Reflecting on our month in Tasmania

This was our Tasmanian journey. We would have
liked to make it to more of the west and north-east
coast, but there were almost no sealed roads in
the areas on those coasts you see we didn't go. We
also would have preferred not to have to drive
on the same roads, but it was impossible to avoid, 
particularly in the middle (we drove the road from
Queenstown to Derwent Bridge twice) and in the
south-east (we drove through Hobart a few too 
many times).

Our long road trip was not yet over, but I'm pausing a moment to write about our month in Tasmania.

It was a fun destination. Tasmania is one of those places on a wishlist of most Australians (and many have been there). Though most people don't spend a month there driving around in their own vehicle, we encountered plenty who were there for a while in their caravans or motorhomes (it's expensive to get there, the ferry is the only way if you're driving your own vehicle). We were there long enough to see some of the lesser-known places, and that was fun. Like most road trips, though, there was always more we could have seen!

Tasmania is fun because there's so much to see in so little space. We met friends in Hobart who originally come from Queensland, but are confirmed Taswegians now (at least in their minds). They said, it's not that there is not lots of great things to see in the rest of Australia, but they are so far apart. I agree. You can drive a long way (like many, many hours, or even days) to see just one thing in other parts of Australia, whereas you can drive just an hour in Tassie and see many things. I think we kinda got used to it, but early on it felt like around every bend there was something new and amazing you could see.

Tasmania lived up to its reputation of being cold. And considering how far south it is, that isn't surprising—it's at a similar latitude to Hokkaido, which gets many metres of snow each winter. It's also a similar latitude to Boston and the southern tip of South America. It's significantly colder than Queensland, but not as cold as Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. In fact, looking at the weather graph, temperatures doesn't fluctuate anything like Tokyo or Canberra do. Tokyo gets much, much hotter and a bit colder than Hobart. Hobart is just generally cool most of the year. We were there in the April, the so-called second month of Autumn, but we were already often wearing more layers than we do in winter in Ipswich during the day (nights were similar to winter in Ipswich). Though it's worth noting that the van had no heating in the "house" part.

Roads are generally narrow and windy with very suspect edges. Most open road speed signs were more of a suggestion that we laughed at than anything we could realistically do in the motorhome (maybe it would have been possible on a motorbike?). 

Parts of the island look very foreign, especially the more remote ones, but other areas looked very Australian. I've added some photos from various parts of the state at the bottom of this post to compare.

We were surprised at how remote some areas were, despite it being a small island.  There are many places it's impossible to get to on a sealed road. Several of our campsite required us to drive on a dirt road. And, as I mentioned early on in my journey, there are places where it's hard to find medical care. But we were surprised that many small towns had decent grocery stores (many of them are regional centres). 

In writing this I had fun looking at size comparisons. Tasmania is smaller than Hokkaido, around the same size as Sri Lanka, twice as big as Taiwan, half the size of England, and slightly smaller than Scotland. It's about the same size as the US state of West Virginia. 

There is much to see for lovers of history, science (ecology, biology, botany, geology), adventure, and active holidays—mountain biking and hiking (remote and much more tame). There is less for those looking for shopping or high density areas. There are plenty of vineyards and open cellar doors. We saw lots of beaches, but not many were surfing beaches. And certainly, if you're a lover of hot weather, you probably would find this island a challenge, except in the middle of summer.

It's noteworthy that almost a quarter of the state is World Heritage listed, you can see it's the darker part of this map. Much of this area you can't drive into.

Our time in Tasmania was also driven by budget considerations. We carefully selected what we paid to do (river cruise, a handful of museums, etc.) and spent most of our time doing free things like walking. We used a combination of free, low-cost campsites and caravan parks to keep our costs low, the combination of these was driven by a limited amount of water we could carry onboard and the shower in the motorhome, which isn't great. We also ate the vast majority of our meals in the motorhome. Usually our morning routine included me making a coffee-to-go to save on the cost of buying one in the afternoon. Probably our biggest expense was getting there and the petrol to get around. (Borrowing a motorhome rent-free was a huge saving, and one for which we are very grateful to my parents for.)

Below is a selection of about 20 photos (the slide show you may or may not want to see). They are mostly showcasing the Tasmanian countryside that we saw.

An unusually straight road! I was often
driving the really curly ones, so didn't
get many photos of them.

The dilemma that was evident time and time
again as we read the history of this state.

Did not expect to see sand dunes!

Something we saw many times was clear
water like this.

A dairy farm. There's plenty of agriculture in Tasmania.
Dairy, vineyards, sheep, and beef were the chief ones we saw.
So many sheep!

We camped on this very bleak beach on a misty, cold day. It was 
probably the eeriest place we visited.

