Tasmania, part I

TASMANIA AUSTRALIA
Population 494,520 (March 2008)

68,401 square kilometres (26,410 square miles)
West Virginia is 24,200 sq. miles
Oregon is 98,400 and Connecticut is 5,550 sq. miles

It lies 240 kilometres (150 miles) south of the Australian mainland across the Bass Strait.

37% of the island state is designated either National Park or World Heritage Sites. This doesn’t include the many state forests, reserves and conservation areas connecting most of the larger parks.

Here’s a link to more detailed information if you’d like to find out more. I’d love to show some visitors around Tassie. There are lots more things I want to do there!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania

My the latest adventure down under begins on a warm sunny Saturday morning, the weekend before Christmas. Seas are calm and people are lined up to board the mammoth 10 deck red and white auto ferry, The Spirit of Tasmania I (there is a II that runs the night crossing) 7:30 am the car is all loaded with camping gear. I have my travel reference books. One on the 240 national parks in Australia, one of the best camping locations around the state, and of course a 4x4 road map with colour highlighted paths for the best off road areas. I have snacks, a jumper (a jacket) a deck of cards, some books, of course sunscreen and a hat. We are boarded and on our way out into Port Phillip Bay by shortly after 9am. The crew is very efficient at getting everyone on board and making them comfortable. I take a spin of the 3 levels open to the public. The main level, deck 7, has a buffet and sit down restaurant, a lounge area, a gift shop and tourist information centre, a small movie theatre (PG movies only), and a pokie room (video slots). Deck 9 is mostly just seating and long booths with a TV center featuring the full time Australian news station, a small bar, and a video game arcade. Deck 10 is the party deck with a couple bars and entertainment stage. They are several other decks of cabins you can rent if you’d like to take a nap on our 9+ hour voyage across the Bass Strait. I grab a bacon, egg and cheese pie for breaky and find a place to people watch. The general public here is just as scary as it is in America. All kinds wander about. Some dressed up to look their best, others in sleepwear dragging blankets and pillows like Linus from the Peanuts. There are older couples and younger ones, babies and toddlers, families headed some place for the holiday break. The ship feels comfortable there’s plenty of room to move around and seating is readily available on all decks. People have stretched out and their stuff is in all corners of the ship. A group of us watch Melbourne fade away as we drift further and further into the bay. It takes more than an hour to make it past the points. The shipping channel is narrow and takes a path closer to one coast line. Once past the breaks, the buoys get farther apart and the coastline itself eventually vanishes. That’s about all you see for the next 8 hours, besides your shipmates. We sail the day away arriving in Devonport Tasmania around 6pm and as of most things in life you hurry and then wait. I’m one of the last to get off loaded and then you have to go through customs. Tasmania is an island state and Australia has learned the hard way that non native species can do great harm. We have the usual no firearms, no fruit, no pesticides etc…1 hour after arriving in Tasmania I finally reach the open road. It’s a 5 minute drive into town and to my hotel for the night, The Comfort, Inn room number 15. One last night of modern comforts before I start 11 nights in the bush (the woods).

My first full day in Tasmania is spent driving from one end of the state to the other. Of course, I took the scenic route past the great lakes of central Tassie. Passing little towns that literally contain only 7 or 8 houses. No stop lights, stop signs, not even a general store. Some of these towns are many kilometres from another small town containing the same vast remoteness as the last place. All the houses in this desert like area have large water barrels connected up to the downspouts on the roof drains to catch any rain water and save it for many uses around the homestead. I have been told this is quite common in inland, rural parts of Australia. I passed fields of cows, goats and sheep. I got bored, as I often do, and found humour in honking my horn at the sheep, then watching them startle and run. Not surprisingly the goats we’re too smart for this trick. But, surprisingly the cows were smart too! Only the sheep ran from a passing American tourist getting his jollies by startling poor grazing animal. I passed fields of fruit trees, potatoes and another surprise, fields of Poppies. Yes, Dorothy said it best “Poppies, Poppies every where!” I learned that Tassie harvests them as a medical ingredient for morphine. Hmm very interesting! I also passed many dead Pademelons (small kangaroos unique to Tassie), and wombats. These are nocturnal creatures, as most are down under. This lead me to be glad it was the summer solstice and the longest days of the year. I’d be able to be off the roads before dusk and not contribute to this sad fact of life.
My final destination for the day was the Tasman National Park south east of Hobart (Tasmania’s capital) Mills Creek Campground space #46 to be more precise. From this spot I can view Fortescue Bay, the Tasman Sea and New Zealand beyond that. Once settled in I find my way to my first hike of the trip. There was a few hours of sunlight left and I’d been told that you could view some penguins at Canoe Bay about 3 km on the other side of the beach. I ran into a park ranger just coming back from the penguins. She let me know that I shouldn’t stare at them for long because it made them nervous and can impact egg incubation process that was going on right now. A chance to see nesting penguins excited me and off I went. About an hour into the 2 hour return trip hike, I got to the bay and couldn’t find the penguins. So I figured I made a mistake and kept going up this BIG hill. I check the map and took my bearings. This lead me to decide I must have missed the little guys so I go back down this BIG hill. Canoe Bay is where they’re supposed to be. I look and look around but never see them. Oh well, I better get back to camp. No Worries Mate! This was just a bonus hike not the one I came here to do anyway. That hike is pictured to the left. Later in my trip I ran into someone who had recently done the hike and I found out the penguins were just down the other side of the BIG hill at the next bay, beyond Canoe Bay. DAMN!
My first night out in the bush is good. I’m able to make a campfire and campfire food is always better! The forest around me is filled with little ALIVE creatures. The Pademelons and birds mostly. You can here the many strange bird calls from various perches all around me. There are large crows or Ravens with beady yellow eyes, The ever present Seagulls, and many smaller birds with amazingly load calls for such small creatures.

