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Published: April 14th 2008
After saying farewell to Alister and putting our caravan into storage, we were ready to head off to Tassie! We took the Spirit of Tasmania ferry across on Easter Thursday (20 March), a day trip of 10 hours plus - it is a long way from the mainland, something we weren't really aware of before now. Day trips are only during summer weekends and peak times, so we were quite lucky to get the chance to experience this, especially the trip across Port Philip Bay which takes about 3 hours!! A wee bit rough but not too bad. We spent the first night at Castagni, a lovely bed and breakfast at Port Sorell near Devonport, and had a relaxing time walking around the long sandy beaches and estuary in the sun. Our hosts cooked us a 3 course meal at dinner, roast lamb, what a treat for us caravanners!
Easter Saturday we drove to Cradle Mountain National Park via Wilmot (famed for its letterboxes), and we tried out our tent for the first time - bought for occasions like this, from Dutch tourists we met in Perth. Quite a contrast to Castagni but we enjoyed the atmosphere of the National
Park campsite which had a large kitchen/ dining area with 2 open fires. Being Easter there were lots of people around and we met some interesting people from all over, including a few NZ'ers! Cold the first night in the tent, but milder the second. Cradle Mountain is a very scenic lake and mountain area with lots of short walks as well as the start of the 6-7 day Overland Track. We did a couple of short walks the first day and then spent the next day walking around Dove Lake and up to Crater Lake and surrounds - about 15ks in all. We were blessed with good weather, unlike our last visit in 1975 when we couldn't even see the mountain at all - apparently this is not unusual.
This would be the last time we used our tent until our last night in Tassie as the weather turned cold a few days after we arrived. Next stop was Sheffield, the Mural Town, the buildings in the town are (nearly) all painted in murals, someone had a bright idea to save the town from obscurity and now they even have an international mural festival and competition every Easter
- we saw some very creative artists working on their entries. Drove to Burnie next and made a diversion to Fernglade Valley where we were lucky to see a platypus having a lazy swim in the river. We then made our way across to the North West corner of Tassie via Stanley, our favourite place in this region. Stanley is a neat little seaside port at the base of the "Nut" , full of interesting character cottages and surrounded by green fields and beaches. The Nut is the core of an old volcano, its sides eroded over time, and shaped like Table Mountain in Capetown I guess. We took the chairlift to the top, which is quite an exciting ride, especially down, where you launch into space, or so it seems! Stayed in the Stanley Hotel which was good value at $60 a night for a nice room and had our first meal of Tassie scallops and ocean trout (yum).
I need to explain here that Tasmania is a foodie's paradise really, there are loads of different types of fresh fish, scallops, oysters, trout and the ocean salmon (farmed) is delicious, I thought it was much tastier than the
Wilmot has one claim to fame..
its interesting and unusual letterboxesNZ (farmed) salmon ! Other Tassie specialities are numerous - different varieties of cheeses, honeys (especially leatherwood), potatoes (Dutch Cream - yum), apples, apple juice, beers, and generally fresh good quality food.
On leaving Stanley, the weather changed , and we also encountered a problem with our Landcruiser's indicators, spent over 2 hours in a freezing cold shed with the local auto electrician, while he mused over the problem (here I need to explain that Tasmanians are different to "mainlanders", more laid back and generally slower in pace. Won't say any more, except we did meet some rather interesting characters on our travels around the island.... ) Anyway, turns out that when the pilot light was removed from the roof of our vehicle, before we bought it, they just chopped it off, and this was causing a short in the electrics!
Headed out to Arthur River once we had the problem sorted (thanks Bruce) and to the "Edge of the World" - if you have been there you will know why it is called this! It was freezing cold, blowing a gale, and the surf was huge and incredibly wild! At the lookout it was hard to stand
upright and we didn't linger. Had hoped to drive through to the West Coast via the Western Explorer highway, which has opened up the western side of the island, but it was closed due to a recent large bushfire, so we had to head back to Burnie (mind you, nowhere is very far in Tassie, especially compared to the mainland) and down through the main highway to Zeehan - another story for another day...
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Alison (your niece)
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Hello Again
Hello again.You sure are getting about and I am glad to here with very few hiccups! Thanks for the updates.And Take care of yourselves!!Be good too of course!! Bye - lots of love from the Dyers XXXX