Day 51: Greens Beach to Devonport to the ferry

More beautiful Tasmanian water: Bass Straight

On our last day in Tasmania we drove east as far as we could at Greens Beach (not far), parked, and walked on the Beach. Then we drove to the end of the road in the nearby Narawntapu National Park, out to the west of where we’d slept. From there we walked a short way out to a lookout on the coast, overlooking Badger Beach. Another gorgeous beach, but we didn’t feel the need to walk on it too!

Badger Beach

We then took off for our final destination in Tasmania, the place it had all begun: Devonport. We had a lunch date there with a mutual friend from our uni days, someone we hadn’t seen since the mid 90s. She was on her lunch break, so it was a fast and furious, yet good catch up.

Final beach walk in Tassie: Greens Beach

Then we still had hours to kill because the ferry was scheduled to depart around sunset. We filled up with petrol, encountering the only petrol station on our entire journey with a roof too low for our 3.25 m high home-on-wheels. We were problem solving this very thing when one of the staff (or owner?) ran out and told us about the roof (several vehicles had run into it in recent times).

Then we headed to a familiar-type destination: a seaside park with free parking. We were not the only ones doing this: several other motorhomes came and went during our hours there. We went for a short walk out onto a jetty, admiring a final seaside view, before we headed to the ferry.

Looking across the mouth of the Tamar River to
Low Point where we stayed earlier in our journey.

While we waited in a car park-shaped line to board the ferry we watched the sun go down and listened to the audio book we had only a few “pages” left to finish. It was a nice ending to our time in Tassie.

Our final Tasmanian sunset: over Devonport

Driving onto ferries is interesting in a tall vehicle. We, along with others our height, squeezed between the lower deck, the side of the ship, and a movable deck on our right. It was tight. The vehicle ahead of us nearly stripped the top right side of his van by veering too far away from the side of the ship and into the deck that was lower than the top of his vehicle (and ours). When you’re used to driving a car you don’t easily think about where the top of your vehicle is located in space.

Mersey River, Devonport

Then we packed our bags quickly in the dim lighting of the bowels of the ferry and headed upstairs to our cabin for the night. We enjoyed a similar meal to the one on the way over: a pie and salad followed by ice cream, all bought from a little shop that reminded us of Japanese convenience stores.

If you enlarge you can see our motorhome and
in the distance is the ferry we would later board.

We hadn’t had a quiet day for over 10 days by this point, so were very tired. In the latter part of our journey it was common for us to go to bed around 8.30, lights out by around 9.30. Part of that was fatigue, but also cold in our unheated van. We sat out in the quiet reading room for a while until the ferry felt cool. I wonder if someone turned the air con down to encourage people to retreat to their cabins for the overnight journey? We slept well, if a bit short, due to being awoken early for disembarking the next morning.

Reading room on ferry

Day 50: Oatlands to Greens Beach

We continued our journey north this day, heading all the way to the north coast (Tasmania is so small, especially when you drive the straight, fast road up the middle).

We got to Launceston by mid morning. This is the second largest city of the state, with a population of about 91,000 (Or is it 71,000? I found two different figures!). Another of the "one of the oldest cities in Australia", it was settled in 1806 and was second in Australia to be declared a city after Hobart in 1889. (Correction: this is not true. Maybe second in Tasmania, but not Australia.)

We headed for the famous Cataract Gorge and spent an hour or so exploring. I'd been there as a kid and thought it was much further from town than it was, but it's practically inner city!

One of the first things that struck me was, in the middle of the gorge, the blue rectangular swimming pool surrounded by a bright green, mowed lawn. That seemed quite odd after the national parks we've been to where the priority was on preserving the natural state of things as well as possible, this looked very unnatural. Hence I don't have a photo of it!

But as we walked around and read the signs we realised that this area was an example of what people (largely from the UK) thought was beautiful in the latter part of the1800s and how they did recreation—that involved tea parties on the lawn, band rotundas, walkways, shelters, and lookouts. Still, it was a beautiful, peaceful place to wander around, though we hadn't allowed time to do the longer walks.

After lunch we drove north up the western side of the Tamar River (earlier in the month we'd driven across Batman Bridge about halfway up the river and stayed over on the east side of the river, near the mouth at Low Head). The Tamar is a very wide, shallow river for most of its journey, so there are almost no bridges over it! We drove almost to the "end of the road" for our last night on the island, at a caravan park across the road from Bass Straight.

But on our way there we stopped at Beauty Point to see Platypus House. Ironically I don't have any photos of the five platypuses there, just the echidnas that they also house! It's a rescue facility, and they haven't had any success with breeding platypuses, though the echidnas have produced a baby in the last year. We had a 45 minute personal tour (no one else showed up for the last tour of the day), so got to ask lots of questions. In the echidna room we got to get up close and personal with them (they could touch us, but we were asked not to touch them). The baby kept investigating our shoes! 

