Archive for the ‘Tasmania’ Category
July 5th, 2006 | 
Author: Having finally found somewhere to spend the previous night we headed back the way we’d come, to the turn off for the Tahune Airwalk. It’s a surprisingly long way down the C631 to the airwalk itself. On the drive through you pass numerous signs which say that a given part of the forest was logged on a certain date but is now being rehabilitated. This is the home country of Huon Pine and I guess is a much sought after commodity.
The Tahune Airwalk is located, not that it will be much of a surprise, in the Tahune Forest Reserve. The airwalk itself is basically a huge metal gantry which straddles huge metal towers that hold the walkway about 40 metres above the ground. It’s a very impressive structure which gives you a unique view of the forest. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 
I had to include this as a separate article because this turned out to be an adventure in its own right.
We had done well and got the ferry back over to the mainland of Tasmania by about 4pm to 4.30pm, can’t recall exactly. However, what I do recall was thinking that it would only be a short drive down around the coastline from Kettering to a place called Cygnet to find a place to pitch up. The idea was to work our way around the island in the general direction of the Tahune Forest Reserve where we wanted to do the air walk the following day. Read the rest of this entry »
The following morning we made breakfast and managed to attract a range of wildlife, all of which were a bit partial to weetbix (the Australian version of Weetabix). We were surrounded by ducks, birds and a white albino wallaby.
Apparently, the white wallbies were intentionally bred by someone on the island. Given the small confiens of the island, the population of white wallabies exploded so that there are now loads which can be seen on the island. Read the rest of this entry »
In the morning we headed for Kettering where we would catch the ferry over to Bruny Island.
Bruny Island is effectively two islands really, connected by a huge sandspit called ‘The Neck’. There aren’t any campervan sites on the northern part of Bruny although there are a couple of accomodation sites shown on the map. As a result we headed down right via the north island into the south, across the neck and onto Adventure Bay. There were two main caravan parks in Adventure Bay and we found the furthest one ‘Adventure Bay Holiday Village Caravan Park’ to be the best choice. They had good facilities and hot showers which were nice and the location was lovely. Once we arrived we didn’t waste any time and set off on one of the closest walks which was on our doorstep called ‘Grass Point’. Read the rest of this entry »
The following morning we drove to Sheffield via Railton and on to Cradle Mountain. It was quite chilly at the foot of Cradle Mountain and the wind had really picked up.
As is commonly the case with the various national parks there are a number of walks which you can do. A map of the walks can be found at the Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre. Once again you could probably do two or three days here if you wanted to take in all of the walks, but we ended up only doing the most popular one the ‘Dove Lake Circuit’. Read the rest of this entry »
Having finished at the Bay of Fires we decided that we wanted to make in-roads in getting to Cradle Mountain. Launceston was a good halfway choice but we didn’t feel that we wanted to camp up on the roadside of a very built up town. Just southwest of Launceston is a town called Hadspen, which was only a short drive further so that was where we decided to head for to pitch up for the night.
It was quite late by the time we reached Hadspen, and we stopped to ask a couple for the nearest public toilet. They said that people quite often used a carpark area to pitch up next to a recreational ground where there were also toilet facilities so we drove a little further until we found the spot. We both thought at the time that it was perhaps a little remote, but as it had been recommended by locals we didn’t worry too much so we parked up for the night, made something to eat and went to sleep. It was about half past midnight when we were both awoken to the shouts and chanting of what sounded to me like a large group of youths. Unfortunately for us they were getting closer and closer and it wasn’t difficult to predict what was coming next. Read the rest of this entry »
In the morning we had some breakfast and made use of the public toilet facilities located in town. There was also a very good supermarket here which we used to stock up on supplies.
There is a penguin rookery here where you can do either guided or unguided tours to see the penguins. Unfortunately, the penguins spend daylight hours out at sea and only come in at dusk. As we weren’t going to spend another night in Bicheno this put paid to our penguin experience.
Just another 8km or 5 minutes drive from Bicheno there is a self-funded animal park called ‘East Coast Natureworld’. This turned out to be our first opportunity to get up close to Kangaroos and even feed them. The park also had birds, Tasmanian Devils (native to Tassie), Possums, Koalas, Wombats, various snakes, a white Wallaby and two injured Wedgetail Eagles. Read the rest of this entry »
Freycinet National Park is home to Tassie’s famous Wineglass Bay, and supports a wide range of walks which everyone can enjoy. If you like walking and spectacular views you could probably spend a few days here doing just that. For the most part, Wineglass Bay is the attraction most commonly known. We were told by a fellow traveller that its name was perhaps attributed to the despatching of whales which caused the sea to turn red. The bay itself forming an almost perfect semi-circular shape resembles the curves of what could be a wine glass. The red blooded waters of the bay were then said to make the bay look like a glass of red wine, hence the name. Even if this isn’t true and despite the macabre nature of whale hunting, this is perhaps an interesting explanation of how it came by its name. Read the rest of this entry »
Having spent our first night in a lay-by outside a cafe/general store our first stop was back at Port Arthur to make use of their toilet facilities and have breakfast in their car park. There was plenty of room, I’m sure they didn’t mind.
After breakfast we started to make our way up to Coles Bay along Tassie’s east coast. But before we left the Tasman Peninsula there were a few interesting coastal features to see just before you cross Eaglehawk Neck. These coastal features are known locally as the ‘Tasman Blow Hole’, ‘Tasman Arch’ and ‘Devil’s Kitchen’. Each of these coastal features were once sea caves, which were formed after the sea levels rose when the last ice age ended. Wave action from the sea eroded and undermined the siltstone cliffs. As this took place over hundreds of years the rock layers above which had been undermined then started to collapse causing vertical joints to appear. These were then further eroded by wave action causing more rocks to collapse. Eventually sea caves were formed which then gave rise to what we can see today. As it stands today the Blowhole still has most of its roof structure, the Arch has lost most of its roof leaving just an arch, hence the name, and the Devil’s Kitchen roof has completely fallen in. You can see each of these amongst the photo’s. Read the rest of this entry »
We often hear this expression back home and it is generally taken to mean someone who’s the boss, the governor, someone generally in charge or is someone who is good at their job and are therefore ‘Top Dog’. As mentioned in the brief history, Port Arthur was a major industrial center for timber, which obviously was a key resource during this period, being used for ship building etc. Read the rest of this entry »