Another interlude - Cradle Mountain

We gave ourselves the luxury of leaving the van in Devonport and staying at Cradle Mountain Lodge for one night. The Tasmanian weather gods were kind to us and we had two perfect days.

There were wombats wandering about everywhere, including a couple of babies following their mums.  There was a lovely echidna near the visitor interpretation centre that we watched closely a couple of times, and I even had a glimpse of a platypus.

On the first day we did a number of lovely short walks, including the famous Enchanted walk, and also several waterfall walks.

A bit later we drove up to Waldheim, the site of the first ever lodge and the beginning of Cradle Mountain becoming a National Park.  There is a lovely stroll through the forest there which is like a fairy tale, or Lord of the Rings.

Being so close we also had a look at the famous Dove Lake from glacier rock, but we saved the full Dove Lake walk for the second day.

What a wonderful walk, with beaches, stretches of rainforest, glorious views of the mountains and so many flowers. 

The last hill before returning to the iconic boat house had us all wishing it was not such a lovely sunny day!

We admired those who ventured further up to Marion's lookout, or on the summit climb, or those who head off from here on the 6-8 day Overland Track walk (that we saw the other end of at Lake St Clair).  We learned that they do an endurance run over the Overland Track and the record stands at 7 hours 25 minutes.  Unbelievable!

We would love to come back and do a few more of the walks, especially the boardwalk that goes from the visitor interpretation centre to Dove Lake.  Next time!

I took a photo at the #cradle365 spot - here is my shot, taken at 12:58 pm on 12 December.

Cradle Mountain is wonderful!

Devonport

We arrived at Devonport feeling a little weary, so we had a few easy days, focusing on some of the gourmet trail locations. 

Ben loved that the tasting paddle at Spreytons Cider came with his own mini paddle of juices.  He had previously decided Spreyton apple juice was the best he'd ever tasted but he discovered a new favourite - apple and raspberry.

Garry took up farming the happiest cows;

we visited Sheffield, town of murals;

This is a brick building! 

and Railton, town of topiary.

We admired the scenery - it is a beautiful area.

These are real places!  

 Naturally, we visited the Mersey Lighthouse.

The Tasmanian Arboretum is near Devonport, and is another volunteer run endeavour owned by members.  It seems to me that the people of Tasmania are much more inclined to set things up and run them themselves rather than waiting for governments to do it for them.  The arboretum is a lovely peaceful place, with a nice cafe (yes, run by volunteers). We saw a platypus and enjoyed the very informative signs about the people plants are named after, and the birds that frequent the lake.

The Spirit of Tasmania leaves from Devonport... we'll be on it very soon...

Tamar Valley

The Tamar River is another deep inlet with Launceston deep inland. We based ourselves at Low Head, on the eastern side of the Tamar, quite close to George Town.

The rain had started again, and we debated whether to put up our annex in the rain. We decided it would be nicer to have its shelter, only to regret that when the wind blew up in the evening. We debated putting the annex down again, but as we have to fold the Avan right down to do that, we went to bed hoping all would be well.  But, after the main pole had blown into the van twice, we knew there was no hope for it, so 1.30am saw us outside putting the annex down.  The wind was some of the strongest we've had, with the strength of one gust actually pushing the side wall so hard it forced the restraining bolt to the other side of its catch.  We quickly put it back, and it didn't recur but we spent an anxious day inside, waiting for the gale to stop.

The next day we got out and about again, heading off to Beauty Point to Seahorse World and Platypus House.  Seahorse World was wonderful, although you can only see the seahorse on the tour, so it was probably a shorter visit than we would have liked.

They breed seahorse for aquariums around the world and have masses of seahorses at all stages of development.

They also have touch tanks and some display aquariums.

Platypus House had 5 platypus and 3 echidnas, again on a tour basis.  We were shocked to learn that a male platypus spur can inject 100ml of toxin that gives agonising swelling for about a month, or even longer!  The toxin is very variable so there is no antidote, and painkillers are ineffective. Moral of the story - DON'T pick up a platypus!

The echidnas were very cute, and we learned they have 18cm tongues!  Echidnas are very common in Tassie and we've seen heaps out in the wild, but it was cool to see them licking up their food.

