Epic Trip to Australia
- lisaluger
- Dec 13, 2024
- 98 min read
Updated: Mar 6
Dear Readers,
We could not update our travel blog during our travels because of technical issues and the internet. Now we are back home and have updated and completed our blog in a new document called part 2.
As so often, we want to escape the wet and miserable winter in the UK and the annoyingly overly soppy Christmas festivities, seek the sun and the heat, and stay away from the madness of the world. This year, we decided on a faraway destination neither of us has ever been to before: Australia. We have given ourselves two months off to go on what we like to think of as an epic trip to the other side of the world. The plan is to leave on Christmas Eve and fly to Australia via Hong Kong. We will spend three days in Hong Kong. We then continue to Melbourne, where we will spend a further three days and celebrate the coming of the year 2025. On New Year's Day, we fly to Tasmania, where we will pick up our motorhome and set off to explore the island's beautiful nature, wildlife, and extraordinary history. (After all, many of the convicts sent from Britain in the 19th century to serve their sentences in Australia ended up here.) After that, we will fly back to Melbourne, pick up another campervan, and explore some of the State of Victoria's National Parks as we travel along the famous Great Ocean Road. We will then drive to New South Wales and the Blue Mountains before finishing in Sydney, where we will stay for our final three days. From there, we fly home via Hong Kong.
This is our rough plan, which I am sure we, or circumstances, will change. We shall wait and see where we end up and what we experience. Time will tell.
If you want, you can join us on our adventure by visiting this travel blog from time to time. Hopefully, you will enjoy our blog as, hopefully, we enjoy our travels.
Notice to our readers:
In order to safe luggage space we decided to take our iPads with us, rather than the bigger laptops. Unfortunately, the editing on our iPads isn’t fully compatible with the software of the blog. Therefore, to fully edit and upload the amount of pictures that we would love to show you, our readers, we will have to wait until we are back in London. Then you will be able to appreciate literally the fuller pictures of our travels. We apologise for this little hiccup but do our best with the photos we can upload.
If we cant’t get a decent internet for the rest of our trip, then we won't be able to upload any more texts and photos while we're on the road. Don't worry, we'll catch up on that as soon as we're back in London.
Tasmania travel 1.-31. January 2025
3.6 South Tasmania 24th to the 31st January 2025
Sorry guys for the delay in posting. But we were the last 6 days without internet in the South East of Australia. More about this later. Now back to our last days in Tasmania.
After a week on the east coast we continued our journey south to complete the circle of our Tasmanian trip. We passed by Maria Island, which is very popular with tourists because of its expressive landscape and wildlife and would have been well worth visiting. However, we can’t stop everywhere - and our time is running out.
Our next stop was Port Arthur.
Port Arthur is a historic site located on the Tasman Peninsula in Tasmania. It is renowned for its significance as a 19th-century penal settlement. Established in 1830, it served as a convict colony for hardened criminals and is now a UNESCO World Heritage-listed site, offering insights into Australia's colonial history. Visitors can explore the haunting ruins, including the penitentiary, guard tower, and church, as well as take guided tours to learn about the lives of convicts and the harsh conditions they endured. Port Arthur is a poignant reminder of Australia's convict past and a major tourist destination for those interested in the history of forced migration of convicts by the British Empire.
Port Arthur Convict Colony About 12.500 convicts served their sentences here between 1830 and 1877. Exhibits at the visitor centre highlight that Port Arthur was more than just a prison. It was home to convicts, military and civilians and their families. The militaries and civilian officers were tasked with security and administration of the settlement. The convicts worked in many industries and produced goods and services for local use and to be taken to Hobart to be sold. For example, convicts worked in wood workshops, making everything from broom handles to renowned boat building. In particular, the boat building at Port Arthur became a successful industry because of the low salaries the convicts received and their boat building skills. Other workshops included shoemakers and blacksmiths.
The site contained more than 30 historic buildings, many of them now ruins. Some were nicely renovated with beautiful gardens. These were mostly the sites where the military and civilian officers and their families had lived. Of the penitentiary only the outside walls remained, parts of the house was destroyed by a fire, others by neglect. Still one can see amongst the ruins the tiny cells where the convicts were held.
A 20 minute cruise showed visitors around the peninsula, giving them the opportunity to see Port Arthur from the sea but also to see the “Isle of Death”, the cemetery where convicts and soldiers and civilian workers were buried. Between 1833 and 1877 around 1199 people were buried at this settlement’s cemetery. The convicts did usually not get a gravestone.
Another island is “Point Puer”. This was the boys’ prison. It operated from 1834 - 1849 and was the first juvenile reformatory in the whole British Empire. The new idea was to separate young offenders from the older convicts, to protect them from criminal influence of the older and hardened convicts. Most
of the boys were aged between 14 and 17, the youngest were just 9 years old. One needs to know that at that time the legal age for prosecution was seven. Point Puer was known for its strict discipline and harsh punishment. Many of the boys also received an education and some were given the opportunity of trade training, i.e. as wood worker, shoemaker or blacksmith.
The Penitentiary The hospital, of which only the outer walls were left, had two wings, housing six wards, a provision store, a kitchen with baking oven, a morgue and a waste collection room. Convicts and soldiers were treated on separate wards, while civilians and their families were usually treated at home. A plaque about Dr. Thomas Coke Brownell describes well the work of the physician at that time.
“When Dr. Brownell returned to Port Arthur for his second round of medical service in 1840, his family had grown to 11. He and Elizabeth, at that stage had nine children. This stint lasted 15 months and he described it as ‘arduous and extensive’. With more than 1000 convicts at Port Arthur, the doctor was also medically responsible for the 600 boys at Point Puer, 340 convicts working the Coal Mine, not to mention the military personnel, civilian officers and their families. In 1842, he recorded having treated over 13,000 cases.”
In more recent time the historical site became infamous for the ‘Port Arthur Massacre’, which refers to a tragic mass shooting that occurred on April 28–29, 1996, on the very site. It was one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern Australian history and a pivotal event that led to major reforms in Australia’s gun laws.
A 28-year-old man, Martin Bryant, armed with semi-automatic rifles, opened fire at the Port Arthur historic site, killing 35 people and injuring 23 others. The attack spanned two days, with Bryant fleeing the scene and later taking hostages at a nearby guesthouse before being captured.
The massacre prompted the Australian government, led by Prime Minister John Howard, to enact strict ‘National Firearms Legislation’ (the 1996 National Firearms Agreement). This included, a ban on semi-automatic and automatic weapons. Mandatory buybacks of prohibited firearms and uniform licensing and registration requirements nationwide. The reforms greatly reduced gun-related violence in Australia and are often cited globally as a model for effective gun control.
A memorial garden has been created at the Port Arthur site to remember its victims.
We walked around the site for about four hours. Then we were exhausted. The experience was bleak, not helped by the cold and windy weather and dark clouds that contributed to an atmosphere of misery in this place.
We needed a break and something to cheer us up. The best way to do this, was to visit the Tasmanian devils and kangaroos in the nearby Tasmanian Unzoo.
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What is an Unzoo?
The concept of an "Unzoo," pioneered in 2005 by zoo designers John Cole and Ray Mendez, reimagines traditional zoos by prioritising animal dignity and natural habitats over human-centric entertainment. Unlike conventional zoos with cages and enclosures, Unzoos remove or conceal barriers, allowing animals—both resident and wild—to roam freely in immersive environments while visitors engage in ethical, educational encounters with wildlife. The first intentional Unzoo, launched in 2007 on Tasmania’s Tasman Peninsula by Cole and the Hamilton family, focuses on conserving endangered Tasmanian devils and serves as a global model for blending conservation, ecotourism, and habitat restoration. By emphasising animal autonomy, natural coexistence, and transformative visitor experiences, the Unzoo challenges traditional zoo ethics, advocating for a future where humans collaborate with nature rather than confine it.
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The Tasmanian Unzoo was very relaxed. They used this vast land of wild forest where these animals live and make it a pleasant and safe environment for the animals. Instead of organised tours for visitors you simply join one of their rangers in their work and they share their knowledge of working with these wild animals. We were lucky. We joined Dominique in his work around the place and he had a lot of experience, in particular of working with Tasmanian devils and their behaviour. We learnt, that Tasmanian Devils are almost blind and if they are frightened, they retreat into a dark safe place, in this case a round metal container. Our visit coincided with their mating season. That meant that the male devils are tense and aggressive. Dominique teased one of the devils by holding his booted foot close to him, and the devil, thinking this could be a rival male devil, started to bite the boot. This happened to Dominique although he has known this little devil since he was a baby and feeds him everyday, but, as said before, the mating season changes attitudes.
A Tasmanian Devil 
Wombat 
Pademelon We then went over to the kangaroos and pademelons. They were lazily dozing in the grass or eating carrots. One of the females had a little one in her pouch, but all we could see was one leg sticking out. All the time we were there, the little one did not show its face.
Then we learnt how to feed the birds. Dominique rang a bell indicating to the birds that it was dinner time. He poured a handful of bird seeds into our palms and we had not to wait long until the first green rosellas came and sat on our palms, picking the seeds out of our hands. Dominique also tried to attract the yellow bellied sea eagles by trapping a big tuna fishtail into a tree trunk. Only seagulls came, but the fishtail was too heavy for them to carry away. Dominique told us, that the tide was out, making the local small penguins easily visible. The sea eagles would then fly down and pick the penguins up with their claws, as they love to feed on them as they are full of proteins.
Emu 
Dominique was originally from Seattle. He came to Tasmania 24 years ago and started working with a variety of wild animals, he loved the animals so much that he stayed. During COVID he was trapped on the East Coast at a Tasmanian Devil Conservation Centre. That’s were he learnt most of his knowledge about the Tassie devils. He has found his dream job working in the Unzoo and is devoted to this life working with and looking after these wild animals. And his enthusiasm rubbed off onto us.
Whilst listening to him we lost track of time and before we knew it, it was closing time. We thanked him, wished him well for the future, then drove back to our camp.
Hobart and the South
On Sunday 26th January, we drove towards Hobart and the surrounding area. We only had five days left in Tasmania and wanted to see as much as possible. There are no campsites in the city of Hobart, so we stayed at a small campsite in the village of Snug, a 30 minute drive south of Hobart, the Snug Beach and Caravan Park. From there we could either go by local bus to Hobart or make use of their park and ride scheme into the capital. At the same time, we were well placed to explore the beautiful southern peninsulas.
Snug is located opposite Bruny Island. We had originally planned to visit this island, which is well known for it spectacular scenery and gourmet local produce. It is separated from the main island of Tasmania by a channel, the D’Entre Casteaux, and can be reached only by ferry. It is home to a small population of people who prefer to live with nature, near beaches and forests. Bruny Island is divided into North and South and interconnected by a narrow passage of road surrounded by the sea. We were looking forward to this visit and were deeply disappointed when we were told by Apollo, our camper van rental company, that using a ferry with our camper van was forbidden.
At least, now we could use the opportunity to drive along the costal road and see a glimpse of Bruny Island. At one of our photo stops, we met a friendly farmer. He told us that there was no need to go to Bruny Island as this stretch of land we were travelling on would be the same beautiful landscape. The only difference was that Bruny Island was full of tourists and expensive shops. He encouraged us to follow the coastal road all along and assured us it was all paved road and suitable for our camper van, and to enjoy the views of the channel but also visit the nice little villages and towns. After our friendly chat we thanked him for his recommendations. And that’s what we did. We greatly enjoyed our trip along the coast and drove through apple orchards, lovely fishing villages, drove along the river Huon and golden fields with rolls of hay that had just been harvested. We stopped for a welcome coffee break in a wonderful village, called Cygnet. The cafe we stopped at even had its own apple and pear orchard in the back garden which we were encouraged to walk through.
In Franklin, one of the fishing villages, we spoke to a friendly guy called John, who was from Victoria. The reason he was in Franklin was that he and his friends took part in the bi-annual small boat race from Franklin to Hobart, along the river Huon. Everyone was very excited. Some had come from as far away as Perth to take part in this event.
John told us, he originally came from Devon, in England. His parents came to Australia in the 1960s on the £10 Pom Ticket from England. He was 10 years old, and had a free passage to Australia as children travelled for free. In the 1960s, the 10 pound Pom tickets were a way for British citizens to travel to Australia for a reduced fare, instead of £110 (in comparison, an average annual salary in Britain in the 60s was £350). The scheme was part of the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme, which ran from 1945-1982, and was intended to increase Australia’s population with skilled workers for its growing economy. People taking part in the scheme were expected to stay at least a few years in Australia. Between 1945 and 1972, over a million migrants came to Australia under this scheme. It was most popular in 1969, when over 800.000 migrants came over. Some migrants returned home after a few years and were called by the Australians the “whinging poms”.
The next day, Monday, 27th January was a national holiday (on Sunday 26th had been Australia Day). So it was free to park anywhere in the city of Hobart and we took advantage of this and took the camper into town.
Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, is a historic city nestled at the base of Mount Wellington (Kunanyi), offering stunning natural landscapes and outdoor activities like hiking and mountain biking. Known for its colonial architecture and waterfront charm, it features the iconic Salamanca Square, with its many galleries, cafes, restaurants and shops in historic sandstone warehouses. There is a lot to see and do in Hobart. We strolled along the waterfront and the Salamanca Warehouses and the historic houses of Battery Point.
Then we visited the MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). To reach the museum you take a scenic 25-minutes ferry ride from Brook Street Pier (the ferry itself features a pink cow carpet and a wine bar). The museum is Australia’s most provocative private museum. Founded by eccentric millionaire David Walsh in 2011, it blends ancient artefacts with avant-garde contemporary art, focusing on themes like sex, death, and existentialism. The museum is built on the cliffside beside the Derwent River and its subterranean, bunker-like structure is as striking as its contents. MONA ditches traditional labels in favour of its downloadable "O" app, which offers cryptic commentary. Known for bold installations (such a digestion machine or vulva casts), it hosts edgy festivals and has transformed Hobart into a global arts hub. A rebellious mix of art, architecture, and irreverence, MONA defies museum norms and has become a must-visit destination and transformed Hobart into a global arts destination, boosting Tasmania’s tourism and economy.
We wandered around its many floors, found some of the art excellent, most weird, some questionable. Whether you love it or hate it, MONA is a must-visit museum for its audacity, innovation and refusal to play by the rules.
