Roadtrip Under Down Under

**Just a head's up -- this is a huge post with over 40 pictures. It may take a while to load completely and may freeze your computer for a few seconds since it's so long. I compressed the photos as much as I could without them looking like crap.

This week is my spring break, so me and three other people decided to rent a car and make a circle around as much of Tassie as we could, stopping for hikes and such along the way. The map below shows most of our stops, though some of the marks are just pit stops for gas or drinks.



Here are the other three. The guy is American and the two girls are Swedish.


On the way to the Freycinet Peninsula, we stopped at Kate's Berry Farm. It's just south of Swansea, which houses the oldest average population in the country. You can actually see the peninsula across the water in the background.


At Kate's, I sampled several incredible jellies before eating a pair of scones with blackberry jelly and whipped cream. What caught my eye though, was Kate's Bubbly Enhancer, which evidently enhances your bubbles.


From there, the three of us headed to Freycinet National Park, "B" on the map. The park, is about the same physical size as Washington DC, covers most of the peninsula. The park features extreme variations in landscape and many species of indigenous creatures. We found an Echidna, which is also known as the "spiny anteater" and for good reason. He was quite funny to watching sprinting across the road as we hopped out of the car to get photos.


Back on the road, we headed toward the park. Once we paid a $22 entry fee (per car, up to 8 people), we parked and made peace with the locals:


Obviously the wallabies that live near the parking lots have become a bit domesticated from all the tourists.


From there we embarked on our journey up and over The Hazards to get to Wineglass Bay.


The hike was about 45 minutes each way going at a solid pace -- decently fit twenty-somethings can cover a lot of ground in short period of time. At the top of the hike, we went to the lookout tower to get an astonishing view of the bay:


I'm on the left in this photo, praying that my camera wouldn't fall off of the 5ft-high railing after I set the timer:


From there we headed down to the bay. Wineglass Bay has been ranked by numerous magazines and organizations, including Frommer's, as one of the top ten beaches in the world. These photos should explain why.





After the hike back up and over The Hazards I was a bit exhausted, but the fresh water at the base near the parking lot solved that. We headed up the road toward another bay, known for its abundance of oysters. You may be able to make out a few in the sand. There were thousands of them, though we found out that spiders tend to use them as shelters after they wash ashore.


I keep mentioning The Hazards, which are three rough, mountain-sized granite formations that separate the east and west side of the peninsula.




It was getting late when we left, so we stopped at a little convenience store and picked up some food for the road. From there we headed to Launceston, point "C" on the map. Launceston is possibly Australia's third-oldest city behind Sydney and Hobart. It and Hobart account for 3/5 the population of the entire state of Tasmania. We shacked up in a big hostel near downtown, which turned out not to have heat. Temperatures got near 0*C that night, so good sleep was not had.

Anyway, the next morning we woke up and ate breakfast, but were sure not to feed Fuji, the resident [s]sow[/s] cat.


After that, we drove a few kilometers to Cataract Gorge, home of the longest sigle-span chairlift in the world at 308 meters across (over 900 feet). Being a bit timid of open heights, I was nervous at first, but the ride was smooth and fun. The weather was great at about 15*C and slow moving clouds few and far between.


From the other side of the gorge, you can choose to ride back across on the lift, or take one of the many routes back on foot. We chose a short route by foot since we were a bit pressed for time. Even the short walk was nice, winding through flowers, forests, and crossing the river via a suspension bridge:


Hoping to make it to the rain forests in the northwest that day, we made haste and booked it through Devenport ("D") but made a sudden emergency stop at Anvers Chocolate Factory. This was the best chocolate I have ever eaten..hands down. The four of us filled up on free samples, then bought big pieces of fudge for 80 cents each.


From here we drove past lots of dairy and sheep farms, then stopped for lunch in Burnie ("E"). Being on the coastline, there was simply no option for me but fish, chips (fries to you Americans), and cold Coke. It was here we noticed the weather starting to shift toward the cold side of things. It was also very windy, at times even blowing the little Camry around on the A10 highway.

After lunch we aimed south on the A10 toward the rainforests of the northwest. The drive was great -- the road was extremely curvy and challenging at times, but there were only a few places to stop and hike. Perhaps we should've gone further westward to the Tarkine forests to experience better hikes. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable drive, though be sure to bring your own music if you head through here; radio is non-existent.

