Across the North of Tasmania

After leaving the area around Cradle Mountain, we finally reached the north coast of Tasmania. Our first stop there was a place called The Nut. The Nut is a volcanic plug (created when magma hardens on a vent of an active volcano) that sits above the small town of Stanley on a pennisula in the Bass Straight, which separates Tasmania from mainland Austalia.

We climbed to the top of The Nut up an extremely steep, but fortunately not very long path. (You can see the zig zag path behind us.) On the top there is a 2 km trail that allowed us to see the various beautiful views of the town of Stanley and the water. In addition, there were literally thousands of butterflies everywhere on the top of The Nut, but they move so quickly, that it was impossible to get a decent picture.

We stayed in the town of Burnie, where we saw our first stoplight since leaving Hobart. It felt like we were back in a bit of civilization. Despite that, however, very nearby Burnie is a place where you can see platypus and other wildlife. That evening, we went to try to see the (very) elusive platypus. We were fortunate to see one -- FINALLY! If you zoom in on the photo you'll see its outline in the water. They are tough to see and even tougher to photograph, especially with a phone. They are smaller than expected.

The cute animal in the picture on the right, is a pademelon, a smaller species of wallaby that has survived only on Tasmania mostly because there are no foxes here as there are on the mainland. The pademelons are cute, but very skittish so our ability to get a close-up picture was limited. Plus it is very uncool to disturb the native wildlife.

The next morning we set out for Launceston, Tasmania's second largest city. Our first stop along the way was the small town of Penguin. We expected the town to be really cheesy with its giant penguin statute, but it turned our to be really cute.

In Launceston, which we were told is correctly pronounced Lon-ceston and not Lawn-ceston (pronunciations in Tasmania are very strange), we learned that the town is very well-preserved at least in part because it was too poor to modernize, which left many of its interesting old buildings intact.

We had a fantastic dinner in Launceston (really our first such meal in a while), and the next morning walked around the Cataract Gorge Reserve, which is practically right in the city itself.

We visited several very good wineries in the Tamar Valley (pronounced TAY-mar), which is another significant wine-producing region. There were a lot of very good small producers known for their pinot noir and also their sparkling wines.

We ultimately reached our next accomodation in the very small town of Branxholm. The plan was to spend the following day mountain biking from the nearby town of Derby, but it rained hard most of that day, so we took a day of rest in the lovely Gardener's Cottage. We did, however, get out late in the day to see two somewhat odd "tourist attractions" nearby.

First, a war memorial for local soldiers killed in WWI that consists of a series of trees planted at that time (i.e., around 1918), and carved using a chainsaw in the early years of the 21st century.

Quite impressive carving skills! Austalia is filled with war memorials (every town has one identifying those lost), but this was definitely the most original and unusual.

We then drove a bit out of town to the Little Blue Lake. This lake was originally a mine hole, and is most interesting because its shocking blue color is caused by the minerals (particularly aluminum) in its base. There are many signs around the "lake" warning not to swim in or drink (!) the water because the concentration of aluminum is dangerous to humans.

With that, we reached the East Coast of Tasmania, which is probably the most touristed and famous part of the island. But, more on that soon.

Jeff and Shana