22 March, 2024 by Explorers

East & North East Coast

8th – 22nd March

8th, 9th March

A long and deep recovery sleep was had by all before we left the Tasman Peninsula. A few aches and pains and stiffness was soon walked off – yes, walked off!! – by dropping in to see ‘the blowhole’ (not blowing today, low tide, calm conditions), the Devils Kitchen which is a 60m deep cleft into the cliffs where the water foams furiously with the ocean swell. Also…

Tasman Arch, an impressive natural bridge

The tessellated pavement – a unique geological feature created as the siltstone cracked when the earth moved some 300 million years ago.

The lookout down the coastline all the way to Cape Hauy.

Sorry, only the remains of our lunch from Blue Lagoon Oysters.

The camping area at Triabunna was packed, however a cafe just up the road offers camping out the back for $10/night and there was only two of us there – perfect. A short walk took us to the waterfront, the supermarket, the pub, the laundromat and of course a cafe. Great place to recover!

10th March

Today was overcast with light rain on and off all day as we continued up the coast stopping in at an old salt works, an old bridge and a vineyard.

Not much remaining – Lisdillon Salt Works

Three Arch Bridge built by convicts in 1845. It spans Old Man Creek, and blow me down if that’s not the Old Man himself!

Enjoying being out of the rain at Mayfield Estate Vineyard while we waited for our pizzas.

The Mayfield coastal campsite was full. However as we sat enjoying our pizzas at the vineyard we noticed a car drive down to the shore. Hmm investigation revealed it as a dirt track down to a disused boat ramp. Perfect – camping by the water tonight.

We’re camped just near the old boat ramp.

11th, 12th March

A little further north is Swansea. On the way we passed Spiky Bridge

Another convict-built bridge. There’s conjecture over the reason for the spikes. Perhaps to stop the cows falling off …

A walk on Spiky Beach. (No spikes on the beach!)

A pleasant walk at Swansea, even if we couldn’t pronounce it.

13th March

Freycinet Peninsula is one of the gems of Tasmania. Its most striking features are the huge granite mountains forming Mount Freycinet and the Hazards in the south which is joined to the northern section by a thin isthmus with Wineglass Bay the crowning glory. All of the southern section of the peninsula is National Park, with much of the northern section also under their care. In the north a sealed road runs down the western side of the Peninsula to the township of Coles Bay and as far as Cape Tourville. Other unsealed roads cross over to beautiful beaches, camping spots and little hamlets on the eastern coast.
To explore the southern part of the Peninsula it’s a case of strap on the hiking boots and get the backpack out as there are no roads. We’re returning next month to walk the southern peninsula so today we spent our time exploring the beautiful bays, beaches and hamlets of the northern peninsula.

On the boardwalk to the Cape Tourville Lighthouse.

The four-wheel drive track across the island.

The Fisheries. Beautiful little bay for swimming.

Thurs 14th Mar

Bicheno. Lots of yummy things to do here!

We started at a cafe renown for its pastry.

Bicheno has a pretty impressive blowhole too which entertained us for a while.

Then on to Waubs Harbour Distillery for a personal tour of the distillery and explanation of the process before a whiskey tasting. I learnt a lot this morning, though after the tasting I may not recall it all.

Next was the Lobster Shack for a garlic butter half lobster for me and a lobster roll for Steve.

We voted Bicheno a great little town.

Tonight we’re camping at the trailhead of the Apsley River Waterhole and Gorge hike, ready for an early start tomorrow.

Friday 15th Mar

It’s an easy walk down to the waterhole which looks very inviting for swimming, until feeling its temperature.

To cross the trickling river here requires picking a way through and over mounds of river rocks. The path, now mostly loose stones or rocks, climbs for perhaps 2 kilometres before descending very sharply into the Gorge.

The return is on the same track. Did you gather this isn’t one of my favourite walks?

Trout River camp, despite it being a fair distance on an unsealed road, looked inviting.

We set up right beside the beautiful river and …

… took our chairs and a drink over to the jetty to enjoy the setting sun over the mountains.