The day was getting long and the four of us had had our fair share of road time for the day, so we looked for a place to shack up for the night. We stopped in Rosebery("F") just south of the forests, where I had found a hostel online the day before. Evidently we weren't welcome there. The receptionist at the Mount Black Lodge on Hospital Rd. was very hostile towards us, and the lobby stunk due to the two parrots she kept caged just inside the front door. We continued down the A10 to the next mining town, Queenstown, where we hoped things would be better.


Indeed, things were much better in Queenstown. We stopped at the first place we saw coming into town, the Budget Motel and Backpackers accommodations. The facilities were a bit lower-class than those in Launceston, but I wasn't expecting much from a town stuck in time, surviving only by the metal mines in the mountains around it. The rooms were beautifully decorated, and featured a space heater [i]and[/i] an electric blanket. I was warm. The tap water in Queenstown was undrinkable and ran brown from the tap, but I suppose such is to be expected.


I woke up before dawn when my cell phone started to make noises to let me know that it was dying. No big deal -- there's no cellular reception anywhere in the northwest. Welcome to Queenstown:




I can hardly go a day without milk, so I roamed around town until I found a place that was open at 6AM. I wound up buying Honey Crunch flavored milk. One may think that the words "milk" and "crunch" should never be used in the same sentence, but this was good stuff. Ever eaten butter pecan ice cream? Melt it and remove the nuts. Voila! Honey crunch is born.


The four of us were back on the highway by around 730, carving through the fog and up the ridiculously curvy road up the mountains into a series of parks, lakes,and mountain ranges. This is another very enjoyable drive, and there were quite few places to hop out and spend a few hours (or days) hiking, but we had an itinerary elsewhere for the day.







The A10 highway turns east toward Hobart near Lake St. Claire National Park ("H"). This park is part of the large Cradle Mountain/Lake Saint Claire National Park, which is part of the larger Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. I truly wish we could have spent more time in this area, and I hope to go back some time in the spring. Also, I hadn't apparently done enough research into the hikes at the lake, as most of them were at least 6 hours round trip, and a few were inaccessible without snowshoes and proper hiking gear.

We opted for the short, 1.5 hour trip through the Aboriginal heritage area toward the Platypus viewing area. This is a really nice walk over the soggy marshland to the west of the lake. Much of it is quite open with tall grass, dotted with eucalypt trees well over a hundred feet tall. As you can tell, it was cold. A heavy frost hit the area the night before, which also left some of the paths a bit slick.


The same trail turns into the forests and crosses small streams and creeks that lead into the lake. It smelled so good in this area -- the air was fresh an crisp.


The lake was perfectly clear. I've never seen lakewater like this and was frankly quite astounded by it. However, it was very cold since most of it is runoff from the snowcaps on the surrounding mountains.


From the lake, we drove east toward Mt. Field National Park. On the way, we stopped at Tarraleah in the heart of the Central Highlands. Terraleah is home to a project that funnels together several rivers from the area, dumps them into the valley and through a dam that produces a part of the state's massive hydro-based electricity supply. These are some of the pipes leading into the dam:


Tarraleah is also, strangely, home to a herd of Scottish Highland cattle, who are bit far from home Under Down Under.


After harassing the bovines for having their hair stuck in the 1970s, we continued on the A10 toward Mt. Field National Park, our final stop before returning to Hobart. This park, located in the south-central part of the state ("K"), is home to Russel Falls and really tall trees, among other things. At the base of the mountains is a heavily-forested area with the oldest and tallest eucalypt trees in the world. It is also home to the biggest ferns that I have ever seen.


Russel Falls and its upstream partner Horseshoe Falls are nestled in the park just a short walk from the welcome center. It's another easy hike that shouldn't be missed -- even in winter.


Horseshoe falls is a bit more accessible than Russel Falls. You can climb up very close to it if you're willing to risk falling into the bitterly cold water.


From there we walked through the giant trees trail. This trail showcases some of the the park's huge eucalyptus trees, many of which date back to nearly 200 years ago and tower around 250ft tall. This is one of the tallest forests in the world, and so dense that it's difficult to get a picture to show how tall the trees actually are. However, this should serve as a decent representation of their massive size:


Our last stop in Mt. Field National Park was up a 30km winding dirt road, which most of the time was only wide enough for one car. As we ascended the mountain, the road turned from dirt to mud, then from mud to ice at the top. Despite the conditions, the end result is worth the struggle. Atop the mountain is a gorgeous still lake with cabins nearby owned by the government that can be rented out by the public.



Hope you enjoyed the trip. :)