We then took the opportunity of the glorious sunshine and good views and drove up the torturous road to reach the viewing platforms at the very top of Mount Wellington. Mount Wellington towers over Hobart, and is an iconic natural landmark and a must-visit destination. Its elevation is 1,271m and offers panoramic views of Hobart, the Derwent River, and Southern Tasmania. Its indigenous name is Kunanyi (Palawa kano language), reflecting its deep cultural significance to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
View of Hobart from the viewing areas of Mount Wellington The drive with the camper van to the top was 20 km and took 45 minutes. It was at times a bit hairy because the road was narrow, steep and very curvy. And also the people coming down meeting the people coming up had its moments. It was beautiful at the top, but then we had the same nail-biting drive down again.
We were very lucky with the weather, because on the next day, 28th January, it was cold, windy and cloudy. In the morning the temperature was 14C, but felt like 8C. We went back to Hobart, this time making use of Hobart’s park and ride scheme. We booked ourselves on one of the Hop-on-Hop-off City Loop double decker buses to explore the city’s sites. Very few people braved sitting on the open top deck because of the wind and the occasional showers, most of us huddled below deck, trying to keep warm. Although we got off on a few occasions to visit a particular site, like the Cascade Brewery or the Female Factory, it was a lazy, but enjoyable, way to get to know the key sites of Hobart.
When we drove back to our campsite, we could see a bushfire in the mountains behind our campsite. Smoke from the bushfire was so dense, it blocked out the sunlight and the high wind blew the smoke over our campsite. Many fire engines passed along the main road heading to the source of the fire. Helicopters and seaplanes were constantly flying above us, bringing water to douse the flames. The fire continued burning all night and into the next day. It is the height of the summer in Tasmania and for the last few days everybody was told that the Government had banned fires, such as BBQs, because of the danger of bushfires.
Bushfires - a constant threat In the remaining days we checked out the places that we wanted to visit, such as the animal sanctuary Bonorong in Brighton. At other times we just drove around, taking in the wonderful sites of the peninsulas south of Hobart, travelling along roads that hugged the shoreline.
Now, on our last night, we have to clean the camper van, pack our bags as tomorrow we have to return the camper van to the rental company and fly back to Melbourne.
In the last month we got accustomed to our life in the camper van. There are a few mistakes which you only make once, for example, hitting the shower button in the tiny bathroom while sitting on the toilet and getting drenched, or opening the camper door early in the morning without switching the alarm button off and waking up the whole campsite by the alarm. We also frequently hit our head on the upper shelfs until Dave stuck tea towels on them and fixed them with sticky tape. That helped a bit. It takes time to get accustomed to the small space in the cabin and one needs to carefully coordinate moving around. Otherwise, we loved it. It is great to have your own space and the freedom of the open road. We look forward to the next part of our holiday, the day after tomorrow, when we pick up our next camper van in Melbourne.
Bye bye Tasmania. We drove 3800km in Tasmania in a month. Tasmania is a small island (as big as Ireland) and has a spectacular range of climates from rain forest to arid bushland, from mountain tops to wonderful golden beaches and deep-blue coves. On a sad note, Tasmania is the roadkill capital of the world. And because of this, certain species of wildlife are in danger of becoming extinct. That why it is important to support conservation projects as it is they, and not the Government, who do the vital work and most people who work in these conservation centres are volunteers and give their time freely.
3.5 East Coast. 17th to 24th January 2025
On Friday 17th January in the morning we undertook the long journey from Longford to the East Coast. Instead of the shorter route via the A3, which only takes about two hours, we took the scenic route via Lilydale, where we visited a lavender farm, tasted lavender tea and learnt how lavender is grown and their oil extracted. Then we passed by Scottsdale and did a detour to the Legerwood Memorial Carvings. This consists of a few trees whose branches were carved into people in memory of those local Tasmanians that fought and were killed in WWI. Earlier, in Scottsdale town we found a smaller carved tree in memory of local Tasmanians who have fought and died in the Vietnam war. In other places before too, we came across war memorials that honoured those Tasmanians that died in wars, be it the WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam war, Golf War I and II. We wondered why people from remote Tasmania were involved, and lost so many of its people, in so many wars throughout the world. Was it their loyalty to the British Empire?
The road was long and twisty, the landscape beautiful, varying from verdant forests and lush green pastures up in the mountains to arid dusty straw-coloured plains. Photographing does not do it justice, so we gave up. We passed by the town of Derby, that is nowadays a paradise for mountain bikers, as is the whole area. As time was running we skipped visiting the Pyengana Dairy, famous for green hills and its cheese making, as well as the St Colombia Waterfalls and the Pub in the Paddock where they feed local beer to their pigs. Perhaps we will find time to come back later. Now its time to visit the East Cost. We planned to stay for a week in this area.
The East Coast of Tasmania with its classic seaside towns and peaceful hinterland villages has been a holiday destination for Tasmanians and mainland Australians for generations. It stretches from the Iarapuna area in the North (which includes Bay of Fires) to Orford in the South and is renowned for its excluded beaches, breathtaking national parks, fresh seafood and cellar doors (wine yards) with sweeping views. The East Coast counts various National Parks to its area, including the Freycinet National Park in the South, best known for its Wineglass Bay.
We stayed for four nights at the St Helens Holiday Park.
St Helens is the largest town on the east coast. It’s considered a great base for exploring the north east’s natural beauty and is just a few kilometres away from the beautiful Binalong Bay and the Bay of Fires.
We arrived at our next campsite in St. Helens, at the Big4 St. Helens Holiday Park by mid afternoon. Once we’d checked-in and settled (meaning marking our spot by putting our chairs and table out) we set off again to explore the area nearby and perhaps find some fish to cook for tonight. Unfortunately, the crayfish shack is already closed and we continued driving in glorious sunshine beside Georges Bay onto a peninsula which leads to St. Helens Pt. There we admired the blue sea and met some brave Tasmanian families with children swimming and splashing in the cold water. The air was fresh too, about 18 degrees and very windy. Tasmanians are obviously used to. They laughed when we asked if they don’t feel cold, just a bit. We drove back home via a supermarket where we were able to get some local squid for tonight’s dinner. Yummy.
18th January 2025
The next morning it was overcast but later the sun came out. First we went back to the Bay of Fires Lobster fish shack where you can buy fish and seafood straight from the boat. We bought a whole lobster (for 54 AUD) and a big slab of Gummy shark fish that should last us for the next few day’s dinners. Altogether it cost us 75 AUD (£37.50), a feast of three dinners for both of us.
There is a lot what one can do to explore Tasmania’s most colourful coastline: Cruising along the Bay of Fires or go on any of the many organised walking tours offered, including a four day/ three night guided walk through the bush. If you come in the right season, you can jump on a game fishing charter for deep sea adventures hunting marlin, albacore tuna and yellowfin tuna. Divers can explore underwater caves and colourful sea life. The area has also excellent mountain biking tracks, with a series of trails, including an epic 42 km wilderness trail from the mountain to the sea.
We decided to do our own thing. We drove along the Binalong Bay with its great views of the Bay of Fires, which is known for its extraordinary, clear blue seas, brilliant white beaches, and the striking orange lichen covered boulders. The Bay of Fires, set between Eddystone Point in the North and Binalong Bay in the South, has stunning views and secluded beaches. Binalong Bay was busy with tourists and there were many cars on the road but hardly any parking spaces to get to the beaches. So we drove along the Bay of Fires, on twisty roads through forest and bush and stopped at various viewing points; we strolled along deserted beaches, we clambered onto rocky, lichen-covered headlands, stopped to take photographs and took in the wonderful landscape, that changed at every twist in the road.
How did Bay of Fires get its name? Historians came up with various versions to this question. Some say, the bay was given its name in 1773 by captain Tobias Furneaux in the ship Adventure, who saw the fires of aboriginal people burning on the beaches. Others say, the name came from the orange lichen-covered rocks that glow bright in the sunshine.
On the next day in the afternoon, we drove along St. George’s Bay and decided to walk to the other side of the peninsula to Beer Barrel Beach, 45 minutes each way. What we thought was an easy stroll along the beach led us through rough bushy landscape away from the beach. I was pretty scared that we would come across snakes, as we were told that all snakes in Tasmania are poisonous, but bravely walked behind Dave, stamping my feet to scare any snakes away. After more than 20 minutes walking along a small path through jungle and bush, we decided it was better to walk back and instead find a walk along the beach in the sunshine. Luckily we did not find any snakes.
Back on the waterfront, we met a woman on a jetty, fishing with her dog at her side. She had already caught two baby squids. We got chatting. She was local and used to go fishing with her Mum, who’d just recently passed away. So she continued fishing in memory of her. She told us that a few years ago she had to go to Melbourne, and as her mother did not feel well, she took her with her to get examined by a doctor in Melbourne. For months, she’d been complaining about pain but the doctors in Tasmania did not find anything wrong. In Melbourne, she was quickly diagnosed with terminal cancer, there was nothing they could do anymore for her. The daughter was angry and bitterly disappointed by the Tasmanian health care system and warned us, to be careful, not to get ill or have an accident here in Tasmania, as the health care was really bad.
When we drove back we had an interesting encounter of a different type. Here is Dave’s report about it:
As I drove back to the campsite I passed a police car waiting to come out of a side street. He followed me for many kilometres and kept his distance and when I slowed down, so did he. I could only assume, he’d already decided that he wanted to nick me and would follow me until I did something wrong. And when I did, then he could officially stop me and check my papers. We came to the end of the road and I turned right onto the main road. As soon as I did, he switched on his blue lights, drove up close behind and I stopped. He got out of his car and said to me “You can’t stop here, mate” and I said “But you wanted me to stop.” He said ”Drive on to a car park one kilometer ahead”. So I did. The reason for the stop? He said, I had pulled out dangerously in front of a car and made him brake so hard, he almost had to stop. That’s not what happened, but as a Brit you cannot argue with an Australian policeman. My licence was taken and checked and I was breathalyzed. Then I had to wait whilst the results came back. The test came back negative and I was given a caution. He said: “Don’t forget, you are in a camper van and they are longer than cars.” “Thank you, officer”. And - our camper van is the same size as a Ford Transit. I think, I’ll cover the Britz Camper Van rental decals from the sides and the back of our camper van. In other words, these rental camper vans stand out like a sore thumb as they are often driven by people that are not used to drive camper vans. So police treat them as an easy target, and just wait for the opportunity to pounce if somebody, who is not used to driving such a vehicle, makes a mistake, or they had been visiting a winery or distillery for tasting.
Thanks God we had not taken up any of the many offers of wine and whiskey tasting.
Our next stop along the East Coast was Coles Bay, a tiny seaside community, next to the granite peaks of the Hazards mountain range. The town is an ideal place for exploring the nearby Freycinet National Park and its abundant wildlife, including Tasmanian pademelons and wallabies (little kangaroo types), and echidnas (hedgehog like but bigger creatures).
We stayed at the Iluka on Freycinet Holiday Park for 3 nights.
Again, there is lots to do and see at Coles Bay and the Freycinet National Park. Coles Bay is the Gateway to the Freycinet Peninsula, which offers pristine beaches, coastal and mountain walks and native wildlife. Tours offer fishing, boating and rock climbing activities and the famous Wineglass Bay Cruise. It cruises for five hours along the spectacular coastline of Freycinet National Park, from Coles to Wineglass Bay and secluded beaches on the other side of the Freycinet National Park, that can only be reached by water, helicopter or a full day bush walk.
The cruise was tempting as it promises spectacular views of the National Park and especially the Wineglass Bay and also of its remarkable wildlife, such as dolphins and whales, sea eagles and cormorants. However, the last few days were extremely windy and reports of people having been seasick on the cruise were putting us off. However, the humpback whales and dolphins have already started their migration north a few weeks ago, so there was even less chance of spotting and photographing wildlife. So we decided to save ourselves 300 AUD (£150) each for seats on the upper deck (with nibbles and drinks) and put it to better use, i.e. eating the widely praised local seafood.
Instead, we explored the Freycinet National Park on foot. We walked to the Wine Glass Lookout Point and took photos of the stunning views of the bay and the surrounding mountains. During the next few days, we also walked some of the other walks in the National Park and to secluded but reachable beaches, for example on Honeymoon Bay and Muirs Beach and to the Cape Tourville Lighthouse.
At the Cape Tourville Lighthouse we met a delightful couple from Belgium, Sita and Class, both nurses in the Emergency Department in their home town. They had finished the day before a tough climb up the Amos Mountain. In parts they had to climb on their hands and knees at it was scary and dangerous coming down the mountain as they did not have good walking shoes. They were lucky they made it down without too many scratches on their hands and knees. They’d decided to take a year out to tour around Australia. They started in October last year in Perth, where they bought a Nissan Patrol and modified it to their own specifications, with a kitchen and fridge and a clam tent on top where they sleep. We had a long chat about life and travel on the road and wished them well for the rest of their trip.
Once they were gone and all the other cars had left the car park too, a little Kangaroo appeared between the bushes eating grass and was not in the slightest bothered by us taking photographs. (But it sneezed twice into Dave’s face).
We greatly enjoyed the stunning landscape, despite the heavy gusty wind and a temperature of 17C during the day at sunshine, which cooled down at night to 12C. And this is their summer!! Thankfully our camper van has central heating which Dave usually switches on at 6 am. We felt for our poor neighbours sleeping under canvas.
When reading the tourist guides, the amount of tours throughout Tasmania to explore the local winery’s and whiskey distilleries and breweries is enormous; tour guides proud themselves of the gourmet cuisine in exclusive restaurants, promising a larger than life gastronomic experience. Especially, in the holiday paradise along the East Coast. However, that’s not what we found. Well, we did not do the wineries and distilleries or breweries as we were driving (and good thing we hadn’t when we were stopped by the police). The few gourmet restaurants we found were remote and rather expensive, even more expensive than London prices. That would okay if we were only for a week in Tasmania, which is what most tourists here do; but we are travelling for two months and have to budget. Other restaurants we found, were mostly mediocre and not worth their money. Anyway, we are both very good cooks and love cooking in our little camper van. So we were looking forward to buying fresh seafood and preparing it ourselves.
But even that is a problem. We were so much looking forward to the East Coast having read the mouth watering reports of the abundance of fresh seafood you can find there. Unfortunately, that’s not what we found along this coast. There were very few, if at all, places to buy fresh fish, be it at fish shacks on the bays or in the shops, apart from the big supermarkets in big towns. For example, the only fish we found in the two general stores in Coles Bay was frozen fish fingers. Most of the fish caught in these areas either go directly abroad or to mainland Australia, or to the local fancy gourmet restaurants.
