Wild Western Tasmania

After exploring all those waterfalls, we spent one night near the center of Tasmania at Ratho Farm (Bothwell), which is home to Australia’s oldest golf course. The farm has an interesting history, which we learned about during dinner from the host who has family connections going back generations. The land was settled by Scottish immigrants with the help of free convict labor. The family’s extensive records have been studied to produce a thorough chronicle of how difficult life was in colonial Tasmania in the mid 1800’s. It sounded fascinating and awful all at once. Even more curious was our dinner companion, Daniel, who was Swiss and has not only traveled all over the world but has also visited all 50 US states!

The next day, we headed west to ring in 2024 in Queenstown, an old mining town with a tragic accident in its history. To this day, you can't drink the water in this area due to the extensive pollution caused by years of mining activity.

On our way we made many stops. The most unique was at “The Wall,” an art exhibition literally in the middle of nowhere. It was a worthy pause to see one man’s passion project that includes 100 carved wood panels that tell the region’s history. No photos permitted inside though.

We stopped at the Lake St. Clair National Park to hike the Larmairremener Tabelti trail, which had markers describing the Aboriginal people who lived in the area, the Watersmeet walk through the confluence of the Cuvier and Hugel rivers, and another loop to Platypus Bay, where we learned more about platypus but still did not see one (they are elusive creatures). We did see an echidna – the platypus’s closest relative – on the trail though.

Two more stops included Frenchman’s Cap Suspended Bridge and Nelsons Falls. The number of waterfalls to see in Tasmania is amazing.

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It was a really busy day!

Using Queenstown as a base, we visited Strahan (pronounced Strawn), where we enjoyed a performance of “The Ship That Never Was,” the longest running play in Australia. It is a quirky performance by amateurs about the last ship built on Sarah Island – likely the worst convict settlement as it was filled with those that were convicted of additional crimes while already being convicts.

The next day we had an amazing cruise excursion out to Sarah Island and down the Gordon River, where we also explored the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, a Wilderness World Heritage area. The guides did a terrific job describing the harsh life on Sarah island and explaining the unique flora that the Aboriginal people relied on to live in the wilderness.

The cruise also went out through Hell’s Gates, the narrow point where the Macquarie Harbour meets the Southern Ocean.

We were fortunate that the cruise was only a quarter full and that the weather was gorgeous. The sunset in Strahan was magnificent.

More from our lap around Tasmania soon,

Shana & Jeff

Visiting Caves and Hiking to Waterfalls

Leaving Hobart, we travelled south where several sights awaited us, including the Hastings Caves. On the way, we drove through the Huon Valley, which is a major apple growing region. This gave us the chance to stop and try some Tasmanian cider. While we enjoyed it, we did not think it was as good as the Basque cider we enjoy at home. However, at our first stop we enjoyed Willie Smith's world famous apple pie with our cider (at around 11 am) and it was fabulous. Shana thinks it was the best apple pie she's ever eaten.

The tour of Hastings Caves was very interesting. We have visited several caves during recent trips, including in Italy and Vietnam, and they are always beautiful in kind of a stark way.

That night, we stayed in a cute B&B in a little town called Dover where our gregarious host, Gary, gave us lots of tips about things to see. We also took a dusk walk on the property and spotted a wallaby just hanging around under some trees (no picture because he moved away pretty quickly).

The next day we stopped at Mount Field National Park, Tasmania's oldens national park, and did a hike that took us to three different waterfalls -- Russell Falls, Horseshoe Falls and Lady Barron Falls:

We have found that Tasmania does a good job curating trails in national parks (sometimes too good -- the "hikes" are more like walks). In this case, we had a fairly strenuous hike through beautiful temperate eucalyptus rainforest. We especially enjoyed the Tall Trees path.

More to come from beautiful Tasmania soon.

Jeff and Shana

Introduction to Tasmania and Hobart

When we decided to return to New Zealand, of course our thoughts turned to where else we could visit in that part of the world. Shana immediately thought of Tasmania ("Tassie" to the Aussies, who our regular readers will remember love to shorten everything).

Tasmania is the smallest Australian state with a population of about 550,000, of whom almost half live in the greater Hobart area. The island itself is larger than Sicily, but smaller than Ireland, two other islands that we have driven around on vacation. As usual, we are doing things fairly slowly. We are taking three weeks to do a full clockwise lap, arriving and leaving from Hobart, which is in the south center of the island.

After arriving on Christmas night, we spent the next few nights near Hobart in a lovely area called Acton. Our place was a cute studio cottage, and we saw many wallabies and bunnies on the propery along with the owner's two King Charles Spaniels, Molly and Morris. Sadly, we never saw the resident bandicoots, a small marsupial, but we were just happy to see live marsupials (unfortunately, we have seen too many dead ones on the roads of Tasmania).

Our first full day in Hobart was beautiful and we took the opportunity, along with many others, to drive to the top of Mount Wellington, which overlooks the entire area.

In addition to stopping at the top, we took the opportunity to do a hike along the side of the mountain, including a beautiful view of the formation known as the Organ Pipes. We even saw someone climbing them!

Later, we grabbed lunch at the Cascade Brewery, which was established in 1824.

The next day, we went into Hobart itself and visited the local museum, which is a combination history/art museum. Although not very exciting, we did start to learn a bit about Tasmanian history: not a big surprise, it started as a penal colony. The city itself is a combination of cool old buildings mixed with newer construction. This building, across from the museum may be the oldest hotel in Australia (or maybe not, there seems to be a lot of controversy about these "oldest in Australia" claims).

