Hey guys, sorry it took so long, but here it is:
I have just finished 10 days in Tasmania. I loved it. We (Mum, my grandparents-Jackie and Reinhard and me) hiked, camped and 4 Wheel Drive the west coast.
On Tuesday March 3, Mom and I left Mudgee by train. Bus really. But transferred to a train in Lithgow. We arrived in Sydney a little after 9:00 and had to find our way to Jackie and Reinhard’s backpacker hostel. We stayed at a huge hostel right downtown near the Town hall station. It was called Base. Mum and I were in a dorm room with 6 girls. I’ve decided that I love hostels and the atmosphere it brings with it. We left Sydney for Launceston the next morning. A sniffer dog looking for food, plants or any fish product checks every bag that is brought into Tasmania. While walking off the plane your handbag and carry on had to be in your left hand. Should the beagle find something, it will jump up and lean on the bag. For checked baggage, the dog walks on the carousel sniffing every bag that leaves the plane. When the dog finds a suspicious bag, it would sit down and wait for some compensation. Very cute and I guess an effective way to keep Tasmania unique. We caught a taxi to our hostel in the CBD. It was great. Old, spacious, a little draughty but welcoming with a fat cat named Fuji to sit at your table and wait for the food to be presented at his feet for inspection prior to mastication. The night we got there, we spent the hours before dinner walking around Launceston. Launceston has 70000 people and Tasmania has 500000 people. Launceston has a bunch of old, classic buildings. That night we ate at the hostel. Thursday (the next day) we had the day to explore Launceston. We decided to walk up through Cataract Gorge. Hiking up to the top provided huge views of the gorge and the Launceston seaport. I would say we spent a good 3 hours there. Up on daffodil hike mum nearly stepped on an echidna. Thinking it was a snake, her cry of joy was loud- recollecting the creature from a children’s book “Wombat Stew”. Lots of oohs and aahs sounding in the little gulley where we had found this wild treasure. Echidnas are monotremes, which means they lay eggs but suckle their young. They are a mix of reptiles and mammals. In the entire world, only 3 species of monotremes exist. All of them near this continent. The Platypus, the Australian Echidna and the Papua New Guinean Echidna. That’s how they know the 2 countries were connected.
After finishing with Cataract gorge, we went down through the seaport where we had drinks and then on to the CBD. Jackie, Mum and Reinhard had the local specialty Boag’s beer and I had ginger beer mixed with lemonade (which sparkles here). The harbour was pretty and there were some beautiful houses overlooking the sailboats docked in port. Since last summer, I have had a soft spot for beautiful boats and sea trip didn’t help anything. After ogling at boats for as long as the adults would let me, we hurried downtown to stock up on last minute warm gear at Red Cross or Salvation Army; we had been promised that we would be cold the next day at Cradle Mountain. The next morning Gary picked us up at 6:30. On the pick up morning we met a wonderful woman from France. We later learned that she is a countess with an interesting life story. The only other passenger was Andy a male nurse from the UK living in Bristol. Everyone on the trip had some interesting stories, but none more than Gary our tour guide. As a zoologist, he has worked at the Taranga Zoo and the London Zoo. He served time in the army. At a young age he started guiding in Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. One wonders how someone who grew up in Manly beach gets his certifications to lead guided tours up K2 or Everest. He has settled near Launceston with 2 young boys. At 45 he still does trips around Everest but spends most of his time in Tassie, it seems.