Saturday, Sunday Monday 16th, 17th 18th Mar

Back to the coast again St Helen’s proved to be a great spot to reprovision the larder, and also the cellar when we dropped in to The Priory vineyard for a tasting.

Fellow Explorer friends Des and Tina are camped at Cosy Corner at the southern end of the Bay of Fires, another Tasmanian highlight. How could we not stay at a camp called Cosy Corner!

Our location was idyllic right beside the ocean high up on the dunes.

Looking south from our beach to Binalong Bay and the very popular Swimcart Beach.

Many think the bay was given its name from the lichen covered orange/red rocks. However it was named in 1773 by a sea captain who observed the many camp fires of the hundreds of aboriginal folk who lived there.

Our time was spent chatting with our friends and walking the magnificent white sands to the rocks coloured red by lichen. Such a great spot to reset. Monday afternoon we headed inland to Pyengana.

Tues 19th Mar

Pyengana has a beautiful free camp beside the famous Pub in the Paddock, and nearby to some points of interest.

The pub is also the home of the beer-drinking pig.

Once the rain stopped (it rained most of the night) we headed over to the Pyengana Dairy to watch the robotic milking machines milk the cows. We bought some of their cheese.

The cows were so relaxed, cruising up for milking whenever they felt like it, then sauntering just as casually back to the paddock.

The truly beautiful St Colomba Falls, at 90 metres high, is amongst the tallest in Tasmania. And as a bonus is just a short walk from the parking area.

The power of the falling water sees mist floating in the air leaving a light dew on your face.

An information board at the trailhead describes a flood in 1929 which tore large slabs of granite from the cliff face of the falls dramatically changing the course of the falls.

Some years ago Derby was a dying country town as the mine closed. Some very forward-thinking locals decided to put in some mountain bike trails in their surrounding mountains. Today it is a thriving industry with bike sales, repairs, rentals, accommodation, cafes, and restaurants all catering to the growing national and international cyclists, their entourage and the tourists like us who just come for a look.

Some kilometers north is Little Blue Lake. This man-made lake bounded by high, crumbling cliffs has quite stunning blue water. The water is highly mineralised, particularly with aluminium and is unsafe to contact.

Petal Point camping area. A remote spot on the far north-eastern coast.

Our campsite is once again a very short walk from the ocean, but instead of pounding waves we’ve got strong winds and rain tonight as a front sweeps through. We’re well protected behind thick coastal heath growing to about 2 meters.
As we drove towards our campsite for the night we saw our first snake on the road. There are only 3 snakes native to Tasmania, unfortunately all of them are venomous. That does make it easy for the Emergency Departments – they only have one antivenene that covers all three.

Wed 20th Mar

A little more wind, a little more rain before the skies cleared, though not the wind. There’s a reason this campsite is surrounded by wind turbines! Time to head west.

Most of the communities along the northern coastline are a jumble of cheap holiday shacks until Bridport. This small town boasts all the facilities as well as the port for shipping to Flinders Island.

Bridport – such a pretty beach. The remains of the old pier are just visible off the end of the far point.

Steve at the blue-striped lead light guiding shipping into the mouth of the river at Bridport.

We lunched at the mouth of the river into the port before exploring the very pretty Mermaid Beach.

Just north of George Town the Low Head Lighthouse warns ships of the perils of the Hebe Rocks at the mouth of the Tamar River. It’s been functioning since 1833.

More than a dozen ships foundered on the rocks in the hundred years since 1808. Stately homes line the road between George Town and Low Head. The year each was built is on the gable in Roman numerals. Without googling can you decipher MDCCCLXI?

With a State election happening next weekend a long-held controversy about the name of the impressive Batman Bridge that crosses the Tamar River has been highlighted. John Batman after whom it was named led massacres of aboriginals in the Black Wars. I hope they do change the name!

We continued our travels westward along the northern coastline. Narawntapu National Park was a highlight of our travels here in the 1990s, particularly for the dozens of wombats seen grazing. So it was with great disappointment that I’ve learnt that mange killed them all by 2017. On the bright side we met up with Pat and Dick again (from our west coast travels) and had an enjoyable evening with them.

