Well we just made the Airport in time, got the time wrong by about 30 minutes, fortunately they had people trying to keep the lines moving by sending people to the front. despite this, let me just say I love flying.
Hobart town has plenty of Sandstone, well kept Sandstone indeed, the town itself has, compared to Melbourne, quiet streets, that are hilly, and quite steep in places. The town seems to have water views everywhere. But as a town it just didn't click for me, Nik felt the same way I think. Can't really put my hand on it though, it was almost too clean and neat in places?
Bed & Breakfast places? So many seem to use very conservative decorations, is this a market driven scenario? Or does it have more to do with the architecture, many B&B's are in old buildings. Some thing that also stuck in my mind about the first room we had was the teams that run them, it seems that there is often a talker and a cook?
Driving the camper van was an interesting experience the mirrors took a bit of adjusting but once we had that worked out things were ok. The hills, however were another thing and Hobart has plenty of hills!
Discovered that the State Gallery in Hobart had a John Glover exhibition showing, as a consequence we spent an extra day in Hobart. I learnt a little the ‘Picturesque’Art movement too.
Stocked up the van ready for the duration of the trip which meant, shock horror, no room for beer, indeed it would be several nights before I could kick back outside the van with a cold brewski in hand.
Spent the second night camped beside the historic bridge in Richmond, and like any small country town had a handful of, hoons. Of course hoons are hoons where ever you are?
In the morning I just couldn't get out of bed in time to catch the light, which didn't really appear to come out, once I did get out there. Which is my round about way of saying I slept in past sunrise.
All sorts of thoughts were running through my mind whilst we were at the the Port Arthur site. But first I was amazed at the number of people that were milling around this tourist centre at 10:00 in the morning. [It actually turned out that a cruise ship had pulled into Hobart and it of course had unloaded it's passengers for a day of touring around Tassie, most of whom seemed to be Septics!] We then decided that after a short guided tour to head back to the van and eat lunch then, wandering around the site. We decided to come back the next day and take in the boat tour over to the isle of the dead.
Some other thoughts were about the nature of artifacts, what use are they, how we interpret them, how the time/culture being examined thought about them and so on. I also wondered about Australians and how they reacted to this history and, their own/current identity?
But for me there was just an overwhelming sense of sadness from the place, the thought that men and women and children had been sent there for the most trifling of offences, and using quasi–social experiments, had attempted to reform the people there, its all just to awful to think of even now!
On a more positive note we spent the night at fabulous Fortescue bay, we were very luck to get a spot there as it was around the Australia day weekend. Still we got one and enjoyed our first real night of roughing it as far as you can rough it in a campervan!
Second day of wandering around Port Arthur. We took the boat cruise this morning. The crowds were all gone when we entered but had grown by the time we left.The isle of the dead was good and we still managed to spend several hours wandering the site, then back to the van for lunch, and off towards Cradle Mountain, via Derwent River.
The scenery was spectacular all the way to Derwent River, rolling hills turned into heath-lands. cars eventually became non existent, people less plains rolled past our windows. When we hit Derwent river a small spot on the map that had a somewhat large pub for such a remote place, we found a nice spot by the river and settled in for the evening—now there was room for beer. I got to knock a couple back before eating a yummy meal and retiring form the evening.
Derwent River to Queenstown and on to Cradle Mountain. Queenstown is as devastated as they say, I could have found some redeeming scenes that would have appealed to my aesthetic. What they don't tell you is how .steep the hills are and how little traffic there is up there, I reckon we passed or were passed by no more than 6 or 8 cars in 4 hours of driving both directions.
I last visited cradle mountain about 15 or so years ago with a bunch of mates, we had a good time, we camped at the Cradle Mountain campground, then managed by the Tassie Parks and Wildlife service. Now it's privately owned and maybe I'm turning into an old fart but it just didn't seem to have the same feel. still all the facilities were there, it was nice to have a good hot shower when ever we wanted and be abler to use toilets whenever we felt like it. The communal cooking/eating area is great, [again I only took a 35mm transparency shot of it so when it's scanned I'll add it here], and because there is a large demand for campervans with powered the kitchens nearest to these is rarely used.
Our first arvo at Cradle Mountain was a relax and kick back kind of day after a solid day or so of driving. A bit of quiet music, a comfy chair, a hearty lunch, nice warm sun off we both nodded, Nik inside the van, me on a camp chair outside. So it was that we flattened the battery for the first time on the whole trip, we were camped in an un powered site at this point. As we needed power to drive the pump for water to cook with I didn't feel that we should stay a second night on an un powered site so we moved, besides I could use the 240 volts to recharge a few batteries and stuff.
Moving house was never this easy, we now had full power again, so I charged both the laptop battery and the digital camera batteries. We planned our first set of walks for the day.
Our first was nice and brisk and took us past the Lake Lila and on towards Dove Lake itself, where we got to see a Wombat Munching away on grasses and leaves. Then we headed off to the Dove Lake walk, and stopped for lunch halfway around. Sheer bliss this walk, and lots of film was shot, so not so many images yet. Another short stop and some afternoon tea, then off to the camp we went. We actually got back to the van after 4 hours! I was disgusted at the amount of rubbish on each side of the Dove Lake circuit, despite the signs!
Spent the morning packing up, doing things like emptying the porta—loo, and organising ourselves for the change over in Launceston. We were planning on simply switching vehicles and jumping in our car and driving into to Launceston. Our lunch was to be BBQ fish and chips somewhere between Cradle Mountain and Launceston, Sheffield seemed to be a nice spot, but their Electric BBQ was not working, so we kept going till we found another small town with a BBQ this one was FREE! It was in a place called Deloraine, we munched away on our lunch and were happily enjoying our surrounds when we realised we had 15 minute to get the Vehicle back! Shit off we roared and no sooner had we set off than it started to piss down! We didn't really have any idea how far we were from the depot which according to our maps was about 20 kilometres from Launceston, we also needed to fuel up, fortunately there is 59 minutes grace on a campervan so we just made it with 15 minutes to spare.
Our room at Hatherley House in Launceston was magnificent, a big “thank you” to Paul for looking after us, we loved your place and will recommend it to all our friends who pass through! I was especially impressed by the art on the walls, the size of the room and style of decor throughout.“Thanks Again Paul!”