by MoyJos | Jul 5, 2005 | Tasmania
Another big sleep in and we were on the road at 9:00am. Heading into Zeehan we stopped at the Heritage Mining Museum. This was a very good display of the history of Zeehan and its surrounds in its mining heyday. Back on the road and the naviguessor got it wrong!!
We realised we were on the wrong road after about 5 mins, turned around and back to Zeehan to start again. On the right road and off the Cradle Mountain via Rosebery. Stopped at Rosebery for Devonshire teas (Yum) Rosebery and its surrounds is a tin mine and at one time was the largest tin mine in the world. There are mine tours that go every day at 12:30. The lady at Rosebery said we might see snow at Cradle Mountain so off we went.
The road inside the Cradle Mountain National Park was, in a word, HORRIBLE. 7.5kms of narrow, windy and just plain scary. The surface was good, kind of a well-packed, smooth gravel. We supposed that this was to stop cars slipping in the snow and ice. For the most part, the road was 1½ lanes wide, so if another car came you both slowed right down and pulled over to the left.
We got to Cradle Mountain at about 1:00 and there was no snow :(. We had a very good view of the mountain and Dove Lake. There was a little bit of cloud over the summit but generally, it could not have been better. We really were lucky. We did two 600m walks to see the mountain. Around the left side of Dove Lake, the path goes to Glacier Rock. A lady we were talking to, said she had been here 5 times and this was by far the best day she had seen. The right side of the lake takes you to the boat shed and another good view of the mountain and the lake. (This is the most common postcard view). The walk to Glacier Rock was quite cold as there was a good stiff breeze blowing. We needed our gloves, scarf and beanie, but then had to take it all off for the Boatshed walk as it was much more protected and out of the wind.
After Cradle Mountain, we headed further north to Wynyard. (Arrived Wynyard at about 4:00pm) This took us through varied countryside, finally opening up to the rolling fields behind Wynyard. Wynyard is a coastal town and their motto is “where the green meets the blue” and this is exactly what it does. Farmland where we saw cattle, sheep and pigs only about 10kms from the ocean. The beach at Wynyard is a nice beach but had a fair bit of weed washed up on it.
We found a Woolworths, bought some shopping and booked into Leisureville Holiday Centre for the night. www.leisureville.com.au
Temps: Zeehan: 10ºc – 7:30am
Cradle
Mountain: 10ºc – 1:50pm
Wynyard:
14ºc – 7:30pm
Weather Fine all day with light
cloud cover.
Travel Zeehan to Cradle Mountain 108km
Cradle Mountain to Wynyard 130kms
by MoyJos | Jul 4, 2005 | Tasmania
Day 3: Strahan (Gordon River cruise) to Zeehan
We had a big sleep-in today (6:00pm!!) Had breakfast and showers at the amenities block and “hit the road”. We drove into the township of Strahan at about 8:00 in time to work out where to park the van and bought our tickets for the full-day tour up the Gordon River. www.worldheritagecruises.com.au
WOW!!! What a fantastic day!!! Well worth the $73.50 each (including all you can eat buffet lunch) We left Strahan Harbour at 9:00am and cruised out to Hells Gate, then past the ocean trout and salmon fish farms. The captain pulled the boat up close and we watched the fisherman harvest the trout from large nets, here they were stunned with “beer gas” (food grade co2) before being blooded and packed ready for transport to the fish processing plant in Strahan. From the fish farm, we travelled up to Sarah Island.
We disembarked for a fantastic 1 hour tour of the island ruins, brought to life by a terrific guide who told the story of the settlement. Back on board, lunch was served while we travelled further upstream to “Heritage Landing”. Here we left again for a 30 minute walk through the forest to see the world heritage rainforest (complete with a large fallen Huon pine). Back on board and it was back to Strahan.
The boat brought us back to a
working timber mill at Strahan harbour. Here we were shown how the large Huon
logs were sawn with a 100 year old vertical frame saw which originally cut
slabs for the settlement.
Back in the van we headed to Zeehan (46kms) Booked in to the Treasure Island Caravan Park ($18). Tomorrow we are off to Cradle Mountain.
Temps: Strahan 4:00pm 12ºC
Zeehan
9:00pm 10ºC
Weather: Fine with light cloud
cover. No rain the whole time on the boat. Very light wind.
Travel Strahan to Zeehan 37kms
by MoyJos | Jul 3, 2005 | Tasmania
Had a good night’s sleep for the
first night. The van bed was nice and cosy and not cold at all. I woke up at some stage through the night
because the wind was very strong and was rocking the van. Mick slept soundly so
I figured we must have been more stable than I thought. Got up and had breakfast about 6:00am. Had a
lovely hot shower in the ensuite, complete with heat lamps in the ceiling. Very
luxurious!! Watched the sun come up at about 7:30am. We headed out of the chalets right on 9:00
and headed west.
The first town after the chalets
was Gretna. This is a tiny little town. There was a nice little camp/picnic
area with BBQ’s and toilets. It would make a lovely overnight stop.
