SomewhereSouth.net

Tasmania! (Eastcoast to Hobart)

After I updated my private weblog with a piece of nonsense about my first snake-encounter it's time to update SWS again. Dropped Nicky on another computer to do her webmail & other things (and to get her pictures on cd, which fails for 50% so probably the SD card is DEAD, if so that's kinda crappy, not only 150 images gone but also we'll need to buy a new SD card, which never very cheap...) and taking my turn to let you all know about the last few days in Tassie.

Well, here we go. Off course we made it on time to our boat, fortunately not beeing the very fast puke-vessile but the rather slow (9 hour, 21h00-06h00) "Spirit of Tasmania II". Had a quite good trip, not to bumpy and at night had my first taste of Tassie, beeing a glas of Cascade, one of the best beers I've tasted untill now... The night was a disaster however, though Nicky slept quite well on her seat, I was too long for these seats, had almost no sleap, dropped myself to the floor 3 hours before arrivel and slept there for another 1,5 hours. You can imagine the next day was horrible for me. Tired like hell and then having to drive for a couple of hours is NOT really like fun. But hey, I shouldn't complain beacause actually that day was a pretty nice one. We drove to George Town to get some gasoline (again!) and a decent map of the island. Beeing twice as big als Holland and containing the most beatifull nature you can imagine you can simply not do a usefull thing with your all-aussie map. So we got a quite detailed thing with all dirtroads, touristic spots and even small walks on it. The guy told us that doing Tassie in 1 week is insane, he sounded a bit annoyed even. As we're now in Hobart and our ship SHOULD leave tonight but telling you that it departs the 4th you can see that he WAS right after all... And even that is a little bit to short, you can spend at least 2 months here and not beeing bored whatsoever. Even better, I think you could spend a year on Tassie and having as much fun as you'll have when doing whole Australia in one year.

Anyhow, our end-station that day was a nature reserve on the north-east coast, inhabited by lots of walabi's. After a nice talk at a gas-station with a couple who actually did the same and where surprised that that wite van was ours and that we put a housenumber on it (42 off course, as you all already know) we went on to the dirtroad leading to our camping spot. 10 minutes before we left we noticed another van, no, a truck, a, well, something best described as "Mobile Home". It must've contained at least 3 bedrooms, a full-blown bathroom, a fully utilized kitchen and a living room and I wouldn't be surprised if it even contained a garage and a small towncar. SICK! But hey, not all people like the simple life like we do...

20Km of the best dirtroad ever later (driving 80Km/h over it, without any trouble) we found the spot and indeed inhabited by walabi's. Those fluffy tiny ones, curiously running around our van, scavenging for some food. (Not ours, not begging, they're absolutely wild animals, they simply where looking for their own food on the grond, whatever that may be.) Amazing spot that...

Went to the Columbia Falls & Ralph Falls walks, the first the highest(80m) waterfall in Tasmania, the second one a very sweet tiny (but HIGH!)stream falling down from a few rocks. The day ended at Binalong Bay, we only did an easy 100Km that day to have some rest. There we had some trouble, first the car got stuck in the sand where a very helpfull aussie helped us out with one of the biggest 4x4's I've ever seen. Even he had little trouble pulling out 1750Kg of car but after he got grip we where out... Next spot, firmer surface, another try. Smaller spot, more cosy, so we stayed there. While Nicky was getting the car night-ready I liturally ran to the sea and there it was, right in front of my eyes, dark brown/black, at least 1,5 meters long, 10cm thick and staring a little bit disturbed at me... A real wild aussie SNAKE. Hell, really something for me, my first encounter with a wild snake, and not a tiny one, no, directly this quite big variation... Well, I was obviously more scared than the snake, he/she looked op, I looked back and it decided to continue with what it was at, snaking around. Off course my walk back was little slower than the way to the sea.