Echidnas and platypuses are the only monotremes in the world: that is, mammals who lay eggs. There is not much else they have in common, but it was cool to see them so close. Platypuses are very difficult to spot in the wild, though David thinks he might have seen one playing in a stream earlier in the month.

Yes, it was our last night on the island and wasn't a particularly remarkable evening. We still had more to do the next day, but the time is nearly here for me to reflect on the Tasmanian leg of our two month journey (along with a map we compiled of the journey)!

Day 49: Hobart to Oatlands

This is the day that we really turned our sights north. With only three nights left before our boat ride back to the mainland we headed north out of Hobart. Our first stop was at another famous historical site, one that I saw back in the '80s. 

Richmond gaol

Richmond was a early settlement in Tasmania and has many sandstone buildings, including a famous bridge and gaol. The gaol was built over a period of 1825 to 1840. It's quite small compared to sites like Port Arthur and Cascades, it seems to be more of a place that prisoners stayed on their journeys between places. But also a base for convict work gangs building public buildings and infrastructure. They claim it's Australia's oldest intact gaol but I've seen different wording on that (careless writing, possibly)

After the gaol we did a little bit more souvenir shopping (I found a pair of Tasmanian earrings and bought them from the artist, she even made a change on them at my request before I bought them). We ate lunch in a free carpark and headed north again.

Our destination for the night was a free free camp in Oatlands, beside a lake. This historical town has more than 150 sandstone buildings, including a fully restored flour mill built in 1837. It is now the only operating mill of its kind in the southern hemisphere. It is the third oldest windmill in the continent which makes it one of Tasmania's major tourist attractions. We didn't book a tour, but instead walked around Oatlands looking at the various buildings (many of which had informative signs out front of them). We also stopped at an old building that now houses a coffee shop.

Keep scrolling for more photos and information about Oatlands.

This is one example of the buildings in Oatlands.
The sign says: 'Elm Cottage'. Built c. 1837 by
Joseph McEwan, then publican of Invary Castle 
(Kentish Hotel), probably for his impending retirement.
In the1840s 'The Elm' was rented to john Ryan who provided
lodging for Kevin Izod O'Doherty, one of the five Irish 
political prisoners sent to Van Diemens Land in 1848.
Devout Catholics, the Ryans often hosted Mass
in this cottage prior to the building of St Paul's church.
In 1850, Father Keohan stayed with the Ryans whilst awaiting the
completion of the Presbytery. Later in the 19th Century, it was
called 'Prospect Cottage' when Mrs McRa and her sister Harriet Jones
ran a girl's school from these premises, offering private lessons
in music, French, and drawing. It also served briefly as a branch
of the Union Bank. For most of the 20th century, it was the family home
of Eva Burrill. The cottage takes its name from two English elms
once planted in the front yard.

This was the lake we spent the night next to. It isn't
very picturesque, but is apparently a valuable conservation area.
Also the location where they mined a lot of the sandstone for the
town's many buildings.

Parked by the lake.

Day 48: Copping to Hobart

Neither of us enjoy cities much, and so we don't hanker after most of the tourism opportunities available there. However we do make exceptions. This day we spent in Hobart, seeing a couple of sights and doing a little bit of souvenir hunting.

Our first stop was at the Cascades Female Factory. It's a historic site in Hobart where approximately 7,000 female convicts were incarcerated between 1828 and 1856. There isn't much left of the sandstone buildings, but we were able to walk through an audio tour inside the walls that gave us a good idea of the site and the lives of the ladies who passed through here. In it's current form this site has only been open to the public for two years.

Inside the walls of one portion of the Cascades
Female Factory (not sure why "factory")

It truly was a miserable, sad place in the 1800s. The conditions were harsh and many (including their very young children) didn't survive to see freedom again. 

This is part of a multi-campus Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Property (one of 11 across Australia). As we looked at this place and the cruise we did on the west coast, it's clear to see the powers in charge were struggling to know how to deal with crime and poverty. Many had been sent to Australia for very small crimes (stealing clothing or a loaf of bread, for example). The general policy at the time seemed to be to treat offenders harshly and trust that the convicts would see the errors of their ways and reform themselves, if they didn't the punishments got harsher and harsher. This, of course, had mixed results.

Looking towards the Derwent River and
Tasman Bridge

We ate lunch parked in the street outside the site and then proceeded to inner city areas to try to find a park for our large vehicle. We ended up finding a good spot near the Botanical Gardens that only cost us $3. It was a bit of a hike into the main centre, but good exercise! We walked near a dock area where the bright red Australian government's Antarctic exploration ship was docked.

