NOW: THE WASHUP Sooooooo…. We’ve done it! Twenty-eight months ago David turned 60 and we left our four bedroom, two bathroom, six car garage home and set out on the Emu Track in our Pajero and Tvan. We knew we’d need two years to see the places on our list but we hadn’t made it…
NOW: TASMANIA’S NORTH COAST Cape Grim is a huge beef producing area in the northwest corner of Tasmania. We actually bought some superb Cape Grim beef from the butcher in Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land last year! A pretty north facing beach near Grim Point is at Green Point which we visited on our way to…
NOW: TASMANIA’S NORTH WEST It didn’t rain but everything was soaking wet from the dew when we packed up at Macquarie Heads and headed to the old mining town of Zeehan then on to Rosebery which still has a working gold mine. Our Rosebery stop was so that we could walk into Montezuma Falls, Tasmania’s…
NOW: SOUTH WEST TASMANIA The bare, craggy hills of Queenstown were in sharp contrast to the forest of the southern wilderness. Mining has denuded the hills surrounding Queenstown but as we heard on our Queenstown walking tour local efforts are seeing the vegetation slowing climbing back. Strahan was in complete contrast to Queenstown with a…
NOW: THE CENTRAL WILDERNESS Driving north we passed fields of trellised hops and vineyards covering the rolling hills. The food and wine industry meets the traveller on every bend and there were lots of bends! So of course there were lots of different things to try. Mount Field National Park is the closest national park…
NOW: THE SOUTH EAST At the Huonville Farmstay you can watch a sheep shorn, a cow milked and get really close to a Tasmanian Devil being fed. The park owner cares for the endangered devils in a purpose built enclosure sharing his knowledge while we watched from behind the glass screen fence. It was a…
NOW: BRUNY ISLAND Our last stop in Hobart was MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art. We went to the basement to see the Museum of Everything Exhibition – a collection of everything – drawings, paintings, models, sculptures. After the pussycat tea party exhibit we had a cup of tea ourselves in antique china…
NOW: FREYCINET PENINSULA AND HOBART Even if you’re not a wine drinker you have to stop in at the Devil’s Corner Winery just south of Bicheno. They have a multi-storey lookout built out of shipping containers with views across Moulting Lagoon and The Hazards. Sounds quirky and it is but with the sound of voices…
NOW: TASMANIA’S NORTH EAST Travelling east through Bridport and Gladstone we set up camp at Stumpys Bay in Mount William National Park. We’d visited Musselroe Bay and Top Camp first but the wind was howling and we opted for the cover of the trees and the windbreak from the dune. We’d planned to have a…
NOW: DEVONPORT AND THE TAMAR After Christmas with our family and a quick flit to Melbourne via Mittagong, Beechworth and Seymour we boarded the evening ferry for Tasmania. We cleared quarantine and queued on the dock for some time before boarding and finding our cabin for the night. I’m not a great sailor so we…