Thurs 21st March

As rural industries fade away or are taken over by large corporations rural towns tend to fade away. It takes lateral thinking and lots of community support to reinvent themselves. We recently saw this happen in Derby and today we saw two more towns that have tried to make this transition. Railton is known as the town of topiaries. In 1999 one man decided to start this project and the community got behind him. The topiaries were wonderful to see. Unfortunately most of them are now gone or neglected. The Council is looking after the spiral trees on the street. I hope they’ll soon get their impetus back.

Always good to meet interesting characters in your travels. This chap brings his pet alpaca into Sheffield to meet people on most days.

Much more successful is Sheffield which chose a less maintenance-intensive project and refers to itself as the Town of Murals. It too just needed one local champion in the mid 80’s to enthuse everyone about the project. Today there are over 140 murals around town and it plays host to the International Mural Fest every April with the winner’s entry being added to the towns collections. Initially the murals told the history of the town or highlighted certain people. There are also art spaces around town open to the public where you can go to watch artists at work.

Huge murals adorn every wall in Sheffield.

Driving through this lush country that supports dairy and small crops is a pleasure, particularly with the imposing Mt Roland with its bare rock cliffs as the backdrop. The quartz-rich conglomerates that form the mountain are very hard and resist weathering.

Continuing west-ward our road took us around the edges of Cradle Mountain NP as we steadily climbed the range, weaving around tight hairpin bends until we were once more in the highlands amongst the forests and button grass plains. The higher we climbed the lower the temperature dropped and we soon found ourselves amongst the clouds.

Met up with Marlies on the walk up Black Bluff Range to the Cradle Mountain lookout. We look cold because we were.

Buttongrass Plains as we descended. Look at the rain coming in faster than we can run!

Tonight we’re staying at the Waratah Caravan Park on a lovely unpowered grassy site beside the river with no neighbours, unlike the powered sites that are full, close together and on gravel. Go figure!

Fri 22nd Mar

Travelling via the secondary roads we made our way back towards the north coast. Firstly though up and over the range with lots of hairpin bends to get to Hellyer Gorge for brunch. A short walk to the gorge and along the river refreshed us.

Once off the range the State Forestry seemed to own everything – no more magnificent old growth forests, just pine and eucalypt monocultures as far as the eye could see.

We’ll be travelling back south again to meet someone special in Hobart. But first – Highway 1 from north to south.

3 March, 2024 by Explorers

Tassie West Coast

Monday 19th Feb:

Today is a day for washing and resting.

With all those clothes it’s no wonder our backpacks were so heavy.

Myalla Showground. The perfect camping spot for a peaceful rest.

Smithton and Woolnorth (visited March 22 and 23 – included here to complete the west coast)

The staff at Smithton Visitor Centre were excellent, as were the displays describing Indigenous life before colonisation and the early colonial days. From here we were able to book onto the Duck River Dairy tour to learn about their robotic dairy facility. What a transformation dairying is since I was a child in the country. I was fascinated to watch and learn about the stress-free cow autonomy and lack of human involvement that robotic dairies provide. Cows have such fun personalities when given the freedom. A wonderful innovation.

The live computer readout from one cow being milked. The computer recognises each individual cow. The milk from each teat is measured/weighed. A sample is taken from every milking and tested allowing the farmer to pick up an unwell cow immediately.

The farmer/owner is also a cheese maker, and the vet. We watched him at work checking and turning his latest cheeses made only from the milk of his own cows. He sells them under the brand La Cantara and I swear you can taste that the milk comes from happy cows. My favourite cheese of all time is his hard blue.

Over the road is an excellent free camp and a nearby Bistro Grill – dinner out tonight.

Next day we were booked on a tour of Woolnorth.

Woolnorth is a 41,000 hectare property in the far north west of Tasmania. Originally a grant given to the Van Diemen Land Company and used for sheep it was sold to a Chinese company that was running the largest dairy farm in Australia. Parcels of land have since been sold with only 700 hectares dedicated to dairy cattle and another 6000 hectares to beef cattle.

On the property are two large wind farms with 62 turbines harnessing the winds of the roaring forties. The carbon fibre blades have copper points and wire to draw lightning strike away from the control box. The integrity of each of the blades is assessed by drones with infrared sensors. Cool, hey!