Next day off to Hobart, the "big" city on the south coast of Tassie. Off course we had our walks and nature that day, should be no surprise as Tasmania's nature reserves cover 50% of the island, and after lots of dirtroads, rain an fog we ended up in a $$$ neighbourhood of Tranmere, South-Hobart. Actually we ended up in a $$$ lot of the neighbourhood, the next house was 500m meters away, at least. They where still developing the area. Our first plan was to park on top of a hill but with a "no camping" sign I didn't want to take the risk. So Tranmere. After a very restless night (for me that is, I was afraid like hell as some cars where across us, maybe having a drugdeal or as Nicky thought the more relaxing sex thing) we moved on very early. Though my night was extremely bad, I however got the chance to see a Hobart sunrise which was very beatifull and off course we had lots of fun with the idea that we actually parked (and peed) on an empty lot worth probably tonnes in a real upperclass area of Hobart. You can imagine that :-)

Sat, Jan 29th tells my next diary entry. The day we ended up in Bruny Island. Down from Hobart (which we skipped entirely) to the ferry and on to the island. Heading south to a lookout point in the middle of the island (only 40m wide, duny landscape) and on to a "small" walk on the south of the island (Adventure Bay) to wake up. Me joking about that we should be glad we didn't have to climb that hill (pointing to the quite high cliff to the right) we started the walk, beeing 3,5 hours according to our information. Well, now close your eyes and think of my nickname... Exactly. We DID have to climb that cliff, the total walk was around 5 hours and we took the hard-way up. Extremely steep uphill climbs, even hairpins on the walking track as straight-up was impossible. Nicky hates those climbs, I love them. They're way better than those nasty things downhill. After around 4 hours walking we reached the top, ~250 meters above sea-level. Gorgious lookouts though and absolutely worth the climb. Not only for the lookouts but also for the fact that we've beaten the mountain. Me tired as hell from the last night actually got enough energy to finish the track.

Somewhere in the evening, after that track to the camping at the neck of the island. There me with my tiredness messed up with our stove. Suddenly the whole thing went on fire instead of just the cooking pit. Reaction though was good and succesfull, first throwing sand over it to cut off the air supply, than directly shutting off the gas. The fire was gone within 5 secs and no serious situation occured but off course it was a little scary. Nothing to worry about for you guys at home, people make these mistakes when tired and we're both awake enough to prevent those. Well, this is how we learn. Next time I KNOW how to attach a new bottle and it won't happen again. Same with the car, I know what it can and can't and next time I can prevent those situations like getting stuck in the sand.

Good. 14:41 says my clock and we still have ~200Km to go before we're at our final destination tonight so we have to rush a little. Next day we moved back to the Tassie mainland, after seeing some more of the Bruny nature and lighthouse. Tried to make it on time to Hobart to develop our photo's and update the website. Hobart however still seems to live in the stone-ages, all shops where closed at 16:00 on saturday. So we bought some souvenirs and went off to our endpoint, a forest little south-west of Hobart. No sleap for Nicky this time, afraid as she is alone in the forst. (Poor girl, but opposite to me, I'm afraid in a city in our van.) Morning walk to a tiny lake and off to the Tahuna Airwalk, a construction 50 meters above groundlevel. Did the walk, which was great and dumped our car on the free camping spot very next to it. This one was actually guarded! Very very nice, 100% free and someone actually taking care of you and wishing you a good night. Lighted, flushable toilets and a very safe feeling we went into the night. Well, now we're here. Sitting downtown Hobart while it's HOT outside. Temperature changes rapidly over here, this night it was extremely cold, now the water drips from our foreheads. Tonight we'll be in the forest again, right in the middle of the biggest nature reserve in Tasmania. From now on we'll head north and within 5 days we end up where we started, Melbourne, actually celebrating our 6-month anniversairy on the boat to the mainland.

Plans are to get our car fixed again (still warranty, it still leaks oil and water), then head a little west and then north, into the red centre. But, that's a story for MUCH later as it takes weeks to get there.

Oh, a small addition, Nicky just uploaded SOME pictures to the gallery so you have some visuals of what we see here.

At last I want to say that it's absolutely great here, our van starts to feel like home now and we see the most gourgious nature you can imagine. So no regrets beeing here and finally really on the road and enyoing our adventure down-under. (But, still missing our friends and family at home, for sure that we think of you a lot!)

Murf

Murf | 31 Jan 2005 (Mon), 03:57 @ story | TB