In the morning of the first day, we did a short walk to a lookout near an important aboriginal site. The women in that tribe went up to tulampanga cliffs and collected ochre for the dances that everyone would partake in. At the very end of the hike, there was a beautiful lookout overtop of the Murzy river that had eroded the cliffs down to a deep gorge. The river only eroded the cliffs down to a gorge. The river only eroded the cliffs down 10 m every million years, so you got a sense of how long that river had been flowing. After the hike, Gary hustled us into the car because we were going to be late to our one and only booked tour in the entire trip. Thankfully, the guide held the tour up to wait for us. It was pretty, but really similar to Jenolan caves. There were glowworms on the ceiling and the guide told us a story about a little girl on the tour that had said that she knew where the stars went during the daytime. It was a good comparison when the guide turned all the lights out. Beautiful really. Afterwards, we went out to Blackjack, Gary’s little cabin only 17 km away from cradle mountain. After setting up camp, we went up to cradle mountain. When we walked out of the bus, wind blasted against us pushing with great force away from the lake. It was pretty cold, so instead of walking up a mountain, we walked around Dove Lake at the base. After the walk, which took almost 2 and half hours, Gary went a different way and drove past a couple of wombats and wallabies. Everyone wanted to stop and take photos, but Gary seemed to want to keep going. Thankfully, he was only parking, so we got to get a good look at the wombats as they were pretty used to humans and quite busy with the grass surrounding them. I think I got 1 meter away from the wombats. If I really, really wanted to, I probably could have touched one of them. The night we spent at blackjack was COLD! 760 m above sea level and sleeping in a tent in arctic winds never mixes well. Dinner was warm, thank god. We had a wonderful meal of spaghetti.
The next day, we packed up our tents and gear and set off for warmer climes. We entered the tarkine forests, a sub-tropical something or other. We probably did some walks and stuff, but we didn’t really write anything down to remind us of what we saw that day, so I really have no idea what we saw. Our camping spot for that night was absolutely wonderful. Right on the ocean with the most wonderful trees sheltering our little piece of paradise from the harsh winds coming off the ocean. Gary said he has never seen this spot like that and spent a long time taking photos. Apparently, the weather was absolutely perfect. All I know is that the waves were crashing against the rocks, the wind whistling through our hair, and the distinctive smell of the sea, that wonderful, brine smell made this spot one of the most picturesque and beautiful places I’ve ever been. Mum, Jackie, Florence and I all raced to get into the water and clean off a bit as it was going to be 5 days without showers… Gary amazed us all with a wonderful dinner of beef curry and an absolutely amazing Asian salad. I did profess an interest in getting the recipe, but unhappily, I never did.
On the third day of the trip, we packed up (obviously) and set off for the beach. Dunes, I mean. Using our 4-wheel drive to get out of our secluded little campsite we regained the highway before turning off at a tiny, little car park. A short walk up a very steep hill, and we found ourselves in a mini Sahara desert. In reality, they were a massive expanse of sand dunes. I made a sand angel just to prove to Canadians how warm it really is here. After a little while, we all headed back to the exit. Except for Andy, who walked away down in between the cliffs, too far away to call to. Getting down from the dunes was definitely one of my best, most amusing experiences on this trip. Afterwards, when Andy found his way back to the car, we went for a walk in the People’s Park in Strahan to look at Hogarth Falls. Pretty, but not the most amazing sight seen on this trip. Jackie, Reinhard, Florence, and Andy were all hankering for a nice long walk, so we went to a long beach possibly called Long Beach. It was around 29 km long. I was quite glad we didn’t attempt to walk the entire way, as it would have taken forever, but we did walk 8 km of it. I think it took us around 2 hours. Maybe 2 and a ½ including the swim. From where we started the 8 km, the scenery didn’t change very much from end to end. Beautiful the entire way. Gary picked us up at the other end and we took a ‘shortcut’ through a four-wheel drive track to our campsite on Macquarie harbour. It was really pretty and Gary said that what we were witnessing was a natural wonder as the sea was as still as if it were frozen solid; the only movement in the water coming from the fish and birds that inhabited those waters. For dinner that night, we had the most delicious lamb roast and ratatouille with couscous. That was absolutely wonderful, the day and the dinner.