Monday December 22nd, I wake up early and hit the Cape Hauy trial by 8am. 10km of very up and down and up and down 200 meters (600’) at a time. Luckily the closer I get to the tip of the cape this vertical change lessons to about 100m (300’) but this was about the 5th of 8 hills I had to climb. Every step was worth the view! About 3.5 km into the hike you come out of the gum trees and there’s a spectacular view of the remaining peninsula. A series of high cliffs, facing south, and vegetation covering the dramatic sloping hill sides dropping into the blue waters below. Each rolling hill being like a small island barely connected until you reach the last one just before the final rock island formation called “The Lanterns”. You’re standing high on a top a 100m cliff with the Tasman Sea crashing far below you. The rock itself is formed into vertical columns, standing majestically, reaching for the sky and slowly crumbling into the ocean by the constant battering of waves. I haven’t seen a single soul on my trek out to this beautiful spot. No one on the planet is getting this view, at this moment in time. These spots in nature are beyond words. You stand in complete awe of Mother Nature’s beauty. I lingered here for more than an hour, on this little clearing a top of rocks with the only noises you can hear are the crashing waves below you and the gusty south winds coming all the way from Antarctica, whipping the trees back and forth. Promising to blow you off your feet if you stand to quickly. The horizon is so vast you can see the curvature of the earth with the many shades of blue water all about you. The only real piece of land besides the one you walked out is Cape Pillar. The south eastern most point of the tiny island off Tasmania's coast that makes up this portion of the park. Cape Pillar is a similar rocky outcropping that is even more battered by the cold biting winds out of the south pole. A spot where only the most daring of rock climbers scale a pillar of granite in a huge crevasse that has the unforgiving sea smashing rocks into sand hundreds of feet below them. I am told that some do the climb with no safety ropes at all! My hope was to reach this extreme point for a look. But alas it is a 2 day hike out to the point with many many more ups and downs over its 18km (each way) walk. After a long relaxed rest, complete with snacks, photos and my eyes glued to the many points of beauty around me. I must start the walk back. It is about 5 minutes into the 2+ hour walk I meet my first people of the day. PERFECT TIMING! I had that spot all to myself and now it was their turn. After making my way back to camp I ran into Port Author to check it out. It’s a little tourist town with expensive tours of the penal colony that brought convicts to this part of the world. Sorry folks but I skip this jewel of commercialism and opted for picking up some ice and post cards before heading home. Another great evening by the campfire. After the sun has completely set I take a few minutes and wander down by the boat ramp along the bay. The moon is rising very late in the night and I have a perfectly clear view of the stars in the southern skies. With no moon and no city lights for several kilometres, I could see more stars than I have in a long time. You can see the famed Southern Cross, shown proudly on the Australia flag. You can see the Milky Way. That band of starts that has awed me since childhood. You can also see Orion’s belt. Its familiar 3 stars line up in a row. The only constellation that I know of that you can see in the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere too. Of course it’s upside down and the Australians call it the saucepan. They view only half of it. Having the 3 lined up starts to be the bottom of what to me looks like a teacup formation. I lingered here too, for how long I have no idea. But my full cup of vodka was long gone by the time I wandered back to my camping spot and into slumber. A spectacular end to a spectacular day. A AWESOME hike, campfire food and stars galore. A GREAT way to start my trip to this most beautiful place.

Well friends, this is the ending of part one. Please stay tuned for future adventures in Tasmania…. I'm hoping to make another posting later this week or early next week. (These take about 3 hours to put together) Not much is going on in my life besides the same grind we all are doing in the first few weeks of a new year. Except it's summer here and warm. Don't worry I'll get mine in June when it finally warms up where you are and cools down here..... Until next time HAPPY NEW YEAR!