This post covers our Tasmanian travels from the 15th of March until we returned home on the 28th of March. For some reason its been a challenge finishing the posts for this trip. I guess we were too busy to write anything while we were on the trip.
Afterr leaving St Helens, we headed to Ben Lomond National Park (NP) just so we could drive up and down Jacobs Ladder. Of course there is more to see in the park, which is effectively a mountain island set in a sea of agricultural and forested lowlands. It is a 1500 m high plateau with distinctive alpine moorland plus vast screes and boulder fields of dolerite, which were created during recent ice ages. The park plays an invaluable role in regional flora and fauna conservation.
From here we entered the Great Western Tiers, the name of a popular touring region and a collection of World Heritage listed mountain bluffs that form the northern edge of the Tasmanian Central Highlands plateau. The Tiers stretch northwest to southeast over 100 kilometres and are places of diverse beauty with spectacular natural features, history and heritage and amazing geological features. The region is in the Meander Valley and boasts a rich heritage, amazing arts and crafts, gourmet food, wilderness and adventure. We had no idea how varied and interesting this area would be as we could have used more time here. However we did manage to see a lot of the highlights.
Our first day in the Great Western Tiers turned out to be a mega day with heaps of variety; scenic drives, amazing silk artwork, extensive museum, lunch with Explorer friends, Marg and Paul, hiking at Liffey Falls, and seeing pencil pines at Pine Lake.
The history of the artwork is a good story about community and craft that started in the early 1990’s. If those areas don’t interest you, you might want to skip this paragraph. A retired farmer got inspired by a theatre curtain he saw in Griffith, NSW so he got a group together to work on a textile artwork project. Eventually over 300 volunteers were involved in the project. They cobbled together funding from various places and had community involvement in the designs, coordination and production of the artwork. Techniques were developed to enlarge the designs, dye the silk and incorporate various materials and embroidery styles to complete the four panels, which depict the flora and fauna and post-colonial settlement of the region. It is estimated that it took some 10,000 hours to complete, over 200 square metres of silk, plus tulle, wool, cotton, velvet, lace and enough thread to circle the world several times. Craft techniques used included crochet, applique, patchwork, quilting, spinning, weaving, beading, rouche, tufting, embroidery, silk painting and dyeing. Certainly worth visiting if you are ever in Deloraine.
Our next stop was Sheffield, the town of murals, where we spent an interesting few hours. We visited the Visitor Info Centre, a large gallery and we walked all around the town viewing the murals.
Our home for the next three nights was Narawntapu NP. It used to be known as Asbestos Range NP, so no wonder they changed the name. Actually it was the first NP in Tasmania to revert to an aboriginal name. We camped in Koybaa, one of four campsites there and just 100 m from the beach. We finished our day with a sunset walk along the beach.
Some final impressions of Tasmania – herds of cows, very windy roads (mostly driven by Dick which I appreciated), beautiful sunny days, stunning beaches, farmlands, forests, dramatic mountains, great walks and waterfalls.
BACK ON THE MAINLAND – we had a very social time in Melbourne, visiting Stephanie and Ron for a couple of days, enjoying a delicious lunch at Elizabeth’s with her and Sal, and catching up with Margaret over coffee.
Our first stop out of Melbourne was Golden Beach (C-9) which is on 90 mile beach, part of the East Gippsland coastline and an area we had not visited before.
On the 28th of March we arrived home, 45 days after we left home on the 13th of February. It was a good trip and I was surprised at how much there was to see in Tasmania, especially since we have had 4 trips there since 2010, and numerous other trips before then.
This marks the end of our 2024 Tasmanian trip posting (and it only took me 6 months to get it out).
This post takes us up the scenic east coast of Tasmania, starting on the 4th of March 2024. Our first stop was in Freycinet National Park (NP), where all the NP campsites were booked out. We found a free camp, Rivers and Rocks, which was nice but overcrowded.
There is so much to see in Freycinet – great scenery and lots of walks. We made the most of our day there, starting with Wineglass Bay. Sometimes, especially in Tassie, one has a day with ao much beautiful scenery its almost overwhelming and certainly its stunning and inspiring. The 5th of March in Freycinet was one such day.
We went through the town of St Helens, left the coast and started to head up to the northernmost corner on the east coast.
Now I found learning about the wind farm VERY INTERESTING. If that does not interest you, I suggest you skip this paragraph. The wind farm is spread over the 5500 hectare property of Cape Portland. They had to build 70 km of tracks to provide access to the sites of the 56 turbines. 64 km of underground cable connects the turbines to the control building. In this area the average wind speed is 33 km/hr. Turbines turn at 12 km/hr and they stop turning at 90 km/hr. To build the foundation of each turbine requires 80 truckloads of concrete, 64 tonnes of reinforcing steel and 9 tonnes of anchor bolts. Each foundation weighs more than 1250 tonnes. Each of the 56 turbines was transported to the site in pieces. In February 2013 the first turbines were erected by two cranes (one was a 500 tonne crane and the other was a 1200 tonne crane). Both were brought to Tasmania for this job. The towers are 80 m high. Each turbine generates 3 Megawatts. There are 3 blades per turbine. The blades are 44 m long and weigh 7 tonnes each. They were made in China and Italy. Sounds like the Chinese believe in renewable energy. Too bad they own 75% of this wind farm.
These next two slides were displayed on the wall inside the display centre at the Tebrakunna Wind Farm and outline the history of the local people who originally inhabited Trouwunna, Tasmania. It makes sobering reading.
We returned south back to St Helens to resupply before camping at Seatons Cove in the Bay of Fires.
The Explorer Motorhome (MH) Rally at Cozy Corner South was our next stop and it was a 4 minute drive. Actually it was a very casual get together of 12 Explorer MHs/20 people. Lots of chatting and a great group photo on the beach.
After the rally we checked out Binalong Bay and then treated ourselves to a night in St Helens and dinner out. We made sure to get another lobster and salad lunch before leaving the coast.
Next stop on the 15/3/24 was JACOBS LADDER and that heralds the next blog, which will cover the last two weeks of this trip.