We also drove up to Green Beach to look at Low Head from the other side of the Tamar.

We visited Woolmer Estate, originally to see the 'National Rose Garden', but were entranced by the house.  A quirk of circumstance has meant that it has retained all of its 1840s furniture and decoration, although some fabrics were replaced in the 1930s.  It is an utterly amazing time-capsule. There are also four renaissance artworks from the early 1700s hanging in the foyer!

Woolmers and its sister property, Brickendon, are jointly listed as a world heritage convict site. There are five world heritage convict sites in Tasmania: Port Arthur, the Coal Mines, The Cascades Female Factory, Maria Island and Woolmers/Brickendon. This is a happier convict place, where the convicts were well treated and even paid. Some stayed on after their sentences were completed, and Thomas Archer, the owner, was active in seeking an end to transportation.   There is even convict graffiti on the walls of the wool-shed.

The rose garden is recently established, and is gorgeous. It is absolutely massive!

One of the main reasons we stayed in Low Head was to go on their penguin tour.  Such a far cry from Phillip Island, and much more personal.  A great tour.

The Low Head lighthouse is very old, and has penguins nesting in its grounds.

A wonderful surprise was the Bass and Flinders centre, which holds replica wooden boats, including a copy of Bass and Flinders' vessel, the Norfolk. It was used to recreate their circumnavigation of Tasmania, before becoming a magnificently hands on exhibit.  We all clambered down into the Captain's cabin and greatly enjoyed our tour.

We visited the famous Bridstowe Lavender Farm, home of Bobby Bear.  The lavender wasn't in full flower yet, but we enjoyed the tour explaining the growing and distilling process.

St Helens - Bay of Fires, Cape Portland and more

We spent several days at St Helens, exploring the top east corner of Tasmania.

While it was still raining for most of our journey, it cleared up and we had a few lovely days of sun, albeit windier and cooler than I would have liked.

St Helens is deep in St Georges Bay, one of the deep bays with jutting peninsulars of which Tasmania seems to have so many.  We explored both 'prongs', driving out to the St Helens conservation area on our first afternoon, and visiting Binalong Bay on our second day.

We explored the Bay of Fires, driving up to The Gardens and admiring the many free camp areas that reminded me so much of the old camp sites on the south coast of NSW that I spent so much time in in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I hope it doesn't catch up to the much more restricted camping there now, but anecdotally people from St Helens are leaving their vans there and only visiting on weekends, so I'm sure National Park permit only camping can't be far away.

We were interested to learn that it isn't called Bay of Fires for the amazing orange lichen on the rocks,  but because of all the Indigenous camp fires seen as Bass and Flinders journeyed past at sea.

We spent quite some time wandering about on the rocks - Ben was insistent on getting to the top of the outcrop, so I scrambled up too, leaving Garry to watch from below.

We spent a day heading up to the top corner of Tassie,  stopping at Larapuna (Eddystone Point) to admire the lighthouse and old keepers cottages.

Our goal was Tebrakuna, the Wind Farm visitor centre, which turned out to be more of an education centre about the history of early settlement of the area,  with another tragic tale of the first people and their treatment by the early government.  Too sad.

The wind farm was amazing and we were very impressed by the vane down on ground level - amazingly long and thin.

Ben is in here for size comparison but you might have to zoom!

From here it was easy to see the off shore islands - Little Swan, Clarke Island,  Cape Barren Island and even the peaks of Mt Strezlecki on Flinders Island!

Did I say Cape Barren Island? I  guess that explains all the Cape Barren Geese!  I've never seen so many all together in a field.

We had intended to picnic here, but despite the great information Centre,  there were no picnic tables and it was very windy (well what can you expect in a wind farm?) so we headed down to the beach at Cape Portland for a picnic rug lunch.  Another amazing white sand beach (but the water was oh so cold).

On our way back we stopped to look at Blue Lake, amazing artificially coloured from minerals left from the tin mine.  There are warnings not to swim in it, and it is probably not a good thing, but it was very pretty.

We also explored inland, driving up to St Columba falls, stopping at the Pyengana cheese factory for a delicious lunch.