Luckily, in the Coles Bay area, we found a place, 15 km outside of town, Freycinet Marina Farm, a small simple restaurant, which also sold seafood to take away for reasonable prices. We shared a platter of 12 fresh oysters to eat in their lovely place, and also bought 12 juicy king prawns and a bowl of scallops, which they carefully packed for us so we could take home and cook for our dinner later. What did all this come to? 80 AUD (£40).
For that price you couldn’t even get two plates of breaded king prawns at the Lobster Shack Restaurant in Bicheno, where presumably the batter was so thick, that when you removed it, you were left with only shrimps left to eat. When we’d passed by the Lobster Shack Restaurant one afternoon to check it out, the place was full of tourists eating and drinking big plates full of breaded prawns, lobsters, oysters and fish and chips.
We enjoyed our home cooked seafood and fish dishes and always find, the Luger-Lowe Restaurant is the best!!
3.4. Launceston Area and Tamar Valley 14-17 January 2025
14th January 2025
From Stanley we drove along the North coast on the A2 Bass Hwy. We stopped shortly in Devonport at the “Strait off the boat” fishmonger to stock up again on gummy (shark fish) and tiger prawns for tonight’s dinner and, after a delicious lunch with fish bites and fries, (in England we call this fish and chips) continued to Launceston though the Tamar Valley, the famous wine growing area. It took us until mid afternoon to arrive at our Caravan Park in Longford, which is a 20 minute drive south of Launceston. Our camping place was close to the river and there was a bench beside the river, a lovely spot, where we would sit and relax watching the river flowing past.
Once we settled in, we drove out again to explore Launceston, which is the second largest city in Tasmania after Hobart, and the third oldest in whole Australia, dating back to 1806. It presents itself as a cultural hub with its museums and art galleries. Launceston is also proud of its thriving food and drink scene, with its many restaurants and pubs, showcasing the wines from the nearby Tamar Valley Wine Region and the local craft beer. The city has been named the UNESCO City of Gastronomy. We drove into town trying to find a petrol station before we run out of diesel and a place to park, which both became a difficult task because of the heavy rush-hour traffic and the confusing one way street system. Finally, we were successful and could even leave our van at the petrol station while exploring the town. We walked towards the river Tamar passing by the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) and the Royal Park. The town felt very busy, hot and windy and we decided, as there was so much more to see in this area, to concentrate on smaller towns and historical places.
15th January 2025
The next day we drove to Ross, a small town about a 50 minute drive from our base in Longford. We were interested to learn more about the history of this place. Like most of Tasmania, Ross was built on the back of convict labour. An example is the beautiful sandstone Ross Bridge dating back to 1836, Tasmania’s second oldest bridge. The bridge is adorned with 186 enigmatic carvings that include people, animals and other motifs. The work was deemed of such high quality that the two convict stone masons, James Colbert and Daniel Herbert, overseeing the work, gained their freedom for their efforts.
A plaque reports on the history of Ross and the building of the bridge. At the time of 1821, the town was little more than an inn by a crude bridge crossing over the Macquarie River. The area had been under military guard since 1812 to protect travellers and local settlers from attacks from bushrangers. With time, more settlers moved into town and more facilities and improvements were needed. So, a convict work gang was established to labour on the construction of public buildings, including the Ross Bridge.
After the building work was completed in Ross the convict work gang of 40 men were moved to other areas for work, and the building where they lived was converted into the Female House of Correction and Hiring Depot. This new institution was designed to perform three main functions. As a “lying-in hospital” for pregnant convicts, with a nursery for newborn infants; as a “house of correction” for convicts on probation and for convicts who had committed offences while in the colony; as a “hiring depot”. Convict women would be hired out to landowners in the Ross and Campbell Town area for domestic service.
The Ross Female Factory operated only or seven years, from March 1848 until the last convicts left in January 1855.
More information here:
Commonly called ”Female Factories”, the correct title for such establishments for female convicts was “House of Correction” as the name implies these establishments were a means of improving the habits of women. The methods used to reform convicted women changed over time. Prior to 1820, flogging and the iron collar had been used as punishment, but were replaced by solitary confinement and classification. Women were separated into three classifications, crime, second class and assignment class. This class system allowed the authorities to keep more hardened criminals separate from the minor offenders, and those awaiting assignment. Crime class women worked at the washtub or a similar hard labor; second class women worked at the lighter tasks of spinning, weaving or sewing; whilst the assignment class was charged with cooking and cleaning and were available for assignments to settlers in the surrounding area.
After a female convict had served her six months probation period in crime class, she was made a pass-holder, meaning that she could leave the factory to work within the community, usually as a servant in one form or another. Farm servants, housemates, kitchen mates, nursemaids, or laundresses. Women who were not assigned, remained working in the factory. When a woman had served about 2/3 of her sentence and had not committed any more offences, she was eligible for a ticket of leave, which gave her greater freedom of employment. If a woman with a ticket of leave continued on the path of good behaviour, she could apply for a conditional pardon, which would remove the restrictions of her movement throughout the colony. This could be followed by an absolute pardon which was the final stage before a woman regained her freedom.
The Ross Female Factory was designed to cater for up to 25 inmates. The first women arrived at the station in March 1848. Most of the female convicts at Ross were in the late teens or early 20s. The common reason for the transportation from England to Van Diemen's Land was stealing. Many prisoners were transported for a first or second offence and it was quite common for an offender to receive a seven year sentence for petty theft, such as stealing a handful of potatoes or onions at the time of the great hunger in Ireland and very poor living conditions in England. Female convicts with families were forced in all but few cases to leave their children in England, with relatives or in the hands of charitable institutions. Once transported to the penal colonies, very few convicts ever saw the native land again. Many female convicts were either pregnant while committing their crime and came over whilst pregnant, others became pregnant in the colony. Some may have been forced into sex, others volunteered sexual favours for protection. Getting pregnant while in the female factory was considered a crime punished by extension of their time in prison.
There were up to 40 children in the nurseries at the Ross Female Factory at any one time. The children spent day and night in the same room with only the nurses for company. After weaning, there was little contact between mothers and babies. The mother had to serve a six months sentence in the crime class section as punishment for the immoral act of becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Despite poor living conditions, only 62 children died in the six years that the factory was operational. Of the 62 deaths recorded between 1848 and 1854, many were attributed to diseases of malnutrition or poor diet. 15 cases were ascribed to diarrhoea, of which six cases occurred during a four week period in 1852. Severe malnutrition, and feebleness were also common causes of infant death, as were congenital syphilis, catarrh, and lung related disease. However, the loss of a child due to these diseases was not only suffered by the convict women at these stations as staff of the factory also lost children.
Source: Summary of information displayed at the Ross Female Factory exhibition and publications by the Female Factories Research Centre in Hobart.
Little is left of the Ross Female Factory except for the recently renovated house that was used by the overseers and their families. The house now hosts an exhibition to tell the story of the female convicts.
Ross was not the only place were female convicts were held in prison. Female factories were also in Launceston, Hobart and other places around the country.
The Female Convict Research Centre in Hobart has also painstakingly researched the female convicts’ history and collected testimonies and evidence from descendants of some of these women to provide an insight into their life as convicts in the female factories in Van Diemen’s Land.
Before coming to Tasmania, I became aware of their publications. For more information contact https://femaleconvicts.org.au
16th January 2025
The next day we visited the Tamar Valley, the beautiful area along the river Tamar, best known for their many vineyards growing wine that thrives in a cool climate. As we were overwhelmed with the amount of information on things to do in this area, we consulted a visitor centre in Exeter. We were very lucky as we meet a lovely older lady that enthusiastically recommended us some highlights to visit in the area. We diligently followed her advice and were not disappointed.
First we visited one of the many vineyards that offer wine tasting, or as they call it “they open their cellar” which she recommended as it was very close to the Highway and on our way. (She did not tell us that her daughter was working there - also a very nice young lady). We strolled around the vineyard and admired their sun flooded terrace with a view over their vineyards.
As it was mid morning and we were travelling in our camper, we declined their wine tasting offer and moved on to other places called Beaconsfield and George Town to explore more of Tasmanian’s history there.
Here are a few of Dave’s observations of these places.
Beaconsfield is a former gold mining town in the Tamar Valley. In March 1879 the governor of the town renamed it Beaconsfield, after the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Before then, the town was known as Brandy Creek and was probably deemed an unsuitable name because it suggested intemperance. It became Tasmania's richest settlement when gold fever took hold in 1887.
In 2006 the town made headlines when the mine collapsed and two miners were trapped underground. Of the 17 people who were in the mine at the time, 14 escaped immediately following the collapse. One miner, Larry Knight, was killed while the remaining two, Brant Webb and Todd Russell were found alive on the sixth day by miners Pat Ball and Steve Saltmarsh. Webb and Russell were rescued on the 9th of May 2006, two weeks after being trapped nearly one kilometre below the surface.
The mine closed many years ago, and beside it is now the Beaconsfield Mine And Heritage Centre. The centre is a collection of experiences that allow you to enjoy and appreciate the history of the town and the Tamar Valley. It’s a place where you can lose yourself in history, play with treasures from the past, be entertained by interactive displays and live a different story around every corner, with buttons to press, levers to pull and tunnels to crawl through.There’s also a fascinating exhibition devoted to the rescue of the two miners. We had a good natter to Tony, originally from Birmingham, with his fantastic bushy silvery beard, who worked there as a volunteer.
We spent almost two hours wandering around the museum and the mine itself. The museum was such an interesting place and was also a treasure trove of memorabilia from yesteryear. In the background we could here songs sung by George Formby and Vera Lynn to accompany this particular period of history of the museum. The cost of entry to this most interesting museum? 15 AUD, including oldsters discount.
Bass and Flinders Maritime Museum is situated in Georg Town, on the eastern side of the Tamar River. The entry fee was a discounted 10AUD. We were the only people in this small maritime museum. One of the two assistants must’ve taken a shine to us, because she gave us a guided tour and in particular around the replica ‘Norfolk’, which proudly takes pride of place in the museum. This is a replica of the original Norfolk which took years of dedication and donations to build. On the 200 year anniversary, in 1998, a group of dedicated sailors, movers and shakers re-enacted the voyage that Bass and Flinders undertook in 1798 in this very sloop, which defined Van Diemen’s Land as an island separate from mainland Australia. The inside of the Norfolk is so small and seemed to be all sharp edges and corners. I can only imagine how it must’ve felt like to have been inside during stormy weather. How could such a small boat survive the roaring 40s of the Northwest Corner? No wonder they needed surgeons on such voyages!
Who were Bass and Flinders?
George Bass was born in 1771 in Aswarby, Lincolnshire, England. He graduated as a surgeon at the age of 18 years (after a two year apprenticeship) and joined the navy. Matthew Flinders was born in 1774 in Donington, Lincolnshire, England. He served as a midshipman in HMS Providence with William Bligh, (best known for the Mutiny of HMS Bounty in 1789, when the ship was under his command).
Flinders and Bass will always be remembered as the first circumnavigators of Tasmania, then known as Van Damien’s Land, proving the existence of the strait and, as a consequence, that Van Damien’s Land was indeed an island, separate from what is now known as Australia. Flinders himself was one of the greatest maritime explorers the world has ever known, particularly as he was not yet 30 years of age.
The stretch of water between Australia and Tasmania was named after George Bass, after he and Matthew Flinders sailed across it while circumnavigating Van Diemen’s Land, now named Tasmania, in the 25 ton sloop ‘Norfolk’ in 1798-99. At Flinders recommendation, the governor of New South Wales, John Hunter, in 1800 named the stretch of water between the mainland and Van Diemen’s Land, Bass’s Straits. In 1798 it became known as Bass Strait. Bass Highway is also named after him.
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After our dip into Tasmania’s history, we returned happily to our campsite where we sat on our riverside bench drinking cold beer in the sinking sun with ducks as companions, the only wildlife on offer on this campsite.
3.3. The North and North-West Coast
Friday, 10th January 2025:
Our next destination is Stanley, from there we want to explore the North and North-West area.
Whilst we have started our journey by flying into Hobart in the south of Tasmania from Melbourne, many people start from Devonport in the north, having crossed Bass Strait on the ferry boat Spirit of Tasmania from mainland Australia.
We bypassed Devonport and drove along the coastal Bass Highway, stocking up at a Woolworth supermarket in Burnie, a port town overlooking the Bass Strait. Then we continued to Stanley, where we had booked our next campsite, the Stanley Caravan Park. We are booked in for 4 nights as there is much to see and explore in the area. The first thing we noted was that it was very windy. I refused to come out of the camper because the cold wind was so strong. In the afternoon, however, the wind calmed down and we went for a walk to explore. The campsite is located directly on the beach, so we strolled along it, visited the local lobster shop/restaurant to see what they had on offer and at what prices. Then we walked up the hill into town.
Like many places in Tasmania, the North and North-West have an impressive history, which is worthwhile researching. More about that later.
Stanley is the original headquarters of the famous Van Diemen’s Land Company. It retained its historic village atmosphere with its magnificent Georgian and Victorian cottages and beautiful long beaches. Stanley boasts the world’s freshest air and the cleanest water. It is settled beside, what the local people call, the Nut, a big volcanic flat-topped mountain, which is almost surrounded by sea and rises 152 metres from Bass Strait.
We walked passed Stanley’s many well preserved colourful cottages. For example, Lyons Cottage, a colonial-style house, built in the mid 19th century as accommodation for the Darwin Cable Company management staff and their families. The cottage was the birthplace and childhood home of Joseph Lyons, a former premier of Tasmania (1923-1928) and Tasmania’s first prime minister of Australia (1932-1939), who became one of Australia’s most popular prime ministers. We were walking on hallowed ground.
Afterwards, we admired some of the lovely cafes, pubs, the post office and several shops before it was time to go back to the campsite.
We just managed to finish our dinner, when the wind sprung up once again and continued all night. I woke up at 1am because something was intermittently knocking against the camper van. I tried to figure out where the noise came from. Dave was asleep and I did not want to disturb him. I tried to sleep but with the banging noise there was no chance. Finally, at 3am Dave also woke, wondering what that noise was. He then climbed out of the van to check but could not find anything loose. We went back and, depending on the wind direction, the banging noise continued. Perhaps it was the air conditioning unit on the roof? But how should we get up there in a howling gale the middle of the night without a ladder? Dave hung his head out of the van to watch and listen. Then he noticed that the cover above the plug where the electricity cable was connected was flapping in the wind. We could not disconnect the electricity cable, so what else could we do to fix this? Armed with some tea towels and plastic bags and string Dave went out again into the storm to try to fix it. It worked. We could get back to sleep. But now, in addition to the howling wind, we also heard the local wildlife, like wombats, barking. Finally, we both fell into a deep sleep.
