First things first. I need to do my duty as a Brit and have a moan about the weather.
The west coast of Tasmania really did live up to the warnings that I received before going there, and was pretty unfriendly. The other duty which I successfully completed as a tourist was to be terribly unprepared. Shorts, t-shirts and a less than waterproof tent pretty much saw to that one.
Of course, with the weather being the way it was, I didn't stop too often to take pictures, preffering to battle on against the wind and rain.
There, that's the moaning out of the way, so now I can tell you about all the great times I've had. To do that, we need to go back to December the 23rd and Hobart...
After breakfast I took a boat trip around the harbour, and in the afternoon I took a tour of the rivulet which runs below the city, all the way from Mt Wellington to the river Derwent.
On Christmas eve I took a trip with a trainee vet from New York who I met at the hostel, called Erik. We went to the base of Mt Wellington and the Cascade brewery, which utilizes the mountain's fresh water before it reaches the city. Afterward, Erik and I hiked up the mountain.
Christmas day seemed like a good time to make a move, so I headed north to Russell falls and Lady Barron falls in the Mount Field national park. That evening I camped beside meadowbank lake.
Boxing day was a tough one, and after an entire day of climbing 950 metres above sea level to a place called Derwent Bridge, I took a break. The intention had been to carry on only another 6km to a place called Lake St Clair. I would have made it easily, but the only place to stop and take a break was a country pub. Three pints later, and I could've been talked into anything, so the barman had no trouble in convincing me to stop at the pub for the night.
The 27th was another fun filled and action packed day. I backtracked 1km to visit a beautiful wooden sculpture called 'the wall in the wilderness'. It's carved from three metre high slabs of pine and tells about the history of life in the central highlands of Tasmania. The artists name is Greg Duncan. He's a very talented man, but ultimately is a man like any other in that his projects become 'ongoing'. The wall isn't finished yet some four years after he started, but so far so good! I wasn't allowed to take pictures though. Boo!
From there I carried on the ride to Lake St Clair, which was just mind bogglingly beautiful and offered lots of hiking opporunities, so I decided to stay. By the time I got there, it was about 11am. Plenty of time for a short walk before lunch, and then time to tackle the supposed 7 hour hike up to and around the peak of Mt Rufus.
It was 3:30 when I started up the mountain, figuring that the 7 hour allowance was taking tourist speed into account and I'd be fine. I was a bit nervous on the way back down when I found the 3 hours to go sign.. The sun was getting pretty low, so the final stretch ended up being a kind of half run, but every now and then and root or fallen branch would slither out of the way and into the foliage. Imagine a kind of tentative anxious type of half run, with me hoping to not get bitten on the ankle for stepping on a tail.
After Lake St Clair came queenstown which was a bit of a ghost town. It was prosperous in the 1900's as a mining town. The surrounding hills have been stripped of vegetation by decades of mining exhaust fumes. I was reminded of a wild west movie.
From there I went to a place called Zeehan, which sounds like something from a Buck Rogers story to me. It was actually the name of the ship belonging to Dutch seaman Abel Tasman who claimed the west coast as his discovery.
The following few days were spent doing battle with the elements and only stopping to eat or sleep. There is a trail of empty cafes all around Tasmania to prove it.
New years eve was spent at Cradle mountain, which was beautiful, but cold and wet. So by 9:30 I was tucked up in bed with a trashy romance novel. Pretty wild new year's eve eh?!
And now, finally I'm back in melbourne. Going to stay here for the week and wait for Pete to show up, so we can do some coffee drinking, cake eating and chatting before heading off on the next stage of the adventure!
The details of the adventure as always, are with the pictures. Hope you enjoy them.
I hope you all had a great Christmas and a fun new year to make up for my rather tame one.
Love.
