Yup, another sweet campsite seconds away from a huge beach, lifes tough
So yeah, that was one week in Tasmania. Some of the captions for the pictures were a little lackluster, but I'm hungover and not very creative right now. The reason being I had my art show last night and we took to the town to celebrate afterwards. I will post those pictures soonish, but if you want something to give you more context to our week-long Easter trip around Tassie you can read my journal which I kept during the journey. In it, I am much more witty than whats written here, but it's long and I wont force you to read it, just go about your day.
Journal
Trip log
Day 1
Hungover. Got the rental car at 9am, drove for the first time on the other side of the road! Did first backwards parallel park in a right hand drive on a steep hill which was a little challenging. Packed my stuff, which I should have done the day before and went to grab the girls. Driving to get them turned out to be a total disaster and I was super late. I google mapped how to get to Venitas house, but half way there was some road construction and I got detoured. There are WAY too many one way streets in Hobart.
(Jan Petrar: If you are reading this I know I wasn't supposed to do any driving while abroad and I definitely broke the oath; so for that I am sorry, but I am home now safe and sound)
Left hobart around noonish and we took off to lake st clare. On the way passed some glorious river with orange trees winding next to the road. Stopped in a small town for lame lunch, and found a weird hydro electric plant.
Lake St. Clare is all info center and no camp ground. The building is seriously nearly as big as the whole campground, which is puzzling. Set up the tents and took a short walk. Nice lake. Made dinner, burgers and sprayed grease all over the place. Took a snooze for the night
… sort of
Day 2
Worst sleep ever. Freezing cold in a fucking summer sleeping bag despite like 6 layers. Crap summer tent and crap foamie. I had maybe 3 hours of sleep, tho we all seemed to have had a crap night. Got up at 6am, and took off for a lake nearby called Shadow Lake. Beautiful walk, through several climate zones and terrain changes and it took about 3 hours return. The lake is more of an ends to a journey rather than a final destination because it was cold and wet as, making our stay at the lake quite short. The return trip was soaking wet, the trail becoming considerably more water logged than our way to shadow lake, and we all returned to camp rather soggy, with a wind chill picking up. Basically we were grumpy and wanting to get the hell out of dodge. Lake St. Clare is somewhere you want to visit in the summer I think.
Naemi drove us to Queenstown, a mining town revolving around copper. It would have been beautiful were it sunny out. The hillsides down to Queenstown rolled to the heart of the valley where the town sat. The hills lined the place with rich oranges and reds and blacks of the rock cliffs. Spinning and spinning our way down the hill was a bit of an adventure. Happy good friday! Once in town the edges of the valley crept around the dreary run-down village like a prison. This is a dead end place to live; a place clinging onto the old ways of copper mining. I found it really quite beautiful. A little like Dawson City in the Yukon, but without any sort of tourism trade.
Me back in the right-hand seat, and we are off to Strahan! The road there was like nothing I've ever driven. Strange valleys rising to plateus in a zig-zag of blind corners, and back down into a maze of turns and twists. A curious sign at one point reads (winding road) next 30km!. And indeed it was, luckily none of our troup gets road sick.
Just as I had about had it with another bloody turn in the road, we pop up over a smal hill and a sign reads 'Welcome to Strahan'. Strahan isnt by any means a large city, but it makes up for it in its immediate coastal quaintness. Tho after 3 hours of driving 50km/h through a snake run you would fall in love with anything which was still and as calm as an ocean. And what an ocean they have here! This is basically the only town on the entire west coast of Tasmania, which is a huge piece of real-estate. We journeyed to the beach to have a gander and were met with a glorious end to a long wet cold day, a sunset over a perfect beach; where nothing lies between us and the mighty continent of Africa, miles and miles across the sea. Theres also miles and miles of conitnuous beach where we were, its the largest stretch in Tassie in fact.
I feel slightly foolish being on a camping trip, yet spending the night in a cabin; I think the shock of a shitty sleep coupled with a soggy/windy morning walk had done us all in, and so we stopped in Strahan a few hours short of Cradle mountain, our original destination today. Tho if anybody finds themselves on the west coast of Tasmania in a lovely town called strahan I highly recommend the holiday place cabins (not to be confused with holiday backpackers) where gorgeous cabins are cheaper than a hostel. Showers free, beds and heaters and tvs, and fridge, and sink! Oh my :)
Tomorrow we might go swim in the ocean first thing in the morning. Madness!
Day 3
No swim, instead a sleep in. Nice hot shower, got packed, checked out and went to a lookout over Strahan before continuing on to Cradle Mountain.
Rosebery – A do NOTHING town. Had a nice waterfall tho. Being Easter saturday almost everything was closed.