Saturday, 11th January 2025
The next morning was a household day. Making use of the campsite’s facilities, we washed and tried our clothes. At the washroom we had a chat with our neighbour, Gail. She was from Victoria and when she retired she bought a camper van and since then travels and continues to travel around Australia, mostly on her own, but sometimes one of her grown-up daughters joins her for a few days or a week. One of them has just visited her but went back yesterday to Melbourne as she had to go back to work. That’s why Gail was washing a few duvet covers. She is a feisty lady, down to earth and not easily scared by anything. I bet that’s the attitude you need when travelling on your own through the Australian outback with a camper van.
After our chat and whilst the washing was drying we wrote our diaries in our camper and had lunch - inside as the wind continued to howl.
In the afternoon, we walked out of town to visit Highfield House. This is an estate that had been built at the early 1800 for the manager and his family. Also on the estate was the barracks for the convicts. The house had been lovingly renovated and had great views over the bay, the Nut and of Stanley itself. Nowadays, it is a museum shedding light onto the dark history of the life’s of convicts and the indigenous people of this area. Of the convicts’ barracks only a few ruins remain. After a long steep 45 minutes uphill walk, we arrived at the estate, but were told that the house was closed today as they were hosting a wedding. What a shame, we had walked all that way for nothing. Hopefully, we can find time to come back again.
We walked around the area to get a glimpse of the barracks, but were put off by the many flies that appeared from nowhere. Our rucksacks were full with hundreds of flies. In panic, I noticed that about 40 of them had descended on my wounded knee. Disgusted I waved them away.
Dave tried to make a picture of a very old tree and tried to pull away a bush that was in the way of his intended intended. Suddenly, he shouted out and kept up. He had not noticed the electric fence that prevents people from entering the estate and the sheep from escaping. He got an electric shock and won’t be doing that again.
We watched the happy wedding couple being photographed with a stunning backdrop of the bay and the Nut, and then we made our way back to the campground.
We enjoyed a refreshing beer sitting at our table in the sunshine, guarded from the wind by a tall hedge. The plan was to prepare our meal early and continue writing up our diaries in the camper afterwards. However, Gail, our neighbour, joined us with a big glass of Scotch in her hand. We started chatting. Two hours later, and rather cold, we hurried inside the van, quickly prepared our dinner. Then it was time to go for a walk along the beach promenade just after sunset, to get a glimpse of the little penguins, that we were told clamber up the rocks out of the sea and strut along the beach promenade at dusk. The night before we missed them. This evening we were determined to wait until we finally saw them. A little later we saw two little penguins, about 30cm tall, waddling along, not disturbed in the least by people watching them. Unfortunately, it was dark and they were difficult to photograph. Yet we managed to get a few pictures of the little fellows.
Sunday, 12th January 2025
Today we wanted to do the famous Tarkine Drive into the Wilderness of the Northwest of Tasmania.
But before we got started, I noticed that I could not close one of the drawers were the pots and pans are kept. Without them safely stored away, we could not move the camper. Dave’s screwdriver toolkit came into action and he took out all the three drawers and fixed the loosened screws, then put the drawers back again. Problem fixed. That’s the problem with rented vans. Those renting them don’t care, neither do those who are suppose to maintain them. If it was ours, we (Dave) would have kept it spotless and well maintained.
After the camper was ready to do, we drove the short distance to Smithton, where the Tarkine Drive starts. It is a drive through the dramatic and breathtaking wilderness of Tasmania’s Tarkine region, the greatest expanse of cool temperate rainforest in Australia and the second largest in the world. The tourist information promised us that “we would experience unique fauna and flora, globally significant rainforests, wild river landscapes and dramatic coastlines. This scenic drive is full of walks, lookouts, sites and picnic spots for you to explore.” Some people spend a few days and stay in remote campsites, others do day trips to different areas, or, like we, do the run in one day, which will take about 4-6 hours. The tourist map we were given showed 22 sites worth exploring and we looked forward to this.
Yet soon we become aware of the short-comings of travelling with a camper van in Tasmania. Most of the sites are off road and remote and can only be reached via an unpaved road for which a 4x4 vehicle is needed. Here is the difference between tourists from other parts of the world and Tasmanians. Tasmanians, and many Australians too, prefer the big 4x4 pickup trucks with twin-axled caravans in tow, rather then the lower ground clearance of camper vans like ours. And, as we could see clearly, that’s what you need if you want to explore such interesting remote areas. Okay, we have to make do with what we’ve got and could only visit the more easily accessible sites, such as the Julius River picnic place, where we stopped and went for a lovely walk into the rainforest alongside a stream.
We enjoyed driving along the road, admiring the huge trees and the stunning rainforest landscape as we passed by. There were very few vehicles on the road and hardly any wildlife to see, apart from a large kangaroo that jumped in front of our van into the road. Luckily, Dave reacted quickly and we did not hit it. To add to our frustration, we couldn’t even make it to the Edge of the World, which is the most western part of Tasmania with its supposedly exhilarating views of the Western Tarkine coastline, as it was not accessible to our van with its low ground clearance. Never mind, a short distance later we managed to drive along a road that lead to some private houses and enjoyed the view from there. It is stunning, but not really beautiful, as the sea is very rough in this part of the world because of the constant heavy wind and storms. The beach and the rocks were rugged and littered with huge logs and other debris. Obviously, there must have been a storm at sea, no doubt as a result of the famous roaring 40s. (See Dave’s text below).
The Tarkine Drive ends at Marrawah and we overcame our misgivings of not having seen more of this stunning wilderness, sat on the veranda of the Marrawah Inn drinking the best cappuccino and English breakfast tea that we had had for a long time.
Apart from that one kangaroo and the occasional roadkill, we had not seen any wildlife, although many signs on the road remind drivers to be aware of the Tasmanian Devils that spring out of the forest onto the road between dusk and dawn.
On the way back we went into Woolworths in Smithtons to buy some lemons for our tasty fish dinner tonight. A woman heard me complaining to Dave about the high prices of the little lemons on offer. She agreed and offered to give us a few lemons from her lemon tree in her garden. Perplexed I agreed and she gave me her home address, which was not very far from the supermarket. After we finished our shopping, we passed by and there she was waiting for us with four lovely fresh lemons straight from her tree. We thanked her, wished her and her husband well and drove off.
When we returned to our campsite, Gail was gone and instead we were surrounded by three new neighbours with huge 4x4 pickup trucks and tall caravans. They took over the place we felt we had no space at all in our little van. Luckily, we had the better view of the beach. Our new neighbours were from Victoria and Melbourne and presumably had come over on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. I shudder to think what that might have cost them.
Monday 13th January 2025:
This day we went up to the Nut, a big volcanic mountain with a history. The Nut’s story is that over 13 million years ago, lava shot through the Earths’s surface, cooled and formed basalt. It had been given several names over time, but the name The Nut has stuck.
One can take the chairlift or climb up the steep hill. Once on the top, a windswept plateau of hardy shrubs, there is a circular walk of 2.5km with lookouts and stunning views of 360 degrees of Stanley, the neighbouring area and the surrounding ocean. It was worthwhile getting up to the top. We walked around enjoying the views and searching for wildlife. A few wombats appeared shortly, but hid away in the dark shades of the bushes.
There are also signs informing that short tailed shearwater birds migrate to the Nut each year and breed a single chick in the burrows that are all around us. After laying her egg, the mum spends two weeks feeding at sea while dad incubates the egg. When she returns they take turns to incubate for a total of 53 days. The chick hatches around the third week of January. Both parents fish during the day and return at night to feed their chick by regurgitation. The chick gets big and fat and after a few weeks the parents leave and the chick has to fight for survival by itself. Now it has to learn to fly and by doing so, uses up half of its body fat; once it can fly it has to learn how to hunt for food. Learning by doing, interesting parenting concept.
Afterwards, we drove to Woolnorth, the most north-western part of Tarkine, a very remote area, known for its windy and grim climate and the history of the Aborigines. Because of the wind they are now many wind turbines on Cape Grim making full use of the roaring 40s. We came as far as Woolnorth, then the rough road was unsuitable for our camper to continue. We then wanted to enquire about tours in the area at the Woolnorth visitor centre, but were informed that they only offer one tour per day and that’s in the morning, and that had passed already. Unfortunately, today was our last day. Even so, we used the opportunity to learn more about the history of this area in their remote unmanned information centre.
Aspects of Tasmania’s rich history:
Beside its beautiful and impressive landscape, Tasmania also has an interesting, often dark, history, with regards to colonialism, the treatment of the indigenous people and the use of convict labour to help build the infrastructure of the infant country. Everywhere in the country one is being made aware of its history. We try to collect and include some information in our blog, but our time, space and knowledge is limited.
In the rough and windy North-West at Woolnorth and Cape Grim, we came across some information on the roaring wind and its effect on the landscape and its people, whose content is summarised below.
The roaring 40s wind that hits the hilly coast line at Woolnorth:
Constant westerly winds sweep around the earth's high southerly latitudes. Sometimes they whisper - more often they roar. Since the days of tall masted square-riggers, sailors have called these winds the roaring 40’s. The hilly coastline of Woolnorth in northern Tasmania is the first land the winds have touched since they whistled past the crags of Cape Horn, in southern Chile, 20,000 km away. Once, their restless energy, filled white sails and drove the great grain ships western. Today these wonderful winds spin the slender turbine blades of Hydro Tasmania’s Woolnorth wind farm.
In 1642 the Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman, claimed the land for the Netherlands (he never set foot on the island) and named the land ‘Van Diemen’s Land’ after the governor of the Dutch East Indies, Anthony van Diemen.The island was part of the colony of New South Wales from 1803, but became a separate colony in 1825.
In 1824 eleven influential English bankers, politicians and businessmen formed the Van Diemen’s Land Company, aiming to benefit from government land grants and the ready availability of labour, by establishing a fine wool industry in Britain's far-flung colony. In 1825, King George IV, granted the newly formed company 25,000 acres of land (later extended to 350,000 acres) under a Royal Charter that has survived to this present day. Seeing the opportunity to open up and settle new regions, Governor George Arthur insisted that the VDL Company select land ‘beyond the ramparts of the unknown’ in the far northwest.They selected 20,000 acres at Circular Head and another 100,000 acres at Woolnorth on the far northwestern tip of the island. It was still not enough for the large flocks of fine wool sheep they planned to establish. Time was running out. The first shipload of indentured servants and livestock were already on the high seas, and the decision had to be made. With no other choice available, Circular Head (now called the Nut) was picked as the site of the VDL Co’s first settlement.
The sheep sent to graze at Hampshire Hills and Surrey Hills found only poor quality native grass lands. Bitter cold and predatory thylacines, Tasmanian tigers, were common in this area during the second half of the 19th century and the early 1900s and they attacked the sheep. Woolnorth employed a full time trapper to eradicate them. Of the 5500 sheep taken there, only a few hundred survived. It was a financial disaster for VDL Co.
One interesting fact from those bygone days. Van Diemen’s Land didn’t have gorse bushes. Modern day Tasmanian has Gorse bushed in abundance. Why - because the sheep they brought over from England had gorse seeds in their woollen coats.
The British Government transported about 76,000 convicts to Van Diemen’s Land between 1804 and 1853. The island was a penal colony for English convicts and the name came to evoke the brutality of convict transportation and ethnic conflict with the Aboriginal people. Later, the name was changed to Tasmania, to shake off the association with its dark history.
Source: Information at Visitor Centre Woolnorth.
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Our days in Stanley were over and we were heading to our next stop in the midlands, the area of Launceston. Still, before we left the North-West behind, we visited the Highfield Estate one more time to get some more information on the history of what was then known as Van Diemen’s Land. Highfield House was very influential in the development of the area, the use of convicts to establish the Estate and the treatment of Aboriginal people. More details below.
The Story of Highfield
The story of Highfield is one of colonial expansion, commercial opportunism and cultural arrogance. It is also about extraordinary human endeavour and courage in the face of the unknown. Highfield was established in 1827 as the headquarters of the Van Diemen’s Land Company (VDL) and became a government house in this part of the colony.
The company was established in Britain as a financial venture into fine wool production, which had become a lucrative business in the colony. Hopeful of receiving a large fertile land grant near Port Sorrel, the company was optimistic. However, by the time their agents arrived in the colony, the growing settlement had taken up the easily available land and only land much further west was all that was on offer. Early expeditions had found little to praise in the windy and rough far North-West.
Edward Curr is the central character of the Highfield story. In 1826, at 27 years of age, he was made the Chief Agent for the Company and Magistrate of the North-West, which gave him a lot of power. He was called the Potentate of the North because the Company’s extensive holdings were perceived as a powerful and privileged colony within a colony.
Expectations and views of the country
In the following years, the Van Diemen’s Company employed many settlers that came out here for a number of years as contractors to help establish the Colony, earn a lot of money and gain prestige. Many of them were bitterly disappointed upon arrival. Instead of comfortable houses as they had been used to in England, here they had to live in tents, wooden huts amongst the surrounding mountains. Some were sent to a less cultivated settlement and all were displeased. Even more so, when they found out they were not paid in English currency. The country was dismissed as ugly by many of the early settlers, and the forests were considered as gloomy, monotonous, and melancholy.
The Convicts
The convicts were essential to the success of the company. Many of the convicts were highly skilled builders and were responsible for the construction of Highfield and its surrounding buildings. Irrespective of their skills, the convicts were not paid for their labours, but worked under a system that was basically slavery. Curr praised the work of his convicts. However, he has also been accused by some historians of being brutal. Curr employed a flogger and the flogging raid under his authority was double that of the rest of the Colony.
Curr was described as a man who controlled his convicts and indentured servants with an iron hand, authorising twice as much punishment as anyone else in the colony at the time. Most recently, some historians have argued that his near absolute power enabled him to turn a blind eye or possibly even sanction violence towards the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Some even accuse him of genocide.
The convict barracks were built in 1834 and housed 40 convicts, who helped to build Highfield Estate. This number rose to 80 before convict transportation ceased in 1853.
The Tasmanian Aborigines
The Tasmanian Aboriginal people, the indigenous people of Tasmania, have preserved the culture of a millennia through storytelling. What is known has been handed down for generations through stories, myths and memories. It has also been pieced together from the observations in the journals and diaries of European explorers, visitors and settlers, and in the official recordings of the colonial authorities. For tens of thousands of years, this once heavily wooded terrain with its abundance of food, had been home to aboriginal people. Less than 10 years before Highfield House was built, few white people had set foot on this land. In the 19th Century, the far Northwest became a haven for aborigines who had been pushed out of the settled area. However, between 1824 and 1831, the aboriginal population was all but destroyed. Some say they died mostly from disease, others believe that many had been murdered in what had become known as the black war.