A concern has been the risk to birds, particularly the raptors, from the wind turbines. Here they have two initiatives to address this – firstly exclude their food source from the immediate area, ie the pademelons, and secondly the turbine/s the eagle is close to automatically stop when a bird is nearby.
At Kennaook/Cape Grim a Premier Global Baseline station has been monitoring and studying global atmospheric composition for climate change purposes as a result of human activities and natural variability since 1976. With no land west of here until the southern tip of Argentina winds coming from the Antarctic and Indian Ocean are the cleanest on earth. This is one of only 3 such stations – another is at Mauna Loa in the Pacific and the third at Alert in the Canadian Arctic. And yes, at this point Australia does have the cleanest air in the World.

Cape Grim Premier Global Baseline Station. Image supplied.

Kennaook is the original name for Cape Grim. Though it could well be, the name is unrelated to the mass murder of aborigines that occurred here in 1828 under the direction of Edward Curr, Van Diemens Land Company director. Cape Grim was named by Matthew Flinders in 1798 because, from the sea, the cape looks like the head of a prehistoric man crying.

Phillip and Deb, fellow Explorer owners, with us at Kennaook/Cape Grim. The two islands on the left are the Doughboys.

Tuesday 20th – Thursday 22nd February:

For the next 10 days we’ll be sharing our travels with Pat and Dick, friends and fellow Explorer owners. The tiny township of Marrawah on the west coast will be our campsite tonight before beginning our journey on the Tarkine Drive.

Tarkine is an indigenous word meaning belonging to, or of, the Tarkiner. The Tarkiner people lived along this rugged coastline for 40,000 years prior to colonisation. The Tarkine is the second largest temperate rainforest in the world, with over 400,000 hectares of virgin wilderness, rugged coastline, rivers and buttongrass plains. The Tarkine Drive is a loop drive through sections of the wilderness. Despite most of it being under Parks and Wildlife management the State has made a provision that any of it can be used for logging at their discretion. This doesn’t bode well considering the might of the Logging Industry.

Wednesday: Today we’ll follow the Drive down the west coast.
At West Point we watched the surfers riding the waves. These waves can be enormous as the swell travels across the Indian Ocean unchecked. Today though, not so big as there was a strong easterly wind blowing.

Note the giant kelp washed up on the rocks. Mawson Bay

Continuing south Mawson Bay provided a dramatic coastline to explore and have a break. The headland at the end of the bay, Bluff Point is the most westerly point of Tasmania. A lighthouse here apparently has a colony of bees living in the wall near the entrance – an effective way to keep people away.

Crossing the mouth of the Arthur River at the aptly named township of Arthur River we headed to the even more intriguingly named “Edge of the World”. Huge driftwood logs and giant dried kelp is washed up along the beach.

Pat at Edge of the World. Note the driftwood.

Steve deep in contemplation at Couta Rocks

Couta Rocks proved a fun place to explore along the rocky bluffs before we backtracked to the shack community of Nelson Bay to settle in to a nice quiet grassy campsite by the beach. As the afternoon cooled down (temps have been in the high 20’s) we walked along the beach to Sundown Point State Reserve then followed a track to the mouth of Sundown Creek to find the petroglyphs. This area contains many artefacts from aboriginal days, such as shell middens, tools, depressions from huts and petroglyphs (rock carvings).

Dick admiring the petroglyphs. Steve and Pat chatting.

Thursday: Today we’ll venture inland to the forests of the Tarkine as we continue the tourist drive.

First stop Sumac Lookout which towers above the thick rainforest that borders the Arthur River.

Sumac Lookout. Hopefully the magnificent tree in which this sign was carved wasn’t felled for this purpose.

The Arthur River from Sumac Lookout as it cascades its way through thick rainforest wilderness.

Onward to Julius River to do the sinkhole walk through lush rainforest, coming across several sinkholes.

Further along the Drive a 30 minute walk through tall trees and ‘man ferns’ brought us to the large and very pretty flooded limestone sinkhole that is Lake Chisholm.