Zeehan – Not much here either, but an interesting history. Apparently like 10,000 people lived here once due to mining, but now its only 900 who reside there. During the boom they built a theater which holds 100 people more then the current population. Nice trains in Zeehan
Tullah – Tullah makes Rosebury and Zeehan look like New York and London.
Then we drove to Cradle Valley/Mountain whatever. It's a strange area... the tourist site which is like 7.5 km away from any of the trails looks like a dump, but then you start driving along to the walks and it gets real nice.
The dove lake trail
*I put on my Cradle Mountain Park Ranger Cap and speak clearly into a red bullhorn before an anxious crowd*
“Welcome tourists to Cradle mountain! Today I will be going with you through picturesque Dove Lake around our stunning walking trail. You will be traversed into an ever changing wilderness of trees, rocks, islands and waterfalls.” The crowd looks glumly back at me “Horray, so lets gets started!”
(It was a pretty good walk)
Then we piled back into the car and headed to Launceston to stay in another Hostel. (not much for camping so far... I would personally be happy sleeping in a tent, but 3 ladies who dont like tenting in the rain outweight my desire to sleep in freezing wet hard places in the middle of nowhere. Cest la vie.
I did however fix something wrong with the rental car, totally saving the day. High five to all the manly car fixing guys out there! Fixed a car in front of three ladies, not too bad. Not too bad. They might tell you that it was just a stick stuck in the frame scraping along the road, but I prefer to think of it as a severe strut reorganizational dilema requiring an assesement of the utmost mechanical know-how and proficiency to solve. It was nearly a complete engine pull and replacement really, all done with my bare-hands.
The hostel in Launy is pretty awesome. Large spacious everything (bedrooms, kitchen, dining room etc.) Except I have noticed that every time I stay at a Hostel someone is making better food then I am and I get hostel cooking envy. Someone made currey chicken noodle awesome smelling stuff and someone else made a fricken cake from scratch... I cant compete with that. Tho our Easter tomato soup randomness wasn't half bad :)
Alright end of day 3. I have no idea what the game plan tomorrow is.
Day 4 – 5
Had breaky at the hostel, got packed and shipped out. Saw the gorge in Launy which was quite pretty. Kinda stuck in the seventies, strange old puplic outdoor pool with an old seventies suspension walking bridge and seventies gondola. Nice park tho
After leaving Launy we just drove.. our goal the Bay of Fires. A pamphlet on the area states that National Geographic says that these beaches are not only some of the top beaches in the world, but are indeed in fact the BEST beaches in the entire world. We that sounds like its worth seeing, dont you? Ill have to check the pictures to see what we did along the way... but I do remember a beautiful lookout point overlooking a grassy town straight out of Scotland. We drove through some towns which were mostly farm based until coming to St Helens, the gateway to the Eastern coast, and happieness on Tassie. We had lunch in Binalong a bit past st helens which would probably be the best retirement home you could ever have. The rocks by the shore marking the edges of the long concave beaches were painted orange with a strange lichen. In fact all the rock piles and big boulders along the east have been orange, hence the name 'bay of fires' I suppose. After lunch we traveled up to the bay and went as far as we could drive to a place called the gardens. Gardens were a small rocky area where the boulders were connected with a carpet of pure white sand. Very effective against the orange rocks and the green hilly hills.
After looking for a good campsite on the bay (there are several beaches to choose from) we came to the BEST, wait THE FUCKING BEST CAMP SITE EVER. Period. The beach is called swimcart beach and our site was as close to the beach as you could get. Only a thin line of bushes providing enough privacy was all that seperated us from a sandy white beach about 1.5 km long. No seaweed, no garbage, no drunk dumb ass campers, no people hardly, no houses just beach and beautiful ocean, across which is of course south america which is strange to think. So we were very proud of ourselves finding that site, and we celebrated with weiners and marshmallows for dinner.
The next day.
All the day before was cloudy and windy, but today we woke up with no clouds and the gals got up early enough to watch the sunrise . Just stunning. I was in love with the place the day before with the crap weather, but oh man what sun and blue skies can do.
After breakfast on the beach Naemi and I went for a swim. We left later than usual from swimcart simply because it was so nice there. After a sad goodbye to the best beach in the world we drove on. Back through st helens and further south. The scenery on the road was nothing but blue waters, blue skies green mountians and sandy white beaches all down the coast. So different from the west coast, like a whole different country, we had lunch today at a place called the water hole in a national park. Very lovely place, but the park was strange, no entrance fee, nobody working there, there was only a skinny aweful dirt road to get to the place. But a very yummy lunch with hot girls swimming in the waterhole. Today was awesome.
Then we drove through Bicheno, where they have the famous Bicheno Blowhole. Its along the shore where wave crash into this rock and shoots spray super high in the air, like a blowhole. Theres a photo in the visitor info centre which shows it during a storm and the spray is like 50 feet high and 200 feet across.