Of the thousands that were estimated to be living on the island when white men arrived, only 200 were exiled to the islands in Bass Strait by the colonial government in 1834. Some historians believe that Edward Curr and the men under his authority played a significant role in the Aboriginal demise.
Source: Exhibition Highfield House
We found much more interesting information at the exhibition in Highfield House which, of course, we cannot include in our blog. They include the life stories of convicts and aboriginal people working here as well as comments and tales by visitors to the house. All carefully written up in ledgers to preserve the rich history of the early development of this part of Van Diemen’s Land.
3.2. Gowrie Park and Cradle Mountains
Dave’s Part:
07 January 2025
Another 5C night and it is freezing cold in our camper van. Even beneath our own duvets. In the morning at 06:30 I switch on our heating. We write our diaries while drinking cups of tea and coffee and just after 08:00 go for a shower in the communal block. We have to leave the site by 10:00. We say good bye to our nosy neighbours, unplug and drive off.
Our next site is Gowrie Park Caravan. On the way we stop at Woolworths to get more corn on the cob husks, chicken breasts and a writing pad for Lisa. We stop in Sheffield and have a walk about. Nice town. We meet a man walking his Lama on the Main Street. We drive to Gowrie Park. It is a small site but has all the facilities including WiFi.
Mole Creek was nearby, where Trowunna Wildlife Park is situated. It’s (allegedly) the worlds largest and longest running Tasmanian Devil breeding programme. It closed at 17:00, so we decided to drive there. We arrived at 16:00, which gave us an hour inside.
Quoting from their website. Trowunna is a privately owned wildlife sanctuary where native Tasmanian fauna and flora thrive. Trowunna started caring for Tasmania’s native animals in 1979 and it continues to be at the forefront of conservation and education in the state. The Sanctuary is currently involved in five separate conservation breeding programs that will ensure the survival of these threatened and endangered species. The Sanctuary has 70 acres of natural habitat to wander around and enjoy with free ranging Kangaroos and waterfowl to hand feed along the way.
We have wildlife interactions to suit everyone! Our free, daily interactive tours are family friendly and are included in the price of your entry fee. If something more in-depth is your thing, then maybe our 1-2 hour VIP tours or a 4-hour Trowunna experience would be more suitable.
Trowunna has been at the heart of Tasmanian wildlife conservation and education since 1979. The Sanctuary was instrumental in the establishment of the Save The Devil program and the training of keepers from around the world necessary for the devils care.
We were very impressed by our visit, and the people we met, who looked after the animals, were 100% dedicated to the welfare of these animals. Two Tasmanian Devils faced each other off, their faces close. They opened their mouths wide, displaying huge fangs and then gave the most blood-curdling screams. We thought they were fighting, but the keepers said the were merely talking to each other. If that was the case, then I’d hate to be close-by when the fought! I was most impressed too by the kangaroos. One in particular posed for me, together with her baby in her pouch, who I swear popped it’s head out and gave me smile too!
We drove back and had a cold beer outside and later dined on our delicious Fajitas sitting outside at our table in the sunshine, looking up at the surrounding peaks. We enjoyed a bottle of wine and then went to bed.
08 January 2025
Another chilly night and we breakfasted in the campervan.
We drove to Cradle mountain information centre info park. The road was very hilly and twisty and it took us 45 minutes. We paid our entrance fee of 35 AUD each, no discount for oldsters. However, the passes are valid for 72 hours. We took the 20 minute shuttle bus ride to the end and got off at Dove Lake.
Cradle Mountain-Lake Saint Clair National Park is a rugged 1262 square-km area of mountains, river gorges, lakes, tarns and wild alpine moorland and are part of the World Heritage-listed Tasmanian Wilderness. You're in an alpine region here, where weather can change rapidly. Within an hour you can experience burning sun, high winds, heavy rain and snow, so you must wear appropriate clothing. We had gusty winds and it was very hot, so we carried extra water and a waterproofs in our rucksacks, just in case and of course Factor 50+ suncream. We took the popular three-hour Dove Lake circuit, as did many others. This undulating 6.5km track wove its way through rainforests, small lakeside beaches and all beneath the towering peaks of Cradle Mountain itself.
Visitors are well catered in this well organised park and many of the shorter trails are covered with all-weather boardwalks that course through the landscape. There’s also a convenient hop-on hop-off shuttle bus service to take you around the various parts, Ranger Station, Snake Hill, Ronny Creek and Dove Lake and is the easiest way to explore the best of the parks shorter walks. For the more adventurous, there are several longer walks, something like eight or nine hours and are more suited to Alpine walkers and there are many mountain refuges for those who wish to spent the night in the mountains.
Tasmanian Aborigines were in this area 35,000 years ago, but there are few signs of their indigenous heritage. There’s an abundance of wildlife in the mountains. The endangered Tasmanian Devil, spotted tailed quoll. Wombats are everyone’s favourites and we saw several around Ronny Creek. They’re gentle creatures, unlike the scary Tasmanian Devils.
Afterwards we took the bus back to the Visitors Centre, walked to our camper van in the car park and then another 45-minute drive home along the steep twisty mountain roads.
We worked on our photos, diary and blog, before having a well deserved cold beer and later cooking dinner, the other half of our fajitas and tortillas, but before our sumptuous meal, we had our first course: micro-waved corn on the cob husk. We switch on the heater as it is going to be another cold night. My knee was sore after the walk.
09 January 2025
Problems uploading photos from iPhones to iPad. The same problems uploading text and photos onto the blog. It’s a late start because of the technical problems and then we need to drive to Sheffield to buy a new kettle as the old one kept blowing the main fuse. We contacted Apollo road support department about the kettle and they said we can spend up to 20 AUD for buying a new kettle. In the whole of the town of Sheffield they only have one kettle, and that cost us 26 AUD. We can discuss these 6 AUD with the help desk later. From Sheffield we drove directed to Cradle Mountain because, as I said before our passes are valid for 72 hours. This time we took a shorter 2 hours walk, which took us a lot longer because we were constantly stopping to take photographs.
Lisa fell and landed in wombat shit. An hour later she fell again and gushed her knee. Not her day. We got back to Gowrie Park at 19:30. Lisa showered and then we fixed her knee and then we cooked mainly vegetable for dinner from the Aussies who gave us what they had left over as they were going back to Sidney in the evening. First they had to drop off the camper van in Launceston and from there it was only a 1 1/2 hours flight. For them this was classed a long weekend.
The evening was calm and warm and pleasant and we sat outside at our table drinking a bottle of wine, watching the setting sun, which is 21:45. We went back into the van, watched a few music videos, and went to bed, again with the heater on.
The next day we moved on. Our next campsite was Stanley.
———-
Lisa’s part:
7th January 2025:
Our next site was Gowrie Caravan Park in the Gowrie Park Wilderness Village. It’s only about 1 1/2 hours drive away into the mountains. We had enough time until checking in to the new place, so we took it easy. We stopped in Sheffield, a small town that had nothing in common with the industrial city in the UK of the same name. It is a sleepy town with great charm. Someone must have had a sense for history and community here, so I thought at first, as many of the walls were painted with historic cultural events, such as thanksgiving day for the community, or individual influential citizens, such as the blacksmith, or a policeman who directed a mountain rescue when 21 students were caught in a sudden and terrible blizzard up in the Cradle Mountains in 1971. Then I learnt that since the mid 1980s the town holds an annual mural painting competition that invites all artists to participate and to submit paintings for a given historical theme. From the submissions, nine artists are selected that will come to Sheffield in November for a week to transform their designs onto full-sized murals. Great idea.
We strolled through the streets and admired the murals and the old fashioned wooden houses with their verandas and porches. The local shops didn’t stock anything of interest to us, so we drove onwards to the caravan park.
Again, the campsite was not aware of our reservation, even so we had booked and fully paid via Camps Australia - and I had proof of it. But, again, it wasn’t a problem. The ever so friendly owner said she would take it up with the Camps Australia agency. They seemed to work on different systems, and communication between the campsites and agencies seemed not to work well. She said, she would discuss this with her fellow park site owners at their next meeting, as it was a problem for all of them. This was a lovely small campsite with a clean kitchen, bathroom and toilet and wifi facilities in the communal area.
After we took over and marked our assigned site with our table and chairs, we drove out again to make the best of the afternoon as time was running. We went to the Trowunna Wildlife Park in Mole Creek, about 30 minutes drive away. This wildlife rescue and rehabilitation sanctuary takes on insured or orphaned wild animals and cares for them. We had just missed feeding time at 15:00, but that didn’t matter as usually many curious tourists want to see the animals. Now many of them had moved on and we had the place almost for ourselves. Guided by the friendly guy at reception we went straight to the area of the famous Tasmanian Devils. Some were hiding from the sun in their little huts or behind bushes, others came out playing or even splashing in a little water filled trough that served them for drinking and bathing. Tasmanian Devils look cute, they have little red ears (hence the name Devils). Some of them were fighting and screaming loudly at each other, which seems to be their form of communication and to make a stand. They were difficult to photograph as they didn’t want to pose and constantly moved about. Still, we were able to get a few decent shots.
We then moved on to the Kangaroos. They are dozy little fellows. They sit in a group and stare at you, with both hands in front of them and hardly move. When they moved, they hopped away with their short front feet and long back legs. Funny looking creatures. One of them had recently had a young one, that was still sitting in her pouch. Sometimes you could see the head hanging out, the next moment a foot or hand. No prams needed here.
We also saw a little wombat; they look a bit like teddy bears. Once he saw us standing there together with a group of Argentinian tourists, he walked away into his little hut and we saw him putting a little blanket over his head. He obviously wanted to be left in peace and was in no mood to pose for tourists. Fair enough. Then, unfortunately, time was up. The sanctuary closed at 17:00. We contemplated coming back another day, but there was so much more to see and to do in this area and we only had 3 days.
At the campsite we cooked chicken, added vegetables and some of the frozen corn on the cob and made some fajitas. We had found a fajitas kit in the supermarket. This is a quick way to make a very tasty meal: Fry chicken in a pan, add vegetables, and the spicy tomato sauce provided with the packet, warm up the provided tortillas and wrap the chicken in it. Ready and very yummy.
8th January 2025:
The next morning was glorious sunshine and blue sky. We drove to the Cradle Mountains Visitor Centre, the entry to Tasmania’s iconic national park in the heart of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Cradle Mountain is Tasmania’s most visited natural attraction, located in the northern part of the Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park. From the Visitor Centre, shuttle busses are running every 10 minutes to various parts of the Cradle Mountain area where one can take a range of walks from easy, moderate to difficult, 30 minutes to 6 hours; something for everyone’s abilities and liking. Also, the famous Overland Track starts here. We decided on a 6.5 km circular walk around the Dove Lake with an excellent view of the iconic Cradle Mountain in the background. We hoped Dave’s knee would sustains 3 hours of bush walking without too much of climbing. So far, his knee has held up very well, but we should not overdo it.
The walk leads around a deep blue lake and runs partly on boardwalks, passes by little bays and beaches and lookout points. After about 45 minutes we left the crowds of people behind, who prefer to congregate near the beaches. The area was beautiful with the mountains in the background. We moved along well maintained boardwalks over marshy and boggy grounds. They are covered with chicken wire to prevent slipping in wintery wet and icy conditions. We were impressed and took lots of photos. The weather was perfect, sunshine, blue sky, but a cool wind kept the temperature cool at about 20 degrees. We took our time to enjoy our surroundings, then we headed back via shuttle bus to the visitor centre and then drove back to the campsite.
Back at the campsite we tried, again, to upload text and photos onto the blog, but this was a difficult and lengthy process. Because of the bad wifi signal, uploading one photo took about 15 minutes and lots of patience. In between the website frequently froze and I needed to wait again… Once again I noticed how spoilt we have become. We have all the technology at home on our big computers and a fast internet connection. Everything works quickly and efficiently at home, alas, not here. We continued the next morning and managed to upload and finalise our latest blog entry.
9th January 2025:
Then we went back to the Cradle Mountains, as our tickets were valid for 72 hours. Today Dave’s knee was playing up and we wanted to take it easy. We decided on an easy two hour walk from Dove Lake via Lake Lilla back to the Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre. We were delighted at the beautiful landscape we encountered on this path, with the added bonus of far less people walking here. Of course, it would have been great to ascend to the top of Cradle Mountain to enjoy the view from the top. Although we are quite fit, we decided this 6 hour steep walk was a little too difficult for us, considering our age, Dave’s knee and the fact that we had to come down again. We were better off taking more moderate walks, and indeed we greatly enjoyed them.
Whilst we were walking, I spotted a bus on the horizon, wondering what it was doing in the area, and promptly stumbled over a step on the boardwalk, which I had not seen as I was concentrating on the bus. I tried to hold my balance, but then felt that sinking feeling as I fell backwards into the ditch and landed between the soft bushes, still holding my camera high so that it did not get damaged - never mind my body, that can heal - until Dave came and rescued the camera. I scrambled out of the bushes back onto the boardwalk. I was lucky that I did not land in the wet and soggy part of the marshy ground, but Dave noticed that my backside was covered in Wombat poo. Oh dear. Dave tried to clean it off as best he could and told me to look where I was going. Yes, I did, but there was this bus… Never mind! The camera was okay, that was the main thing.
We continued our walk. This time, I had my eyes focussing more on my feet and tried to train myself to stop walking when I saw something interesting in the distance. This is Wombat land, as we could see on the piles of poo on the boardwalk and, as I had so recently experienced, on the marshy ground. We tried to see any of the little wombats, either in the trees or on the ground, but without success. Only towards the end of our walk, we passed a group of people staring down the boardwalk trying to see a little wombat beneath and photograph it. The lovely creature looked like a teddy bear and was not disturbed at all by the people staring at him but stoically continued eating grass. It was most annoying, however, that the people nearest to the wombat, hogged their places and did not make space for others to have a good look as well. What inconsiderate people! Dave jumped down from the boardwalk, which nobody else dared, and got a good photograph of him this way. We moved on.