Inside the hut replica

Our destination was the Mawson’s Hut replica. It's a little hut with a huge amount of information about Antarctica, especially in the early 1900s. The original hut was built by a team lead by Australian Douglas Mawson in early 1900s. They spent two winters living in this hut (at the windiest place recorded on the planet), exploring and doing scientific discovery. The hut is still in existence in Antarctica, but obviously most people can't visit it, so this replica has been build in Hobart to educate people, but also to raise money as they seek to conserve the original. We spent a fascinating couple of hours reading the many signs and posters there, and talking to the two ladies on duty at the time. It was amazing to explore this world, having lived through four winters in the harsh environment of Hokkaido, where temperatures barely make it above zero for several months of the year. We lived there in relative luxury, compared to this team! 

This replica is only 11 years old. The last time I really was a tourist in Tasmania was when I was 10 years old, in the '80s. It's been interesting to note what we were able to see this time that my family couldn't have seen back then!

After these two historical adventures we went hunting for coffee (for me) and souvenirs. It was about 3 in the afternoon and we had discovered that once it hit that time, many tourist things in Tassie start to close at this time of the year. But we were tired, too, so then we walked back to our van and drove to our lodgings for the night.

This was an extension of the surprises of the weekend. We stayed the night with our new friend (that we'd first met the day before at church, but knew of her before that through David's cousin), her son, and mother. They fed us dinner and we had an entertaining evening playing the game Sequence with them. This was our third night in a row in a house and it was a nice break from our little box-on-wheels.

Day 47: Copping with family

This Sunday we didn't drive anywhere, we barely set foot in the motorhome! I also took very few photos.

After breakfast we set off on foot for Copping Christian Fellowship and enjoyed a few hours with them: two hours of worship, then a couple of hours of chatting and eating afterwards. It was their monthly shared lunch and in typical country fashion put on a huge spread! A friend of David's cousin invited us and it was a delight to meet her and her son, so much so that we ended up staying with them in Hobart a couple of days later . . . but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Sunset from the property

Just like the previous Sunday, we worshipped in a style that's a little different to our usual, but it was good, nonetheless. Their sheer friendliness and amazing welcoming style was very special. They were interested enough in us for several of them to find out that we are missionaries in Japan (not something we tell everyone we meet).

Our our way back up to our lodging, we stopped by David's aunt and uncle's place (they all live on one large property, but in separate houses). I'd never met his uncle and can't remember that I had actually met his aunt. Even though we'd just had a large lunch, we stopped for afternoon tea and cake!

After that we returned to our room and chatted for a little while with our sons, as is our usual habit on a Sunday afternoon. The difference while we're travelling is that our guys are using our house in Ipswich as a meeting spot for a few hours and we call them there. It's a little odd, but works. Unfortunately we haven't had much luck at getting WiFi on a Sunday, so our chats have often been short, without the usual playing of games.

We ate dinner with David's cousin and his partner, who we'd just met. Turns out she grew up in Toowoomba, just like me, and later on had studied in a similar field to me, so we had quite a bit in common to fuel conversation. 

It was lovely to spend the day out of the motorhome in real, solid buildings. And dare I mention showering in a shower in a private home?

Overall it was a delightful weekend. Enjoying the hospitality of strangers or distant relatives we hardly know always makes me feel a little nervous beforehand, but it worked out well and I'm thankful for this time to connect with three people David knew fairly well as a child.

Day 46: Mt Field National Park to Copping

One advantage of a free camp is that they don’t regulate your arrival or departure times like caravan parks do (though I still don't understand why a four-hour gap between departures and arrivals is needed at a caravan park). We stayed till after lunch at Mount Field National Park. That gave us a rest morning, a rare thing. It was time to take in the visitors centre. Time for me to catch up a little on blogging. And the ability to make our own hot chicken rolls for lunch...yum!

This was a beautiful campsite,
the tall trees of the national park
were clearly in evidence here.

Strangely, during our time in southern Tasmania, we went through the town of Sorell four times. We stopped at the pictured grocery store three of the four times and stayed one night at their RV stop on the other visit. Organising our route for our month in the state wasn’t easy, because there are hardly any roads on the west, south-west, or north-east coasts, there’s no one way or easy loop to take to see Tasmania, so against our inclinations, we had to double back on some roads. This day, though was easy, as we were travelling in areas that have been long settled.

The view from our lodgings this night.

Our goal was David's cousin's place. He and David grew up near each other in Central Queensland, but we haven't seen him since our wedding over 25 years ago. A lot of water has gone under the proverbial bridge since then! There was much to catch up on. We stayed two nights in his guest room. It was the first time since Bega on Good Friday that we'd stayed in a real bed in a house.