After a great sleep, we packed up and got on the road. Gary stopped us in Queenstown to get food for the night, so we all got a chance to look around. Queenstown is a mining town, so it’s kind of dingy and run down, but had this weird, old west kind of feel. While we were there, they were redoing the sidewalks. Naturally, I wanted to leave a mark and put a handprint, or at least a “The Canadians were here” sign in the wet concrete, but Mum wouldn’t let me. The rest of the day is a little unremembered again, because of lack of documentation on our part. We probably climbed up a mountain and saw coral fungus, which is orange, pink, and purple and spiky; I think we ate lunch on an African savannah like plain where leeches reigned. But it all could have been another day. Or quick, to the point notes weren’t really to the point and didn’t quite explain anything. All I know for sure is that we stayed at a kind of barren wasteland damaged by floods and perhaps logging. It was called King ____ lake. See? I told you I didn’t know much. There is a name to fill in the blank line, but I don’t know it. I think, had the floods not ravaged the landscape, it could have been quite beautiful, but it had a kind of forgotten, dead feel. Even though the foreground was desolate, the background was stunning looking over Frenchman’s peak.
Our last day with Gary, Florence, and Andy, we walked up to Russell Falls at Mt. Field national park. They were amazing, much better than Hogarth Falls. It was like a fancy fondue chocolate fountain wherein it fell onto rows before spilling out of the top. They were quite majestic, and grand. Before that though, we had walked the tall tree walk a little ways up the path. They were definitely tall trees. Gary told us they are the largest flowering trees on earth. I think that only the Red Woods in America rival the swamp gum eucalyptus. There were other, taller trees of the same species we could have seen, but we voted for ‘Something Wild’ Conservation Park a little down the road in hopes of seeing a Tasmanian devil. Our hopes were realized as we saw the five little teenage devils running around in their odd, loping, seesaw gait caused by the fusion of their hips to their spine. It was really cool to see all the animals they had saved and planned to release back into the wild as soon as possible. We did see two wild platypus (platypi???) in the river outside of something wild’s fence, so that’s another thing to add to my growing list of animals. After we had gone through the parks twice, we decided it was time to head into Hobart and say our goodbyes.
After the 5 day tour, we decided to explore Hobart. Jackie and Reinhard went to the MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). They really enjoyed it, but Mum and I went climbing to the top of Mount Wellington instead. Up top is supposed to have really great views of Hobart and area, se we thought it would be nice to get a different perspective on it. We took a bus to the base and started our hike. There, we met a couple of people who told us that it’s nice and clear up top and there are some nice views. He also warned us that it’s quite a hard track and we had better be fit enough. Great… Anyway, we got to the top in about 3 hours and the views were spectacular. If you like looking at fog. It seems the cloud cover had risen up during our ascent so that you couldn’t see more than 5 or 6 meters in front of you other than those one or two wonderful moments where you could see 10 meters in front of you. There was a road to the top, and I didn’t really feel like going down, so we hitched a ride with some teachers from Western Australia, who were nice and dropped us off at the nearest bus stop. There, we met some teachers from San Francisco who were nice, and told us they always enjoyed being thought of as Canadians. We returned on the bus to the CBD (Central Business District) where we visited the library, caught up on our emails, and got the BEST chai latte I’ve ever had!!! Jackie and Reinhard met us for dinner, and then soon after went to bed. Our last day in Tasmania, Mum and I spent time in Port Arthur, the convict settlement about an hour and a half away from Hobart. I really enjoyed the history and stories of Port Arthur, and Mum had to drag me away from whatever I was reading to catch the ferry around it’s harbour. The next morning, at an ungodly hour, we flew to Sydney, where Mum and I caught the train to Lithgow and then the bus to Mudgee where Gavin picked us up.
I really like Tasmania. It’s a wonderful state of Australia and is so very different from the mainland. Lots of green, wet forests, and some snow, it kind of felt like British Columbia, a little taste of home in such a different country. If you ever come to Australia, it would definitely be something to see.
I miss you all, but I don't know whether or not to stay the full year or come back in September. HELP! Love you all.