I was still muttering about the selfishness of some people, when someone in front of me shouted that they was a wombat in the field. I looked up, walked towards her, but got my heel caught on the chicken wire, tried to balance but fell on my knees, still holding the camera up to keep it safe. Then I looked at the damage on my knee. The sharp chicken wire had gashed my right knee. There was blood running down my leg. What a fool I had been, once again. At least the camera was okay. The knee would heal. Dave washed the dirty wound and the blood off with water from my water bottle. Then I dried it with a tissue and held it tight to stop the blood and limped towards the nearby shuttle bus stop as I saw a bus coming, which took us back to the visitor centre. It looked worse than it was. Back in the van, we cleaned the wound with alcohol wipes and put the biggest plaster on it that we could find in our first aid kit. That’s it. Falling twice on one day. That’s a bit much and avoidable. I felt stupid and I really must be more careful next time.
Back at the campsite, I cooked dinner. For some reason, the fridge must have stopped working and all the frozen vegetables which we had bought in Miena, had thawed. So I made a big stew, and although Dave likes eating vegetables, he always likes some kind of meat with it. Luckily, in the supermarket I had found Cabanos sausages and used this to spice up the stew. Very yummy and a very happy Dave. We ate outside, enjoying the evening sunshine and gazing up at the surrounding mountains.
One thing with campsites is that you always meet people. We met quite a few, some are reserved and keep themselves to themselves; others are chatty, and quite a few overbearing. If you don’t want to socialise, then you better stay in your camper because people walk passed and start a conversation, sometimes its a short greeting, sometimes it can take hours.
On this campsite, while we were breakfasting in the sunshine, a couple from Sydney came over with a box of goodies and asked whether we wanted some of them as they were flying back in the evening. We greatly accepted, as they contained exactly what we needed to stock up anyway, such as, olive oil spray, garlic paste, toilet rolls, bin liners, peanut butter spread, carrots, chocolate peanuts. All much appreciated. They were nice people, about 30 years old and both were teachers.
Next to us was a couple from France. She, originally from Niger, now living in Strasbourg with her two grown-up children. He was working in New Caledonia, a small island in the South Pacific off the coast of Eastern Australia. He had a six year contract and was halfway through it. They try to meet twice a year, once in France and once they make holiday somewhere in the South Pacific. We got to know her quite well and chatted about life and politics and put the world to rights. A very nice lady, she invited us to visit her in Strasbourg. He was a nice chap too but rather shy and did not speak good English.
On the other side of our camper was a German couple. They rented a campsite BBQ kit (20 AUD), which is a plastic container full of logs with a metal bucket to be used either as BBQ basket or sit around when it got cold. They used it to sit around the burning logs to keep warm and were looking at a screen, Life TV as they laughingly told us. He had a drone and was watching remotely a platypus in a nearby lake on the camera of their drone. Then a beep informed them that the battery was low and the drone automatically returned to the place where it started from. This couple, from Stuttgart, were travelling through Australia for 2 months with a big camper van. They were only in Tasmania for 2 weeks. They were going back to mainland Australia in two days time.
The next day we moved on to the North of Tasmania to a small town called Stanley and the remote area of the Northwest.
3.1. On New Year’s Day, we have arrived safely in Tasmania. We stayed at a travel lodge near the Airports, close by to Apollo where we picked up the Camper van the next morning.
Here is an excerpt from Dave’s diary of the following days, Jan 2-5, followed by some impressions of mine. There might be some repetitions, but we don’t have the time to fully sync our writings.
Dave:
02 January 2025
We breakfasted at 08:30 and left at 09:00 by hotel taxi to our campervan pick up location within the airport complex. We joined a queue of people waiting to pickup their campervans. When we reached the head of the queue our checkin guy told us they were so busy that there was no time to show us around our vehicle and to download their app as all the information was on the app. Our first camping site is Wayatinah Lakeside Caravan Park. I drive and our first stop is to a supermarket in New Norfolk. No need to refuel as we start off with a full tank. 30 minutes later we’re in parking spot number 17.
We spend the rest of the afternoon sorting and placing our gear and shopping inside our campervan. We had thought about getting a bigger campervan, as we thought this one might be a bit too small, but we managed to fit everything inside. Even if we had wanted to upgrade we could only do so after mid January as they were all fully booked out until then. We put our corn-on-the-cob starter in the microwave, delicious and cooked our chicken drumsticks in the frying pan and they were equally delicious. We ate outside at our picnic table and chairs, but as soon as the sun dropped down behind the surrounding trees, it started to get chilly, so we went inside and finished our drinks in the comfort of or campervan.
03 January 2025
We woke at 08:00 and we were feeling cold. What must it be like for those on the site sleeping in tents? The temperature dropped to around 4C last night, thank goodness we asked for a second duvet. I worked out the controls of our air conditioning unit and changed the setting over to heating. We felt warm once again. After breakfasting on bread and beans, we went to explore our campsite to find the places, such as where to empty our toilet and waste water. We were admiring a very expensive looking camper that looks the business, which is owned by the people who own the site. He was standing nearby and told us that in the winter season last year they travelled up to Northern Australia and covered 12,000 kms and spent 4,000 AUD on fuel, about £2,000. No half measures for these Tasmanians! He also pointed out where we could empty our toilet cassette and to run our wastewater hose into the trees in front of our campervan.
We needed more water and they don’t sell it on our campsite. When we drove from Hobart we passed signs pointing to a small farm down a dirt track that sold chicken and duck eggs, honey and veggies. We disconnected our power cable to our campervan and drove back there to see what they had on offer, maybe they sold water too. The place looked rather rundown and when we parked up we were met by the owner, Paul, whose was originally from Dortmund. His wife was somewhere inside one of the many ramshackle buildings dotted around the place. We had a long conversation with him and he showed us his two Scottish cows, goats, four alpacas, plus a new born and his many geese, ducks and chickens. He worked part-time in a nearby animal rescue centre and was a conservationist. He’s well known and people bring him their unwanted, or sick animals as he’ll look after them until they die naturally. He told us he lives off the land, has no contact with the outside world, nor had a TV, computer or smartphone. One afternoon he took his wife for an ice-cream treat. When they entered the shop a boy of about 12 years old was robbing the shop and threatening the owner with a knife. He walked up to the boy, thumped him in the face and took the knife of him. He lifted him off the ground by his throat and told him if he ever caught him doing that again he’d kill him. No messing about with this guy! However, he didn’t have water, but we did buy 12 eggs off of him before we drove back. Lisa made an omelette, and out of the 12 eggs and 6 were bad. I told Lisa to drive back and complain!
For dinner we cooked our Fajita’s with the the two remaining chicken drumsticks that we cooked last night and they were delicious. The weather was perfect and we sat outside eating our Fajitas and drinking our tins of Tasmanian beer until the sun dropped behind the trees and when it did we washed up and retired inside our campervan to drink our bottle of wine and catchup on the news. I checked the weather forecast to see the nighttime temperature in Belsize Park. It would be -3C, so I remotely switched on our central heating system for a few hours.
04 January 2025
Another 5C overnight temperature last night and this time, instead of sleeping across the width of our campervan, we slept lengthways and that seemed to work better, although the fridge was rather noisy during the night, until I turned the thermostat up a little inside the fridge.
After breakfast we went for a short walk through the trees beside the lake and got bitten by mosquitoes. We still needed water, so we disconnected the power cable, switched off the gas bottle and drove back to Ouse, the small town where we stopped to buy water on the way here. We took the opportunity to input the addresses of the next few campsites we’d be staying at into our TomTom on the way back and as we drove back clouds appeared. The campers in the pitch next to us said that it would rain tomorrow, as that’s what usually happens after a few warm days. Tomorrow we’re driving off to Quamby Corner in the central highlands, which is a two hour drive away.
The campers next to us are 6 families. They know each other for years and meet at this site every year. They’re seated on chairs in a big circle, drinking beer and wine in the grassy area In front of their tents. All their kids are their too and they’re having a karaoke session between cycling around the ground. They invite us over and we sit with them for a while drinking our wine and chewing over the fat and it was surprising to see how many of the men were from England and had married Tasmanian women. Too personal to ask under what circumstances.
05 January 2025
We left our Wayatinah campsite, but before I needed to empty our toilet cassette in their dump station and to drain our dirty water tank. I emptied our waste water tank and then drained the toilet cassette, but had difficulty afterwards sliding it back in. I finally managed it but Lisa complained of the smell and of the millions of flies now in our campervan and toilet/shower unit. When I looked inside the toilet, the slider that closes the toilet after ‘an event’ hadn’t close and that was the problem. All I could do was to take the cassette out, to wash the outside of it and once dry put it inside our toilet/shower unit because we needed to get to our next campsite, Quamby Corner Caravan Park, situated in Quamby Brook in the Golden Valley.
We tapped in the address into our TomTom and set off northwards along the A10 and then branch off right onto the B11. For some reason our TomTom told us to turn around when possible. We checked our map and could see there was a road, so we followed our map. We reach the B11 and continue along the A10, as we want to see the famous Derwent Bridge. However, there’s nothing much to see, so we continue to Lake St Clair. There’s a famous Overland Trekking route that starts at Cradle Mountain and takes 5 days and 6 nights to trek down to the end of the trail in Cynthia Bay in Lake St Claire. This is were we make a toilet stop at the visitors/information centre at end of this trail, where I try once again to fix the faulty cassette without success.
We continue back the way we’d just driven and turn left onto the B11. After 3 km, the sealed road turns into a gravel road. Ahead I could see a sealed road, so I continued and after a further 3km it was back to the gravel road. When we picked up the campervan we had strict instructions that the campervan must not drive on unsealed roads. However, we could drive for short distances, up to 12 km, on unsealed road in order to reach a campsite. If we did drive on unsealed roads we’d be uninsured and besides all their campers had a trackers, so they could easily track our journey. We have no alternative but to turn around and drive back. The only other road available to us meant driving south, passing our Wayatinah campsite and continuing all the way down to Hamilton. From there turned left onto the B110 to Bothwell, then left onto the A5 to our Quamby Corner Caravan Park in Quamby Brook, via Miena and the Great Lake.
This was a 250 km detour and took almost 3 hours.
This was Sunday and there was a store in Miena, where we wanted to buy food and drink for tonight. As we were approaching Miena, the clouds were getting darker. Instead of a biggish town there were only a few houses dotted on both sides of the road before we turned left and followed the signs to the main store and gas station. We parked up and went into the store expecting a good selection of fresh fruit and veg and we were disappointed, they had none of it, nor did they have a loaf of break or a bottle of water. We come away with a bag of frozen sweetcorn, peas and a two packets of frozen lasagne. They have a selection of tins and a small tin of tuna cost. 4 AUD, about £2 - seems they can charge what they want as there appears to be no competition. What they do have are chips and sausages to take away, which they cooked in the back room and there was a queue waiting to buy them. Nearby was a hotel and bar, so we went to see if they sell alcohol. We entered and here were a couple of people in the bar sitting with their pints watching television. We asked the barman if he sells alcohol to take away. Yes, he’d be happy to sell us a bottle of red wine. What would be the price? Between 65-80 AUD (£32 to £40). No thanks, we’d rather drink our beer. We needed to refuel and as I was refuelling it started to rain, thankfully the gas station was covered. We drove off and shortly after it stoped raining and the clouds gave way to a blue sky.
We arrived at Quamby Corner caravan park at 17:30 anxious that we might be too late. The lady, who greeted us in the farm house, couldn’t find our booking, even though we had paid the 50% deposit. No worries there were places and after we paid the final 50% we’re given our plot number. We parked and placed our table and chairs on the grass beside in the warm wonderful sunshine. There’s a big Woolworths supermarket in Deloraine that’s open until 21:00, so we immediately drove there to restock our supplies. It was a 20-minute drive away and when we get there its a very nice a largish tourists town. It has a car park big enough for our van.
We bought our supplies, they even had sweetcorn husks too. After that we drove across town to a bottle store and what a great selection they had too and it’s run by a great guy from Bali. We drove back and we prepared dinner, a starter of fresh sweetcorn husks in the microwave followed by and ten tiger prawns with sourdough bread. Lisa’s still feeling shitty and suffering from a heavy cold. I was tired too as I’ve been driving for 7.5 hrs and by 22:00 we’re both fast asleep.
Lisa:
In order to get used to our Camper van in a relaxed manner, we booked ourselves into a quiet campsite, Wayatinah Caravan Park, on a lovely lake, the Wayatinah Lagoon. I had insisted that we should rent the smallest Camper (5.50m long and 2m wide) as I also wanted to drive it on the narrow and curvy roads of Tasmania. When we saw it at pick up, we got worried, not only if we were able to fit everything in, but also if we were able to get along in such a confined space of 6 square meters of living space inclusive kitchen and toilet, table and seats converted into a bed at night, during the next month without getting on each others throat.
It took careful planning to fit everything into the over head luggage and under seat compartments and we were surprised how much space there actually was. One has to be very tidy and immediately put away things and remember where you put it. We also had to learn how to switch on electricity, lock onto water supply, how to pack things and lock all compartments so that not everything would bounced about when driving, how to disconnect everything before driving off etc. It definitely was a steep learning curve. As Dave mentioned, at pickup there was no time for introduction, and we were given an app to download. However, with a very infrequent internet connection in the mountains and none in the remote areas, such an app is more or less useless. Experience is what is asked for. Experienced campers amongst our readers will only laugh at the challenges we are facing. But we are learning fast.
On our last evening in Wayatinah, we were invited to sit with our neighbours around a log fire. They were a group of over 20 people, including lots of children. They were Tasmanians, long-time friends, who for the last 10 years, spent four days over the first weekend in the New Year together camping in Wayatinah. The had great fun together, grilling Marshmallows on the campfire after dinner and the evening finished with a kind of Karoke for the kids. The next morning they would pack up their tents and go home, as on Monday they had to go back to work. This reminded me of our Regensburger friends, who every year spend a long weekend together in a hut in the Bavarian Mountains having a great time. A few times we were able to join them and had great fun.
After three nights, on Sunday, the 5th January, once we had stocked up and learnt the basics, we were ready to go and made our way to the next campsite, the Quamby Corner Caravan Park. This is only a short drive away, 1hour 45 minutes. We had an easy day ahead of us. - So we thought.
Before leaving the campsite we thought we better empty the toilet canister, for the first time. We still have to learn how to do that without splattering the stinking brew on to our shoes and socks. We were relieved when the toilet canister slotted in again. Well done, so we thought. Only later, we were wondering about the awful smell in our camper. We investigated and realised that although the compartment was slotted in correctly, the leaver that closed the toilet when slotted in to prevent the smell getting into the van was broken. Dave tried and tried to see whether he could repair it, without success. In the meantime we had a swarm of flies flying around us and inside the van. We had no other option than to take the whole unit out, close it, to prevent the smell getting out, and put it inside the shower unit, out of our way. The emergency phone number of our rental company did not respond, either because it was a Sunday, or as we later found out because with our UK phones we needed to dial the AUS phone code. Anyway, the smell was in check, on the next campsite we had hot showers and toilets available. We were not in a situation of crisis.