Dempster Plains provided a very different outlook with expansive views over buttongrass plains. An information board explained how for thousands of years the Tasmanian Aborigines created these plains by burning back forest. Wallaby, wombats, bandicoots, possums, lizards and emus would be flushed out by the flames where they could be easily hunted. As the button grass regrew the animals would be attracted back to the fresh flush of growth making the hunting grounds a continual and reliable food source for both people and animals. This process is called fire stick farming.

Another pretty sinkhole alongside the road was next on our tour before we reached the end of the Drive and the pièce de résistance – Trowutta Arch. A short walk brought us to the stone arch which remains after a cave collapse and the creation of two sinkholes, one on either side of it. One sinkhole is dry, the other with steep sides is 20 metres deep and water-filled. It’s a stunning and rare geological creation.

Looking under the Arch towards the flooded sinkhole

Looking under the arch towards the dry sinkhole.

Returning to our southerly drive down the west coast we joined the unsealed Western Explorer drive and found a place to pull up for the night just north of the Lindsay River bridge. A big day today – a quiet restful night anticipated.

Friday 23rd Feb:

Our route south is variously known as the C249, the Western Explorer Road or the “road to nowhere”. This remote, 120km, unsealed, white dirt road winds it’s way through beautiful thick forests, across button grass plains, around the edges of mountains or up and over those mountains as it crosses the Tarkine Wilderness – the last known home of the Tasmanian Tiger.

Driving The Western Explorer on a misty, rainy day. Can I see a Tassie tiger there?

Shallow mountain streams with their rapids and beautiful big rivers are crossed on this journey to Corinna. Corinna is an old mining and pining town – gold for the mining and Huon pine for the pining. Today there’s just a few houses remaining and an attractive pub that sells meals and tickets for the barge.

To continue south one must cross the Pieman River and the only way across is on the Fatman Barge. This barge is weight and length restricted – a car and caravan is too long. One Explorer at a time fits well!

On the Fatman Barge crossing the Pieman River

The beautiful thick forest continued – such a stunning drive. We passed quite a few stands of bee hives on both the Tarkine Drive and the Western Explorer. The honey made from these wilderness trees is usually manuka or leatherwood or a combination of blooming wilderness trees and shrubs.

Bee hives nestled into the Tarkine wilderness rainforest. Good idea not to stop near them – can you make out the thousands of bees buzzing around?

Tonight we’re staying at McIntosh Dam to camp in the muddy car park with no view of the dam – what a letdown after the last few days of superb travels and campsites.

Saturday 24th Feb:

Our major plan for the day involves walking to Montezuma Falls. These falls are Tasmania’s highest with a drop of 104 metres. To reach the falls is an 11km return walk along the old tramway through a beautiful rainforest of myrtle, sassafras and leatherwood trees and tree ferns (called man ferns in Tas).

Old sleepers from the tramway still forming part of the path.

The tramway was constructed on a 2 foot wide gauge in 1897 to carry passengers and ore from the mines to be smeltered in Zeehan. From here it went to Germany to be used in weapons production. This export ceased when war broke out in 1914 and the line was used infrequently until 1932 when it was finally abandoned.

An old wooden tramway bridge crossing a small creek.

Sunday 25th Feb:

Henty Dunes. These 30m high dunes run for 15km along the coastline and are whipped ever upwards by the winds crossing the Indian Ocean.

In Strahan and a wander along the waterfront revealed lovely old buildings, fishing boats at the dock and a cafe serving great coffee.

Steve, Dick and I enjoying Strahan waterfront.

The fragrance of Huon pine drew us into Morrison’s Mill and gift shop – such a beautiful timber. Huon pine is endemic to Tasmania and found mostly in the west and south-west of the State. It’s a very, very slow growing and long-lived tree – some trees have been dated to 3,000 years old. It’s a valuable timber not just for its rich buttery yellow colour and fragrance, but also because it is insect resistant and decays very slowly making it ideal for ship building and fine furniture-making. Due to logging, mining, inundation (dam building) and fires this tree is under threat. All living Huon pines are now protected and retrieval of fallen pines is carefully regulated.

Tonight we celebrated Steve’s and Dick’s birthdays at View 42° restaurant. (Any excuse!)

