Advertisement
Published: January 25th 2007
Edit Blog Post
As we were both getting fed up with travelling on the much too heavily trodden Australian backpackers trail and started thinking about going home there was Tasmania...
Tasmania is the small island under the Australian main land. It's one of the few the place left in the world with some real wilderness. It also has the cleanest air in the world...and it is still off the radar of most of the 'life's a party backpackers crew' so this place was ideal for us to build up some steam to finish our trip.
We had found some relatively cheap flights and decided to rent a car. As dumbo here forgot his driver's licence at home Marijke would have to do all the driving...
As soon as we arrived it was clear we were going to like this place. It's situated between Oz and NZ and it looks like that also. It still has the very dry, dusty, brown and yellow areas but it also has quite a lot of green forests.
The East coast
We arrived in the evening in Launceston and got going early the next morning direction East Coast. The driving was pretty nerve wrecking
Bay of Fires
Cosy Corner beach for both Marijke and me. She had never driven on the left side, in the mountains or with a fuel car and now she had to learn how to do all 3 in no time. My task was to handle the hand brake (to avoid rolling backwards), the gear box, turn off the windscreen wipers and direct Marijke away from the side of the road on the left side. I didn't really do a great job at that as we hit the gravel on the side of the road a couple of times and suffered a punctured tyre after about half an hour. Luckily one of the few things I know about cars is how to replace a tyre so that was not a drama.
After we got the tyre fixed we went over to the beautiful 'Bay of fires' where we had pic nic lunch beside the gorgeous beach. The wind was rather heavy which made for some really spectacular waves. The noise was incredible and a couple of fishing ships off the coast seemed to disappear in the waves all the time.
From the 'Bay Of Fires' we continued along the coast to Bicheno were we
set up camp for the night. We were both too tired to wait for the penguins that visit the beach here every evening. The whole day the sky had been very hazy and we wondered if maybe there were some bush fires going on. It turned out that the haze came from the huge bushfires they had in Victoria on the main land. We would hear more of those fires later on.
An early rise next morning brought us to the beautiful Freycinet NP where we went for some nice walks to Wine Glass Bay. The hike up was pretty steep but we got rewarded with some awesome views of the bay. Afterwards we walked down the other side of the hill to the beach. Marijke was cursing me for dragging her on such a 'difficult walk'...that was until we reached the beach and discovered a huge pod of dolphins that was playing around just off shore.
After watching those amazing creatures for a while I decided to walk to the next beach while Marijke already started walking back to the car. On her way back she came across a big snake (a black snake or a tiger snake)
Tassie
Along the road... Marijke really loved these landscapes. lying about a meter away on the path. She almost had a heart attack before the snake slowly disappeared into the bushes.
From the NP we drove to the capital Hobart.
Hobart and Port Arthur
After a very stressful entry in rush hour Hobart we didn't have any energy left to go explore the city. That would happen the next morning when Marijke got her wish and we visited the 'world famous in Australia' Salamanca market. Heaps of local produce (food, crafts, etc) , funny stuff (Ask Marijke about the 'love mats!) and rubbish. While Marijke was browsing the market I kept busy watching all the street artists. The 'snake man' was pretty interesting and I got to refresh my 'snake bite first aid' course.
That same day we drove 100 km to Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula. Port Arthur may ring a bell with some of you. This former prison/penal colony is the most important tourist attraction for the Aussies. However it made world headlines years ago when a psycho gun man killed more than 30 people in the park in one afternoon.
Anyway the site is the most important 'historic monument in Oz'
Car trouble
Marijke is double checking if I have really fixed the screws of the wheel... and even though it is only about 150 years old most Aussies don't have a problem to pay the 25 dollar entry fee into 'history'. For us, spoiled Europeans who are used to wander around medieval town centres all the time it seemed a bit expensive. Moreover most buildings, destroyed by bush fires, are now just ruins. It was pretty interesting though to hear the stories of the times of the penal colony.
Mount Field NP and the 'Heritage highway'
One of the most untouched places in the world is the 'Western Wilderness' of Tasmania. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go trek there for a week so we had to take the 'one day option of Mt Field NP. This park is on small scale what the rest of the wilderness is like. Forest, rivers, forest, a lot of animals, forest, some waterfalls and more forest. We went on a couple of walks to some really beautiful waterfalls and 'big trees'. There was a lot of wildlife around. We saw lots of colourful birds and wallabies. Unfortunately we didn't spot the nearly mythical platypus (vogelbekdier) that is supposed to be around.
On our way back
north we followed the 'Heritage highway'... Not much special in the first village we stopped an old mill that was it. We did however give the next 'heritage site', Ross a chance and it turned out to be a nice little village with some beautiful 19th century bridge and sandstone houses.
Cradle Mountain NP and Launceston
We spent the night in Launceston and started driving west the next morning to Cradle Mountain NP. The last part of the trip in the mountainous region was pretty hard driving but Marijke managed to get us there safely despite of some crazy campervans that were trying to push us of the road. The NP is where the famous 'Overland Track' begins/ends. We decided to do a day hike there in the Dove Lake area. The views out there are really amazing and it made me feel like doing the whole 80 km trek.
On our last day we drove back to Launceston from where we would take the plane back to Melbourne. In Lauceston I did another hike in the Catarct Gorge. This nice gorge is located just a 10 min walk from the centre of town. It
was a very hot day and half the town seemed to be swimming in the river. Some local teenage boys with some suicidal tendencies were doing back flips of cliffs about 10 m above the river.
Just like our flight from Melbourne, the flight back wasn't really comfortable with a lot of turbulence just after take off ( Marijke swore never to fly Jetstar again) and when we arrived in Melbourne the pilot announced the local temperature was 40 degrees...It was 8 pm and the sun was about to go down...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0271s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sofia
non-member comment
Hey
Good to hear from u! That everything is ok an d all. So r back backpacking again! I'm in Noosa myself, really great here on the east coast! Been in Aussie for 3 months and have one left, then Fiji and NewZeeland, on yo thai, then home! Take care my friend!