We continued our drive and wondered why our TomTom navigator constantly wanted to send us back on a different road that would be a much longer way. However, the google map on my smartphone had sent us the shortest way. We decided to believe Google map and continued. We went for a little detour over the Derwent bridge to visit the lovely Lake St. Clair. It is here where the famous Overland Track, a 65 km hike, six nights, five days through beautiful mountain landscape, rainforests and alpine moors, from near the Cradle Mountain ends. We saw quite a few people with big rucksacks who looked pretty exhausted. No one smiled. I wonder why. We had decided to give this walk a miss as we had our camper van.
We then continued our journey. However, after about 10 minutes, our trip went off the good A10 road and we entered B11, which was an unpaved dirt road. We remembered that one of the rules and regulations that we were told at pick up, was, never drive the vehicle on unpaved, unsealed roads, although a maximum of 12 km were allowed to get to a remote campsite. The reason given as, that the weather in Tasmania was so unpredictable that strong rain or snow would make unpaved roads dangerous and unsafe to pass. If we did that, our insurance would be invalid. We were also informed that the van had a tracker. Now we understood what our TomTom had wanted to warn us about. What should be done? I suggested that perhaps it was only for a few miles and then we would get onto a paved road again. We tried but after 10 minutes of rough road we turned the van around. That was crazy. Why were we not told which roads were unpaved roads? None of the maps distinguished between paved and unpaved roads. Now the only alternative we had, was going back and try the other road A 10, passing our last nights campsite and almost back to where we had picked up our camper van in Hobart and then take the A 5 towards North. This was a detour of more than 3 hours. We were furious. What a waste of our time. But it was our own fault, we should have trusted our TomTom.
So we went all the way back and then up joining the A5. Now we got worried whether we soon would run out of diesel as there are very few petrol stations in Tasmania. We found one and stopped for refuelling. There was only a machine and it asked me how many litres of diesel I wanted to purchase. How should I know? We just wanted to fill up. I had no idea how many litres we needed to fill up. If I purchased too few I had to purchase again and again; if I purchased too many we overpaid. We decided we better buy our Diesel at a manned petrol station so that we would be able to get help if needed. We continued and whilst Dave drove I studied our van handbook and found out it had a fuel capacity of 80 litres. That was not bad, that would allow us many more km until we ran out of fuel. We also found out from our clever van, that so far we had driven 360 km and had still diesel for another 440 km in the tank. Okay, no panic.
On our way we drove through highland landscape and passed yellow gorse growing along the road, herds of sheep and cows. Dave is reminded of driving in Cornwall in the 70s. We arrived in Miena, which is a small hamlet right in the middle of the Central Plateau. It is here were the guidebooks recommend to get basic supplies as there are not many shops in the area. The place was empty, a few shacks, a hotel and a bar. The general store did not have much of supplies. No bread, no vegetable, no meat or chicken, only frozen goods and a few tins. Dave asked whether they had some fish, as there are many lakes in the area. The woman said, yes, many, but you have to go to the lake and catch them yourself. The shop owners were not allowed to sell fish as all fish in the country belong to the King.
At least we were able to fill up with diesel. While I waited for Dave to fill up the car, I had a chat with an elderly lady from Queensland waiting for her french fries. She told me, she (79) was on holiday with her 86 year old sister driving around the Midlands of Tasmania in a rented car and staying in Hotels. They enjoyed the journey very much but travelling was no longer easy as there was so much to learn how to get about, such as using your smart phone for everything.
In the meantime, the clouds have turned black, and it had started to rain. The atmosphere was moody. We continued our journey and drove long distances without seeing another car or a house or a village. We passed through dense forest with lots of white dead trees and logs. It looked spooky. Perhaps a fire had destroyed them? The rain stopped and we finally arrived at our destination, the Quamby Corner Caravan Park situated in Quamby Brook in the Golden Valley. After check-in, we hurried off again to get some supplies from Woolworths in Delorraine, a nice little town about 20 minutes drive away. We were relieved to be out of the remote area, amongst friendly people and able to stock up with supplies.
The next morning, after we enjoyed the hot showers at the campsite and had a lovely breakfast in the sunshine, we called the road assistance team and explained our problem. They sent us to a repair shop in Deloraine to get the toilet problem fixed. We happily drove there, only to find out that the shop was still closed until 13th January because the owner is on holiday. Good for him, bad for us. We phoned again Road Assistance. This time they suggested another repair shop in Devonport, 70 km away, on the coast, but phoned them for us to make sure the shop is open. It was and they expected us. We drove the 70 km, hoping that the journey would all be on paved roads. The mechanic, Jamie. quickly diagnosed the toilet cassette to be broken and sold us a new one for 350 AUD, that is £170. While Dave inserted the cassette, the Jamie brought me the old one to take with me. In panic I looked at him and have nightmares that we have to have this stinky beast in the living room of our camper van for the rest of our Tasmanian journey. I asked the mechanic what I should do with the old cassette, he said nothing but brought a carton, put the cassette into it, and through it in his bin. Problem solved. I was much relieved. The new toilet cassette slotted in but the internal slot which is connected to the leaver on the toilet did not fit. Dave asked Jamie the mechanic to have a look. He only shrugged his shoulders and said there is nothing he could do. For major repairs like that, we needed to bring the van back to Hobart where we had picked it up. Nice. Very helpful. Dave, however, did not give up and inspected closer and found out the leaver needed to be turned around 180 degrees. He did it and it worked. Well done, Dave! We had a fully functioning toilet again. The holiday was saved. At least for now. Who knows what else would come along our way.
We took the opportunity that we were on the coast and bought some fresh Tasmanian Gummy fish (a type of shark) and tiger prawns for our dinner tonight and headed back to our campsite for a well deserved cup of tea and rest. We had spent a full day solving our toilet problem.
At present, we don’t have any internet, or only intermittent, and this situation will not improve in the next few weeks. Also, we have not seen any wildlife, apart from lots of roadkill, flies, mosquitos, cows, sheep and a few birds, one of them with blue heads, but they were too quick for us to have a closer look.
The Quamby campsite, so we are told by our neighbours, is full of migrant workers. That explains the busy morning activities in the shower room and kitchen. Many, mostly single men, are sleeping in a tent, which is a cheap accommodation, and travel to work where there is need for workforce, mostly seasonal work. That explains the signs we saw when travelling along the road that said: workers wanted.
Our neighbours are two friends, Maureen and Jim, who have been on the road for many years. Maureen told me, when she retired at 64, she realised that on her meagre pension as a single woman she would not be able to live and afford the rent. So she bought herself a camper van and started travelling Australia. That was 20 years ago. Now she is 84. She met Jim, along the way. He also has a camper van and from time to time they travel together. Mostly that means, they stay in a campsite for months, sitting all day in front of their vans, relaxing. Jim looks bored and approaches everyone coming new into the camp, like we. They said they are happy here as this area is so beautiful. But when we asked them what they can recommend what we can do and explore in the area, they said they don’t know as they are always in the campsite. I can imagine that must get boring with time. But everyone to themselves.
Quambie Corner to Gowrie Park 7.-9.January 2025
Last night the temperature was down to 7 degrees. It was freezing cold in the van. In the morning we switched the heating on and slowly thawed up. Today we are driving off to Gowrie Park, which is close to the famous and beautiful Cradle Mountain. Gowrie Park is high up in the mountain, I guess it will get even colder at nights. Perhaps it is a good idea to have the heating on during the night?
Melbourne
29.12.2024
The flying time to Melbourne is about 9 hours, and Australia is 3 hours in front of Hong Kong. That means we are now 11 hours in front of London, 10 of Munich or Berlin. Unfortunately, the inflight meals left a lot to be desired, the vegetarian version was even worse, so on the return flight I will go back to the standard food, at least that will taste of something other than plastic. Having said that, Dave complained about his rubbery sausage and bacon breakfast. We managed a little sleep despite the surrounding crying babies. We landed at 07:10 and took it easy as we had lots of time to kill until we would check into our hotel. We had applied for e-visas so our passage through passport control was easy. We went to the Skybus desk and booked return tickets into the Southern Cross Skybus terminal. The journey on a double-decker bus was fast and took less than 30 minutes. The check-in time for our hotel was not until 14:00, so at 09:00 we were killing time by sitting in a Movenpick cafe, near the Southern Cross terminal, drinking coffee and tea. I was glad we were inside because even though the sun was shining out of a clear-blue sky, it was chilly in the shade and a cold wind was blowing, so I quickly had to put on my fleece. We thought Australia would be hot in the height of summer. However, even out of the shade we could feel the power of the sun, so the suncream is a must and so is Dave’s hat.
We put the time to good use and wrote up our travel blog. Three hours and several cups of tea and coffee later we left and took two trams within the City free Tram zone, to the Ibis Hotel on Thierry Street. Melbourne has an extensive and efficient tram system which in the inner city is free of charge. During the next few days we would often sit in the tram for a free ride around Melbourne to get an overview of the city. It must have been our lucky day as we were allowed to check into our hotel an hour before earlier, and after a bit of chit chat with the receptionist we got an upgrade from a room on the 3rd to one on the 9th floor. The room was pleasant and suited us well as our home for the next three nights. After a short rest we left to explore the nearby famous Queen Victoria Market. Unfortunately, the market was about to close, so we just strode though quickly to get an overview and an impression and promised ourselves to return another day.
We hopped on the free city circular tram to explore the city. The tram was full but we did manage to get a seat, although we couldn’t see much. After 15 minutes, however, the tram driver told us that, as it’s Sunday, this tram will terminate at 17:00, in 5 minutes time. We ended up at the Waterfront City Docklands shopping mall, where we went for a mooch about. Most of the shops were full of kiddies toys and catered only for children, which was self evident by the amount of families walking around. We then found an interesting shop with a photo exhibition but the guy was just locking up his photo shop. We had a natter to him about photos and world affairs. He was an interesting guy. He had been working for years in London and when he returned to Australia, he and his partner hosted the famous world press photography exhibition in Melbourne.
We then headed back to the city by another tram. We got off at Flinders Street Station and went walkabout into Chinatown to find a restaurant. We found a branch of Tim Ho Wan, the restaurant that was so highly recommended in Hong Kong by the newly wed couple, and went there to eat. It was almost as good but this time we didn’t have one of their expensive bottles of beer. They have a strange custom here. There’s a 10% service charge added to your bill at weekends and an extra 15% added for public holidays. This can get costly.
Afterward we headed off back to our hotel and on the way looked out for a supermarket so we could by snacks, beer and wine - and sun creme. We found one but discovered they didn’t sell alcohol. If you want to buy alcohol, you had to go to a bottle shop, which only sells alcohol. This system was explained to us by a very friendly guy who assured us there were plenty of alcohol shops everywhere and they were open all hours.
The Australians are very friendly, easy to chat to and we enjoyed their relaxed manner. Nothing seems to be a problem that cannot be solved. We also enjoyed the cosmopolitan culture of Melbourne. We are surprised that so many people from different countries and cultures live here. But of course, Asia is just around the corner. Presumably, many came for work or study and brought their families or are here as tourists. The many Asian restaurants are very popular, and we almost feel transported back to Hong Kong.
Back home at the hotel, we finally were so tired that we, despite our jet lag, which had caused us a few sleepless nights so far, had a good night sleep.
30 December 2024
The next morning we had a lazy start to the day and went for brunch in a nearby cafe, which was Japanese as we soon found out. The food was very tasty. Dave had a bowl full of smoked Kaiser meet (smoked pork ribs) with various vegetables in noodle soup, I had vegetable tempura (vegetables in batter, fried) with Avocado creme and salad. The portions were huge, and we both would have been happy with only half of it. We paid a reasonable price of 57 AUD, that is £ 28.50 for the two of us, including tea and coffee. Afterward we walked down Elizabeth Street to digest our food, and to Dave’s delight we found a computer shop and a camera shop next door. We made our way to Bourke Street Mall to Meyr’s department store, where we, together with loads of others, mostly children, pressed our noses against the department store window at displays of animated animals in the jungle.
From there we made our way to AC/DC Lane, which is dedicated to the band, as that’s where they have started out. There was even a concrete figure of Bon Scott, AC/DC’s original singer, bursting through the brickwork. He died from the effects of alcohol poisoning in Camden in 1980, just down the road from where we live.
We were sitting on a bench in AC/DC Lane soaking up the atmosphere and to give our feet a welcome rest, when we were approached by an 80 year old Canadian guy. We had a natter and he told us he had come on a cruise ship from Canada and was visiting his son who lived in Melbourne. He also said that the importance of travelling is not only about seeing the places listed in the guide book but about meeting like-minded people. Now he too was here to see where AC/DC had started out and he pointed out that our generation had it all, the best music, the best of time. We couldn’t agree more and wished him well as he hurried away to catch up with his family who had already moved on. We continued on our walk and paid homage to the classic rock pub called the Cherry bar, which was originally located in AC/DC Lane. However, it was moved to a new site in 2020, a few blocks away from AC/DC Lane.
This area around AC/DC Lane, Hosier Lane and Duckboard Street is also well known for having the City’s most eye-popping street art. This may have been so some time ago, but now most of the pictures have faded, the paint peeling off and many of the paintings have been smeared with spray paint and tip pen.
Around the corner of AC/DC Lane was a painting of Malcolm Young, the recently deceased founding member and lead guitarist of the band. It says, “C’mon Saint Peter, how many bloody more times you gonna make me play Hell’s Bells before you let me through the gates, mate?”.
Next we walked to Federation Square, which is the cultural heart of the City to visit the aborigine museum called Koorie Heritage Trust. Unfortunately, we got there at 5pm, just as it was closing. Okay, we’ll return tomorrow. On the bridge leading over the Yarra river we admired the Skyline of Melbourne’s Business District. From here, boats offer river cruises, but we decided to cross the Yarra river and have a stroll on the Southbank Promenade, the waterfront, passing by the many art galleries, bars and restaurants where people sat outside taking in the city skyline.
We made our way to Melbourne’s famous Skydeck, a viewing platform on the 88th floor. The lift takes 38 seconds to reach the top, travelling at 9 metres a second. It cost 64.73 AUD, around £32, for us both, even with our elders discount. Expensive, yes, but well worth the money. The 360 degree views of the city skyline, the world famous cricket stadium, the docks and the distant hills on the horizon are stupendous. We spent almost two hours on the platform before returning to earth.
