From
Australia 2015
We just returned from 3 weeks in Tasmania. What a beautiful place! It seemed like every day there was something really pretty to lay our eyes on. Flying over there was a snap and we wonder why so many Australians we meet haven't actually been. It was fun traveling there with Jan & Rich and then meeting up with Richard & Ali (who sailed to Hobart), not to mention, we had a free place to stay while we were all in Hobart. We each rented cars so we moved around on our own but then met up every few days to do things which was great. For the first couple of days, Jon kept turning to me to say "Hey, we're in Tasmania!" It did feel really exciting to be there.
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
Tasmanians say they're having an especially wet, cool summer and we can vouch for that. We spent a lot of time with jackets on and much more on summits, with rain gear at the ready. For Jon & I, we centered our trip around the many national parks doing backpacking & long day hikes since we never get to do any of it in the islands and Tasmania has some fantastic wilderness. We wanted to see it. One thing we haven't experienced much in all of the backpacking we've done is lots of rain & cold. Richard & Ali joined us for 2, two night trips and we did another on our own and while all of the days we were doing summits were dry & clear, the shoulder days had some wild weather. We had sleet twice which feels really good on the face! But it was so worth it. We scored places in huts for much of the time and Jon & I even had a whole room to ourselves on the Overland Track for 2 nights which was a fluke but pretty nice. It didn't seem to dampen the sounds of people snoring but at least it wasn't in the same room. On super long day hikes, we covered a lot of territory which was exhilarating. We sure have visited a lot of World Heritage Sites in Australia.
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
Tasmania has some truly varied scenery. And in contrast to NZ, there is a lot of life on the trails. Wallabies are especially fluffy at altitude, wombats are all over, along with their scat (they drop it as high as they can for territorial purposes so it is usually perched on top of whatever is highest in the area), we saw a spotted quoll, a bandicoot, a Tasmanian devil, platypus, lots of interesting birds and even some pretty things in the tide pools, including an octopus. Fields of lavender, mountain flowers, layered waterfalls, huge old trees, snow lizards, tropical looking beaches, buttongrass meadows, mountaintop cushion plants, and even some hungry possums attacking our packs one night and ripping a hole in Richard & Ali's tent! We decided the possums were more of a worry than the tasmanian devils. We even watched an old Bugs Bunny cartoon on the devil to make a comparison. I'd forgotten Bugs Bunny called him "Tassie"- funny!
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
On our non hiking days we toured around to see as much of the island as we could but when I would ask Jon if he wanted to go to this town or that town, he would always say "why?" because really, all we could think of was going back out into the backcountry- a little nutty we know! But we got a good feel for life in Tasmania and it feels like going back in time. Not a lot of shopping opportunities outside of major towns. I practically hugged all the lettuce in the store once we got back to Hobart. But seriously, to us, Australians have been overwhelmingly helpful & friendly, outgoing, fun loving and good conversation makers. We've been told that they've enjoyed several "champagne years" of booming economy and unfortunately now, their dollar is way down. Good for us, not for them.
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
I think our favorite hiking day was the day we climbed from the New Pelion Hut on the Overland track to Tasmania's highest summit- Mt Ossa. The trail to the summit starts from a saddle so you're already high up. It was a crystal clear day with no wind whatsoever. Wildflowers peeked out of rocky ledges and near the top, through a fresh snowfall. When we got to the top, we discovered it was wide and plateau-like with a pair of gorgeous tarns that appeared like an infinity pool. At the same time, it felt like you could see to infinity with layer upon layer of distant mountains. It may very well have been the best summit we've ever seen.
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
We learned a lot about Tasmanian history both good & bad. We visited historic Port Arthur, the famous penal colony in Tasmania with Rich &Jan which took a whole day, trying to absorb the treacherous convict history that both brings tourists to Tasmania and probably scares them too. Thousands of convicts passed through or died at Port Arthur and for many, the crime that got them there was trivial at best. The remaining buildings, set in beautiful surroundings still have the dark corners of solitary cells and the chains that held the convicts together as they laborted to build them. The only thing sadder than that was the Aboriginal struggle, which we learned about in various museums. But we remarked that every country has baggage as tragic as this and it is still going on today. It seems to be the nature of people.
From
Australia 2015
From
Australia 2015
One thing we all agreed on was that the accommodation we had was pretty pathetic. You certainly don't get much for your dollar. When Jon & I weren't pitching a tent in a campground, or out backcountry hiking, we were trying to get an affordable room or cabin so that we could dry out and be warm at night for a change. For the most part, this meant staying in backpacker type places or campground cabins which rarely had a private bathroom and often had bunk beds. Some had linen, some didn't. It didn't matter that you paid $100 for the night either. It was all no frills. It makes us miss the USA since there is a certain minimum you get which is like a luxury room compared to what we saw. One chair, if we were lucky and beds on rollers were the norm if it wasn't a bunk bed. Since Jan & Rich were usually ahead of us, we'd get a heads up on what to expect which was nice. On the last 2 nights before Jon & I returned to Hobart and the luxurious Vulcan Spirit Hotel (Richard & Ali's boat), we scored a king sized bed with shared bath on the first night out from a backpacking trip and then the next night we got the last park hut in the alpine area of Mt Field National Park that had a wood stove (and bunk beds) with wood provided- actually it was a beautiful spot. We felt like we'd struck gold. All in all, it provided lots of laughs but we were all exhausted by the end of the trip. The last 2 days back in Hobart, the 6 of us hang out together, and we even had a little rendezvous with friends Larry & Karen on Panta Rhei since they sailed from our marina in Sydney to Tasmania!
From
Australia 2015
So, it's good to be back on Evergreen and comfortable for a change. We can sit on the toilet seat without worry and we don't even have to carry our own TP in our pocket. What luxury. But we had such a great time we both felt blue when it ended. Saying goodbye to Richard & Ali was hard too, since they're headed off to S. Africa, not Indonesia. Hiking through beautiful scenery, (no matter what the weather) gives us a huge buzz and we meet people from all over the world on the trails & in the huts doing interesting things. It gives us inspiration....
The projects have resumed- we almost have 3 new solar panels installed on the dodger (the old ones were too sun damaged to make power, go figure!) and there is more wet paint & varnish as I write this. We plan to leave Sydney in the next few days and head northward back to Brisbane over the next month, stopping to explore along the way.