We also found a winery right in Hobart, and did a fantastic tasting with the winemaker. We liked the wines so much that we took a bottle with us to enjoy along the road.

On our final day in Hobart, we started the day by driving to the end of the penninsula where we were staying, hiking through a reserve to end up on a beautiful isolated beach.

Next we headed into the Coal River Valley, which is the wine region nearest Hobart. Lunch and wine tasting at Frogmore Winery was delicious and the setting was beautiful.

We ended our day in Richmond, a small town that boast the oldest surviving stone bridge in Australia, built by convict labor and opened in 1825.

We were interested to learn that the location of this bridge had been a shallow spot where the local aboriginal tribes had crossed for thousands of years. Unfortunately, the creation of a permanent structure there signaled that the white settlers had no intention of leaving. More about the history of the Tasmanian aboriginals in later posts.

Richmond itself was only worthy of a brief stop, but it has one of the more unique museums we have every seen: The Pooseum. Yes, this museum is all about poo. No, we did not go. But, you can tell just from the outside it would have been an amusing place (note the penguin on the billboard).

That was our time in and around Hobart. The following day we started our circuit by heading south, but more about that in our next post.

G'day.

Jeff and Shana

Farewell to Conway Flat, NZ

After 10 weeks on “the Flat,” it was time to say goodbye and move on. We have never done a trip like this, where we stayed in one place for such an extended period. Between Oct. 15 and Dec. 25, we were the residents of Wadi Nimrin (the homestead / farm / property name). We made ourselves comfortable, established a routine, and really enjoyed the tranquility of being at the end of the earth.

We learned that isolation and not seeing another human being for days is not a bad thing at all; yet the neighbors and community on the Flat are such genuine and welcoming people.

We noted that cows and sheep are generally quiet and good neighbors, unless they are being moved and you are trying to drive through them at that time.

We loved eating lettuces that we planted and watching so many things blossom and grow.

We savored the views and beauty of the landscape and the birdsong.

While we thrived as “country mice,” ultimately, we confirmed that we are “city mice.” It wasn’t difficult to complete our various chores, and we were efficient and strategic at mowing the lawns, caring for the pool, and managing various other tasks. Still, property ownership and maintenance are not “our thing.” We like not owning a car, for example, and a lifestyle that allows us to eat out on a whim. If Jeff never mows another lawn, it will be too soon, even though he is quite good at it now.

It was fantastic getting to know more of the South Island during our stay. We spent a total of 13 nights away from the Flat exploring. Our trips with Adam were especially fun. When we finally drove away for the last time, we were sad to go, but excited to get back on the road again.

And here we are now in Tasmania and its 2024. Wishing everyone joy and adventure in the new year!

More to come soon,

Shana & Jeff

The Catlins

Shortly after Adam departed, we took a 3-day trip down to the southernmost part of the South Island to visit the beautiful area known as The Catlins. This would be our last trip during our extended stay in New Zealand. We drove to Christchurch, flew to Invercargil and drove east to our accomodations in Surat Bay. Our accomodation was a cottage that was basic, but remained warm despite intense rain the night we arrived and high winds the next night.

Surat Bay is a small community of 20 people (literally) with the nearest town about a 10-minute drive away. In fact, The Catlins are very rural with few towns or even restaurants. So, we had to plan our travels (and our meals) carefully. 

Surat Bay Beach, about a block from where we stayed, was named after a ship that was shipwrecked there in 1874. We saw a sleeping seal during our walk on the beach. Seals are everywhere in the Catlins as demonstrated by the road warning signs. Thankfully, we didn't encounter any on the roads.

After our morning walk on the beach, we drove to see several other sights. The first was a series of rock formations known as The Nuggets, along with the Nugget Point Lighthouse (one of the oldest in NZ). We thought this site was much more impressive than the far more well-known (and well-marketed) Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road in Austailia. Far less croweded too.

After our stop at The Nuggets, we did not expect the rest of the sights to measure up, and perhaps they did not; but, as usual, New Zealand continues to impress with its physical beauty. First, we stopped at Purakaunui Falls, which was easy to access and very impressive.

Then, we stopped at Jack's Blowhole, which was impressive in size, but not easy to photograph. However, the walk out to the blowhole provided some amazing views.

The next day, there were even more sights to see as we made our way back to Invercargil. First, McLean falls, which included a beautiful walk to get there.

Next, we stopped at Curio Bay where we we able to see the petrified forrest from above. Unfortunately, the sea was far too rough to climb down and see the forrest up close, but our view of the roiling sea was quite impressive.

Finally, we stopped at Slope Point, which is the most southern point of New Zealand's South Island. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that it indicates that we are closer to the South Pole than we are to the Equator. While a lot of land is closer to the North Pole than the Equator, this is a very rare point in the Southern Hemisphere. The Great Southern Ocean, which separates Antartica from the rest of the world is huge, so there is very little land south of 45 degrees south latitude. 

We were also able to get a couple of pictures that show how rough the sea was the day we were there (very common for this area). To get an idea of how high the spray is, the point we were on was about 50-60 feet above the level of the ocean.

Although we did not have great weather in the Catlins, we very much enjoyed exploring the area. Unfortunately, the rough seas closed the most famous site, The Cathedral Caves, which are only open at low tide in calm (or at least calmer) seas. So, if you get to the Catlins, don't miss The Cathedral Caves if they are open.

Hasta pronto.

Jeff and Shana