After that we went to see the friendly beaches to go camp. There was an awesome lookout to some absolute beauty beaches, but the campsites sucked, instead we just walked on the beach a bit and headed further south, finally to a town.... Cole's bay!
Anyways, we ended up going to frecinet park, and staying in the campsite beside tomorrows departure point, the winglass bay. The bay here were our site is (another prime camping site) is very nice, huge open bay, very sheltered from waves. Loads of shells everywhere and a gorgeous sight of the moutains which we will have to traverse tomorrow. Tonights menu featured tuna, fiscillie, corn, and a white tomato base sauce, with a salad. Fucking awesome. Then it was star gazing because there STILL are no clouds. What a perfect day.
Day 6
Well I thought yesterday was nice, the weather has been awfully kind. Thank you weather. We get up, eat our porridge/oats/oatmeal depending on your nationality, and drive to the foot of the mountain. Lovely views and a nice lookout over winglassbay. After a million steps down to the beach we arrive on the most beautiful beach I have ever seen.
Time for swimming, sunbathing and wallaby watching. Plus lunch :) then we head off for the rest of our hike, all the way around the mountain back to the carpark. Most people dont take this route, tho they should. You get to traverse through strange forests and see hazard bay which is also lovely. Then theres a long beach you have to walk down to get back to the trail where we saw a whole bunch of dying crabs. Strange... but loads of shells and stuff and it became more of a stroll down a beach then a hike. But once off the beach we were back to climbing mountains and treking through forest. After about 5 ½ hours since we started we got back to the car, a little sunburned but very happy.
Since we wasted the whole day trekking we didnt get into swansea further south down the east coast til rather late. Set up tents and got too lazy to make food so we headed to the local (and only) tavern, which doubles as a museum, bistro, pizza shack, gift shop and backpackers hostel. The first beer in almost a week tasted someonething amazing! Pizza was pretty special to
day 7! the last day of the trip
this was to be our last day, so we needed to see a lot before we had to begrudgingly go home and head back to school... sad.
We started off with a winery at 10am, as you do. Suprisingly we weren't the only ones there that early; not suprisingly was that they were French. Milton was the name of the winery, and although the girls really liked it, everything I tried I thought was way too fruity. I'm a dry wino. Tho if you like wine that tastes like pears and raspberries its a good selection to check out. Naturally the only wine I did like was the most expensive, how does that always happen?
So after the winery we headed to 9 mile beach. Haha this was awesome. From our campsite the night before you can see 9 mile beach stretch out along the coast for, well.. 9 miles. So we drive down the road which should lead to a beach entrance tho damned if we could fine it. 9 whole miles of driving and nothing until the very end of the beach, which isnt even part of 9 mile because the beach ends in a point and we could only see the back lagoon. Whatever, I drove us out onto the beach to takesome pics of Swanwick across the shore. Getting back in the car and heading out, this Chinese family cut us off as we were leaving. This HUGE beach with nobody on it and we get cut off somehow. Unfortunatly I had to brake on a hill which led to us getting seriously stuck in the sand. Crap.
The Chinese family gets out when they see we are stuck and we try to push the car out. No suck luck. The car is not only buried in its wheels, but the whole undercarrige is dug into the beach. So we get out and start digging and reversing and digging and getting more stuck, all the while this Asian woman was taking pictures of us, as they take pictures of EVERYTHING haha. I thought the situation was hilarious, the girls not so much. Luckily a local Aussie came by and with a truck and some rope we were free and got the hell out of 9 mile beach. And that is how our rental car got its name Sandy. Oh and if AAA rentals is reading this, this wasn't your car, it was a different one I swear. I followed the insurance exactly and didnt go on any dirt roads, any off road driving, and definitely didn't go on to any beaches the WHOLE time, nor get any sand in the car I swear. (please don't send me a bill)
Next on our list was to check out kate's Berry farm. (Picture) Isnt it cute? This was a girl stop totally, I would never have gone here myself, but it was kinda cool. 'Kate' grows all kinds of berries and makes jams and pies and jellies, so naturally I ordered a chocolate milkshake.
Our final destination before returning home was to go to another beach! Rheban beach was recommended to us by this Australian lady who we mey back on Swimcart beach at the Bay of Fires. The beach is huge as we have come to expect, but this one is unique for its amazing array of different kinds of shells which wash up on shore. I grabbed a crap load which I have no idea what to do with, so they're just sitting on my desk now looking nice and shelly.
|So this is the last picture I took on our week-long trip around Tassie. In quick conclusion I must say tasmania has everything anybody could ever want in a place to live or visit. Every spot we went to was amazing, even the wet west coast was gorgeous, and I can only imagine how much better it would be had we come during summer time and not fall. Best week Ive had in a long time.