We were told that the next day, New Year’s Eve, the platform was closed because there was a private party. Can you imagine, the view of all the fire works around Melbourne? We shutter to think how much the entry tickets were for this special VIP New Year’s Eve event.
On the way home, we had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant, called Sarawak Kitchen, which was just around the corner of our hotel. Dave had a bowl of roasted pork Sarawak (noodle soup) and I had one with vegetables and soya meat. Both were delicious, but far too much food, we could not finish it. Again we walked home feeling bloated.
31.12.2024
The next morning we were up earlier and went to the ancient Queen Victoria Market for breakfast. The Vic Market with its more than 600 stalls is known as the largest out-door market in the southern hemisphere. The market was busy, full with people doing their shopping or like us just looking. I bought a cheese and ham panini at one of the many stalls, which was big enough for us to share, and we enjoyed it sitting outside in the sunshine. We sat and watched the world go by. We were surprised that Melbourne appeared to be populated by many overweight, obese people, men, women and children. But on the other hand, it was understandable considering the huge portions of food served in restaurants and the amount of places offering delicious calorific food, cakes and sugary drinks.
Then we mingled with hundreds of customers and onlookers to explore the market. In the deli hall, the stalls have plenty of gourmet food on display, such as olives, cheeses, dips, sausages ham, wine, truffles oil and kangaroo biltong. I was fascinated by a stall that offers spices and tea from all over the world. I was just about to buy a German herbal tea, when I saw the prices, 6.5 AUD for 10 grams of tea. They also had apple cake spices and mulled wine spices even gingerbread spices (Lebkuchengewuerz) that cost 2.40 AUD for 10 grams. (This was approximate £1.20 or 1.45 Euros). I thought, I better wait until the next time I am in Germany.
The vendors are very relaxed and don’t mind us taking pictures and are happy to chat. I spoke to Don, an Italian guy, who came with his brother 15 years ago to Melbourne and owns a stall offering Italian delicatessen. We took some photos of him and his brother and I promised to email them to him, which I did. Next door was a Polish stall, followed by Greek and Turkish food stalls. After that we entered the area of fishmongers and were surprised by the amount and size of the lobsters and oysters on display, beside octopus, squid, salmon and the most amazing exotic fish we had ever seen. Wide eyed we walked also through the meet market which had the biggest steaks we have ever seen. No wonder, people are so well nourished. Every kind of fresh meat, such as beef, pork, lamb, quicken, goose, quail were on display.
We were sorry to miss the famous Night-market here at Queen Victoria Market with its vibrant atmosphere and a rotating weekly line-up of live music and entertainment. Unfortunately, that’s on Wednesday’s only but we are leaving on Tuesday.
After a while, we had enough of food and taking pictures of it and made our way by tram to Flinders Station. This station was built in 1854, and it is Australia’s first train station that ran the distance of 2.5 miles from Flinders Street to Sandridge, which is now known as Port Melbourne. We were surprised to see so many well known names of English cities on the platform departure board. But why not, as so many people originated from England and presumably wanted their home towns to be remembered.
Finally we moved over to the culture centre on Federation Square, just across Flinders Street Station and headed to the Koorie Heritage Trust. This time they were open, but sadly did not offer their famous tours over the holiday period. Instead, we visited their very interesting exhibition of Aboriginal art installations and watched some videos of artists explaining the history of their art.
The area around Federation Square was partly cordoned off because of the New Years Eve’s celebrations later with lots of music and fireworks. We heard, this was the place to be to celebrate the incoming New Year. There are many celebrations going on around Melbourne but many of them were already fully booked. Also, the public traffic, like trams and buses, in much of the city centre was to be greatly reduced due to the celebrations. So we decided to spend our New Year’s Eve in Federation Square, at least it was not too far to walk home afterwards in case there we could not get a tram.
We wanted to have a drink at the Imperial, the oldest pub in Melbourne, (at Imperial Hotel, 2-8 Bourke St). They offered a New Year’s Eve Rooftop Party, in two sittings, from 19:00 until 01:00, entry fees for sitting one and two, from 150 AUD + booking fee. They had a few tickets left for 198.90 AUD, which also included canapés and drinks, such as beer and wine, life music until 22:00 and then a DJ until 01:00. Sorry mate, we have other plans. There is so much more to see. That means, we have to go there the next day for coffee, our last chance to admire the views from their roof top.
So we made our way towards Federation Square, equipped with a nice bottle of wine, as we had no means to keep sparkling wine cold until midnight. The streets and pavements in the centre were full with masses of people having a good time and many of them moving towards Fed Square. The inner centre was cordoned off with lots of security staff around. A loudspeaker frequently informed us that Melbourne Centre is an alcohol free zone. To keep everyone safe, no drinking was allowed in public, only in bars, restaurants or at home. When detected, alcohol would be confiscated and the perpetrators fined heavily. What? Strange customs. We could not believe that. We just wanted to see the fireworks and listen to the music and sipping from our bottle of wine. What should we do now? All the bars would be full and going home only to drink our wine was no option. We wondered off to little side streets. Everywhere we encountered lots of people and lots of security. We came across some light shows and music on other squares and watched them for a while and moved on.
In a small side streets we saw one couple leaving a bar and quickly went in. And really they had space for us. There we sat, sipped our 20 AUD glasses of wine and made them last for two hours, whilst our own bottle was resting in the rucksack. We had to drink it afterwards in our hotel room as the following day we were flying out to Tasmania. We were disappointed not to be able to see the firework by the river but we managed to see the funny side of the situation we found ourselves in on another strange New Year’s Eve.
Finally, 1/2 hour before midnight we decided to leave the bar and to walk towards home. There was no way to see any fireworks in the city centre as the high rise buildings were blocking any views. We needed to head towards some open area. We remembered that the neighbours in our hotel, a couple from Indonesia, had told us they would go to Flagstaff Gardens, an area near our hotel on the other side of the Queen Victoria Market. Perhaps we could see some fireworks there? We headed towards the gardens. Masses of people passed us on their way to the Fed Square, all happy and many of them were tipsy. They must have been drinking at home before they came out. Good idea, as alcohol in the tummy could not be confiscated. We also noticed a few heavily drank people staggering around or lying on the streets. A tram passed by full of people, some looked very drunk. Was the alcohol ban because of heavy drinking behaviour of the population, or was the heavy drinking behaviour because of the alcohol ban? Who knows.
Time was running and we just managed to get to the Queen Victoria Market car park, not far from Flagstaff Gardens, when people started to count down the seconds to midnight and then the fireworks began. We turned around and from the rooftops of the sky scrapers we could see a wonderful display of fireworks. We found ourselves amongst lots of happy people celebrating and welcoming in the New Year. Another good thing was, we didn’t have far to walk home.
Hong Kong
Our flight was uneventful apart from a group of Australians who celebrated loudly all night; nobody could sleep but nobody complained. At least we got our revenge when they woke up the next morning with a hangover, looking rather pale. Serves them right.
Anyway we arrived quickly and safely at our hotel, the Harbour Grand Kowloon, Hong Kong. Before we left the UK, we did some research to find the cheapest way to get around the transport system of Hong Kong. We bought ourselves Octopus cards from the mass transport system desk in Hong Kong airport. The added bonus was that senior citizens, 65+, travel at half price. What a bargain.
The travel book says that Hong Kong weather can be unpredictable. And they were right. Even though it’s the dry season, the weather was hazy and overcast. Such a pity as our room had a fantastic panoramic view over the bay. At least it was not raining, For our last day, the sun came out just after sunrise and we had blue skies until the sun went down. As our flight was at 19.05, we had a full day to explore of Hong Kong. It felt cold. That means there was no need to unpack my smart summer dresses. They remained in my suitcase for our three days in Melbourne. In the meantime, rather than striding elegantly through Hong Kong in my frocks, I wore my usual multilayered warm, travel clothes. Who cares? As long as they were warm and comfortable.
We have always travelled light. Dave’s trolley weighed 14 kilos (mostly cables and chargers), mine was 15 kilos. I had to repack a few times to fit it all in. That means we simply have to regularly wash and wear our clothes. My rucksack weighed 8 kilos, Dave’s 13 kg, The reason that they were so heavy was, that our expensive camera gear, smart phones, iPads, battery packs, headphones etc, needed to be hand luggage.
Hong Kong is a vast place. Thanks to our Octopus travel card we explored the area extensively. Our hotel was in Kowloon, opposite Hong Kong island. We took the Hung Hom Ferry from the pier beside our hotel and crossed Victoria Harbour to North Point Ferry Pier. From there we boarded one of the ancient double-decker trams that rattle along the north shore of Hong Kong Island between Kennedy town and Causeway Bay. We passed between the majestic downtown skyscrapers that make the skyscrapers of the City of London look like toy-town. We liked the mix of the old and new and especially the hightech super-modern architecture. We couldn’t stop taking photographs. As some are so tall you need a super-wide lens to do them justice.
Afterwards we explored Hong Kong Island on foot, which is like a rabbit warren of alleyways and side streets. Sometimes it’s impossible to cross some busy roads so they have a system of overhead and underground walkways. Some of the overhead walkways are covered, no doubt due to the heavy monsoon rains. Some of these overground and underground walkways are interconnected with huge shopping malls, often incorporating tube stations.
We returned to the mainland, across Victoria Harbour, by the famous ancient Star Ferry and what an impressive view we had of the skyscrapers of the mainland and Hong Kong Island.
Once we were back in Kowloon, we took the tube up to Prince Edward Station and walked back down along the busy Nathan Road with its many colourful shops. On the way we explored various markets: The Goldfish Market (where some shops sell little water filled plastic bags of various species of fish), the perfumed Flower Market, the Lady’s Market (where I bought a day rucksack and a little bag for my smartphone) and the Yuen Po Bird Market. Unfortunately for Dave, we couldn’t find any computer or camera markets and shops, unlike, the last time he was here in 1991. Thanks to the internet and online trading this market does no longer exist. We were also told, that many businesses had relocated from Hong Kong to Mainland China.
Later on we pottered through the famous Temple Street Night Market with colourful lanterns strung across the market. We were particularly fascinated by the range of street food stalls offering everything from sweet or savoury snacks and local specialities, to various exotic seafood dishes. It all looked delicious but as we have just started our travels and are not yet accustomed to the local food we are still very careful of what and where we eat, especially as we still have more long flights ahead of us.
We quickly got to know the tube system and were impressed by its efficiency and cleanliness. When entering the tube carriage white and green arrows indicate where people should enter or leave the carriage. The tube map in the carriage lights up the individual stations, indicating in red the next stops, and in orange, where the interchanges are. It is pretty busy, and like the rest of the world, people are fixated by their smartphone screens. Unlike in Bogota or Medellin, Colombia, where young people immediately jumped up to offer oldsters a seat, here nobody gives a damn. We guess they are all so tired from working and besides, we don’t look particularly.
Having been used to the streets of London, it made a pleasant surprise to see how clean the streets and pavements were. One day we saw a team of street cleaners hosing down the pavement, with one of them holding a large board to protect the shop windows and the pedestrians from getting drenched.
If one wanted to escape the Christmas razzmatazz, like we do, then Hong Kong definitely is the wrong place to be. Christmas decorations and lights of the finest and most kitschy type are displayed everywhere and the tunes of We wish you a merry Christmas and George Michael’s Last Christmas, songs that we just recently sang soulfully with our choir at the Actors Church in Covent Garden, irritate the ears.
Masses of people, mostly families with children, are out on the streets, celebrating and admiring the decorations and lights, especially along the harbour frontage. We wanted to see the statue of the famous Bruce Lee which according to our map was somewhere along the Avenue of Stars beside the harbour. It was almost impossible to make our way through a never ending crowd of slow-moving people. Now we know what it is like to be sardines in a tin. However, we discovered the crowds had gathered to watch the daily evening musical laser light show from the top of the skyscrapers on the other side of Victoria harbour.
We met some very friendly people in Hong Kong. For example, we had coffee in a little restaurant and a young couple approached us. They had only been married for a month and saw us taking photos of each other and they wondered, would they do the same when they were older. We got on really well. They recommended a nice restaurant, which we tried out the next day and the food was excellent. She was a nurse and offered to help us if we had any health problems on our travels in Hong Kong. Nice people and a nice offer, but we wondered, do we really look that old? I hope not.
Later, another guy approached us as we were looking on our maps for somewhere for dinner. He led us to one of his favourite restaurants as it was on his way home. His English was good and he told us he had worked in Canada for a while. The food at this place was also excellent and at very reasonable prices.
On our last day, the clouds disappeared and the sun came out and with it a little bit of warmth, but not in the shade. We went up Victoria Peak via the Peak Tram, which has been taking tourists to the top since 1888 and is classed as the ultimate Hong Kong experience, to take in the vast panoramic views of Hong Kong and Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong’s distant southern beaches. We returned via the Peak Tram and walked towards the touristic Lan Kwai Fong area. We came across an interesting small cafe so we decided on a coffee break. I asked the guy sitting next to us whose food looked appealing, what he was eating and we ordered the same. We got chatting, his English was perfect and it turned out that he had recently worked in the financial City of London for a year. He recommended a few interesting places nearby to visit, like the Tai Kwan, the former Central Police Headquarters and Victoria Prison which are now museums. We left together and as he lived nearby he volunteered to drop us off at the famous Central Mid-Levels Elevator, the largest public elevator in the world. It is built on a steep hill, depending on the times of the day, the elevator goes up or comes down. Beside it are stone stairs. It is very convenient for the locals going to and from work. But first we did a tour of the police and prison museums. Then we continued to the elevator itself and took it to the very top level. It is not a continuous elevator but consists of several elevators from the bottom area of Central up to Soho because of the road system. During the morning commute time, the elevators go downhill and then change direction around lunchtime to go uphill. Genius system. Just like most of the outdoor walkways these too are covered to protect against the inclement weather. On the back down we took the stairs and explored the little side streets around mid-level and Soho with its many cafes, restaurants and bars. This is the heart of the business area and many of the Asian financial movers and shakers live in the area.
As the weather was so nice we took time out to take even more photographs. Time was running and with a heavy heart we decided to head back to our hotel to collect our luggage and take a taxi to the airport for our night flight to Melbourne.
Did we like Hong Kong and would be go back? Most certainly! There is so much to see and do and, although we gave ourselves 3 days, this really wasn’t long enough to explore in-depth. There is far more to see including the surrounding islands including Macau.
But now we are looking forward to continue our journey.
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