Monday 26th Feb

A quiet day catching up on admin and housework for Steve and I while Pat and Dick did the Gordon River cruise. This evening we all attended the play “The ship that never was”. It was based on true events, but was such fun. Two actors and lots of audience participation. Well worthwhile.

The play – two actors, and lots of audience participation.

Tuesday 27th Feb:

Distances between places in Tasmania are surprisingly short for we Queenslanders used to travelling a few hundred km between towns. Leaving Strahan it was only 42km to Queenstown. However what Tasmanians do very well is windy, steep, mountainous roads through rainforest.

We soon lost the rainforest as we entered the previously completely denuded mountains around Queenstown. Copper smelting polluting the air and the rivers, and logging to keep those smelters going created a desolate moonscape. On a previous visit here many years ago, we saw they were trying to re-establish the trees – those saplings are now trees and have covered some of the hills.

A pretty town surrounded by green hills today … but not in every direction.

Not so much forest here. Steve points out the cycle track he raced on back in 1971.

The Queen River in the centre of town. After 100 years of mine runoff this river is considered the most polluted in Australia.

Queenstown has some historical buildings of note and a very good miners memorial.

Miners Memorial. These stepping stones form a path up to a fountain which trickles water past them. It’s excellent and tells the story of mining in Queenstown.

Tasmania is setting itself up as a perfect destination for the mountain biking tourist. Just outside Queenstown are several of these death-defying trails cut into the mountainside.

This is the path back from Horsetail Falls, about 5km out of Queenstown. It appears I was more impressed with the walkway than the falls – no pics of falls.

Lake King William was tonight’s campsite! If Queenstown was the moon, this was Mars! The water levels were very low.

Wednesday 28th Feb:

We’re heading east now to The Wall in the Wilderness at Derwent Bridge, which is in Tasmania’s Central Highlands. This extraordinary sculptural masterpiece by Greg Duncan was begun in 2005. The Wall is 3 meters x 50 metres, double-sided Huon pine with panels that illustrate the history of the Central Highlands from indigenous times to the present. The life-like finish to all the pieces is extraordinary. No trip to Tasmania is complete if you miss The Wall.

The detail is extraordinary and seeing the whole 100m is awe-inspiring.
No photography allowed, therefore this is a stock photo from Discover Tasmania.

Tarraleah, our campsite tonight, owes its existence to the hydroelectric power company.

Huge pipes bringing water to the hydroelectric plant and lots of power lines taking the power away. Tarraleah

From the 1930’s to 2005 its residents were mostly hydro workers housed in company houses, as well as the mine executives luxurious lodge. About 20 years ago it was sold (yes, the whole town) and run as a camping and accommodation area, on a village scale. Last year it was bought back by hydro Tasmania who use the houses for their workers but maintain camping.

Some of the helicopters being used – and the ‘bucket’ used to scoop up water.

While we were there a bushfire was raging not too far away. There were 12 water-bombing helicopters working out of the oval nearby. The fire was brought under control and we found it quite interesting watching the process.

Thursday 29th Feb – Sunday 3rd March:

Today we farewell Pat and Dick as we start heading towards Port Arthur and they head north. Leaving Tarraleah we descended on windy roads for ages before finally reaching dairy and sheep country and the Derwent Valley to pull up for the night at New Norfolk. This historically charming town was founded by the settlers evacuated from Norfolk Island in the early 1800’s.

Friday we popped in to Hobart to buy some dehydrated meals for the upcoming hike.

Saturday we enjoyed our brunch overlooking Eaglehawk Neck and the bay, then wandered up to the coffee van for a delicious coffee with even better views.

The view through the back windows. Eaglehawk Neck

Coffees from the coffee van. The view is only marginally better than from Harvey.

Parker’s Beach campsite, was delightfully quiet last night – us and one other. The beach is lovely, with amazing sandstone cliffs being eroded quite sculpturally.

Today it’s been strong wind warnings and showers all day – gale force winds most of the time, with temps in the single digits and ‘feels like” values only just staying above the negative, until evening when it could hold up no longer.

Being confined to the motorhome we made good use of our time finalising our packs for the big walk tomorrow, and watching movies.