A little further on we came to the town of Hamilton. This is a historic town with a heritage walking trail around the town. (We did not do this as we wanted to finish in Strahan tonight.) Just out of Hamilton was another good spot to camp with toilets and BBQ’s and a large area to park. Onward to Ouse which was a dot of a town!!
Further west and the next stop was Tarraleah. This is the Hydro-Electric power station. The water comes from all over the western highlands and is funnelled through lots of pipes and generates power for Tasmania and also sends power into the mainland grid via “Basslink”, a cable under Bass Strait to the mainland. According to the info boards, every cup of water has run through 8 power stations generating power before it is drinking water. A busy cuppa!!! We stopped at the Tarraleah lookout and then headed down the hill to the power station. There was a really nice picnic/camp area. It had a large BBQ shed with an open fireplace and toilets, overlooking the river. We saw a 4WD and Caravan with Qld plates so, of course, we had to talk to them. They we a nice couple from Durack. We caught up with them a couple of times throughout the day.
The next stop was the town of Derwent Bridge and the Lake St Clair Forestry Centre. Here we were able to buy our holiday park pass. ($50 for 2 months) The forestry centre was quite interesting with a lot of information on the work Tasparks does and information on the Lake itself. Lake St Clair is the deepest lake in Australia with a max depth of 167m. We stopped for lunch and a cuppa in the van, complete with a VERY friendly crow, who was not at all shy, coming into the van to ask for food, before heading further west towards Queenstown.
This stretch was the first of our “wilderness” drives. Quite windy and hilly but nothing too drastic until about 10 before Queenstown. Oh boy!! What a road!!! VERY steep and windy. (We could do no more than 20kph most of the way) Queenstown is a mining town, the main street had monuments to various mining pursuits. We filled the van with fuel and kept on to Strahan. The road from Queenstown to Strahan was a good road and we made the 41km journey in about 45 minutes.
We arrived in Strahan at about 4:30pm and headed to the Esplanade to book our Gordon River cruise for the next day before heading to the Strahan Caravan and Tourist Park and booking a powered site for $20. Today was our one “big” driving day, we now have much less driving each day, but much more to see and do.
PS: Worked out on day 3 that you
should NOT travel clockwise around Tasmania…If you travel counter-clockwise,
you would only go UP the horrible Queenstown road, not DOWN it.
Temps Lake St Clair 1:30pm 9ºc
Strahan
5:40pm 11ºc
Weather: Overcast with a few
drizzles. Light rain through the rainforest section on the drive. Rain as we
approached Queenstown. No much wind today.
Travel Heimat to Derwent Bridge 87km
Derwent
Bridge to Queenstown 114km
Queenstown to Strahan 41km
by MoyJos | Jul 2, 2005 | Tasmania
Day 1: Saturday July 2nd Dicky Beach to Hobart and New Norfolk.
Left Dicky Beach at 7:00am with
Graham our chauffeur from Quick Silver limousines. Driving to Brisbane, we
encountered VERY heavy fog. Planes were all delayed in and out of Brisbane
airport. Our plane was late arriving from Cairns and was 15 minutes late. We
left at 9:30am and arrived in Hobart at 12:00 The flight was able to make up a
lot of lost time as Captain Kerry said he had “the rubber bands wound as tight
as they could go!!”
Arriving in Hobart, we got off the plane down the stairs and made our way to the “shed” terminal. We were met by Tas quarantine officers but we had nothing to declare. Picking up our bags!!! What an experience! No high-tech luggage carousels here- NO!! The Virgin baggage handlers emptied the plane onto the trailers as usual and then…..they opened a big roller door in the terminal and simply drove the tractor-trailer into the terminal and invited everybody to collect their luggage. We made our way to the AutoRent-Hertz counter and collected our Motorhome. Wayne from Hertz was very helpful and took just on an hour to show us around the van and explain how to use all the gadgets. (TV, water pump, toilet, gas bottle etc) For the last 20 mins he sat us down in the dinette with our Hertz supplied map and showed us some suggested stopping places and attractions to visit. (I was congratulated on my preparations) Wayne suggested that, due to the current fine weather, we should head west today – so we did!!
Heading out of the airport, we
journeyed into Hobart on our way to New Norfolk. New Norfolk is about 30kms
west of Hobart. We had planned on staying at a caravan park here so we rang
Maxine at Heimat Chalets and booked an ensuite site for that night. Heimat
Chalets offer ensuite sites for $25p/n. These were lovely little huts, complete
with camp kitchen with hot and cold water.
We settled in at about 3:30pm, unpacked our bags and fully investigated
the van. We had shopped at Woolies in
New Norfolk and bought the basics (milk, bread, butter, steak and red wine!!)
At 6:00 Mick cooked us a lovely dinner and we had a most enjoyable evening of
steak, veges and a glass (or 4 ) of wine.
www.heimatchalets.com
Temps: Hobart on arrival: 12ºc
Heimat
4:14pm: 9ºc
Weather: Fine with just a light
cloud cover. Clouds rolled in in the afternoon. There was a decent breeze at
Heimat.
Travel Hobart to New Norfolk 37km
New Norfolk to Heimat – about 10km
