really nice, falling from a number of stratigraphic horizontal layers so that the water fanned out on each level. We then walked the Tall Trees track taking us through hugh eucalyptus trees with enormous trunks and rising up to almost 300ft or 90.5 metres. They were truly awesome and only the redwoods in America are taller. We then walked to the Lady Barron Falls and on back to the Visitor Centre where we had a picnic lunch at 2pm.

We then took some back roads from Mt Field, to Ellendale, Hamilton, Bothwell, Steppes, and through the lakes in the Central Plateau National Park. This took us into a landscape not that unsimilar to the Lammerlaws and tussock country of Central Otago. It appeared that we were on a fairly high plateau of open grassland with very few people and large station holdings. We constantly saw road-kill of mostly wallaby and possums but think we also saw a dead wombat.

From the open grassland we drove into very rocky land with poor soils before dropping down off the plateau to Poatina. From there it was a wide basin of lowland farms and more population. It was now 5pm so time to look for accommodation. We started with Longford, then tried Perth, finally onto Launceston but always drew a blank. Finally we tried phoning a large number of places and it didn’t matter whether it was within or without Launceston, everything was fully booked. There was a rock concert in Launceston and it was a holiday weekend. The only thing left to do was to have dinner and drive 200km back to Hobart where we at least had a bed.

All in all a disappointment since we wanted to explore the north for a few days and the temperature was definitely warmer. A lesson in that – book first, or, don’t go on a holiday weekend.

We had sad news today that Uncle Giovanni has died in Italy.

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Photos

These are very tall gum trees
In the Tall Trees part of Mt Field NP. These are 2nd only to the sequioa's in the US.