TASMANIA TRIP {Hobart to Strahan}

The drive from Hobart to Strahan is LONG.
It's under 300km but winding and mountainous with 'slow roads'.
And there's pretty much NOTHING the entire way.

One hour out of Hobart our first stop was Russell Falls.

There is a flat pathway the whole way to the waterfall. Easy!
We saw pademelons all over the place. They were cute.

Did you know this waterfall was featured on the FIRST Australian stamp?
 in 1899 the Russell Falls were selected as one of eight images to be used on a set of pictorial postage stamps, aimed at promoting the then colony's growing tourist industry. 
Some of the Worlds Tallest Trees are also found in Tasmania in this area.

^^Crossing Roads that are kinda bridges is fun

Next Stop to break up the day's travel was Tarraleah Power station.
It was pretty interesting. Was a much bigger place in its hey day. There is a information place and a sort of historical village with some of the houses still there. Was a little bit weird but cool! IT was a difficult remote place to live at its time.

^^ Most Exciting part was seeing Echidna's on the side of the road! We passed about 10!

There is only one road through this entire area, so stopping was sometimes difficult. I'm so glad we pulled over to photograph and video this one (there was another but he popped into a ball and rolled off the edge!) as we did not see any more afterwards.

^^This was the view for alot of the day. We also played Eye Spy.
I spy something starting with T. I spy something green. I spy something brown. Answers: Trees!

Third Stop to stretch our legs was THE WALL at Derwent Bridge. We stopped in at an art gallery containing large slabs of huon pine that has been carved into panels telling the story of Tasmania.
No pictures are allowed so I've borrow this one from the website.
The lady was very nice to us and someone that day had bought in a dead quoll. She bought it to the girls so they could see. One fact about Tassie is that there is road kill EVERYWHERE. Every km or two you will see a dead wallaby, wombat, tasmania devil etc. It is a little sad.



Finally at the end of a long day we reached Strahan.
We were so happy to arrive into the care of John at Strahan Village
We ended with an evening stroll to Hogarth Falls.

^^ The trees made amazing patterns

UP Next: Gordon River and Strahan and Henty Sand Dunes

TASMANIA TRIP {Strahan}

Strahan is on the Mid West Coast of Tasmania. There really isn't much there but it is pretty.

^^ Macquarie Harbour

^^ Hogarth Falls are a 20 min stroll on a flat path right in town.

^^ Breakfast View from Strahan Village restaurant.

^^ Our hotel. Strahan Village We had a lovely little 3 bedroom cottage right on the main street.
The harbour was 10 metres away. It was very quiet and picturesque. A very small town.

Sadly most of our Trip in Tasmania the skies were grey.
On the positive it didn't rain much.
Just grey skies ruining my photos ;)


We were able to do the Gordon River Cruise thanks to my wonderful Brother in Law.
The grey skies made for an eerie misty day.
Perfect with Convict Ruins and basically untouched rainforest at the bottom of the earth :)

^^ Gordon River and the lower west of Tasmania achieves one of the highest ratings when being listed as a world heritage spot. It ticks 8 out of 10 or something like that. Most places only tick 4. The rainforest here is that which reclaimed the land after the last Great Ice Age. Pretty rare apparently.

We were super excited when a staff member said the captain wanted us to join him.
Would you believe he let the kids all drive the boat?
And that you drive the boat with a tiny little joy stick with one finger?!
{I'm sure there is much more involved than that!}
Each kid got to don the captains hat and have a go.
It was a very special experience thats for sure.

^^ Just before we stepped onto Sarah Island a pod of dolphins swam past. It was amazing. 

Sarah Island has Australia's oldest convict ruins.

^^ Light house love. There are two on the way to Hells Gate. 

^^ It was cold and very windy.

The cruise was very informative and I learnt alot. I was wondering why on earth would anyone come here, let alone find this place at the bottom of the earth? Why did they bother to send convicts here hundreds of years ago?  It's pretty secluded. It was amazing to think convicts escaped and turned up weeks later in Hobart, or even the mainland and even Chile! Yes one boat load escaped to South America. But as everything its all about the mighty dollar and these places were turning a pretty profit with magical wood. Turns out England was out of Oak back in the day but had an empire to run with ships and all. Turns out Tasmania has lots of wood! Win for everyone. Except the convicts who had to do all the manual labour. However the some of the worlds worst slums were London and Birmingham at the time so maybe they got the better deal to be shipped to the end of the earth.

After spending most of the day on the river we hired some toboggans and headed for Henty Sand Dunes. They are about a 10-15 minute drive out of Strahan. It was tough work walking up those dunes, basically vertical but once up it was a pretty cool view. I was smart enough to stay at the top. But not adventurous enough to go up and down several times. Sore legs the next day.

 ^^ Two toboggans and they just threw themselves down anyway.

^^ I was excited to see real Holly in Tasmania. Had never seen it before.

^^ Sunrise and goodbye Strahan.

On our Way out we stopped at Zeehan a tiny town 30 mins away. It was once a booming silver mine town. Now it's sadly forgotten and tiny. However the museum there is meant to be really good {was closed when we went by} but we did check out the Spray Tunnel left over from mining days.

The tunnel was dark and cool. I had found no souvenirs in Tasmania which made me sad when I found an awesome heart rock here. I went to Zeehan and all I got was this heart rock :)

Next Up:  Stahan to Launceston.

TASMANIA TRIP {Launceston}

Last we left Strahan, The Gordon River, The Henty Sandunes. 

Now we were on our way back through the mountains to Launceston.

Old Hercules. Aerial ore bucked ropeway constructed to move ore from the Mine to Rosebury. 

No longer in use but left. Fun to drive right under.

The Shadow of Mt Black which looms over Rosebery

 ^^ Lookout to Cradle Mountain. We drove into the park but the crowds were too much and we only had one day to get to Launceston so sadly we only got to see Cradle Mountain from a distance.

 ^^ Another Lookout on our way. Beautiful vistas all the time.

^^Mole Creek Caves in Karst National Park. The park contains more than 300 known caves and limestone formations. Only a few are accessible to the public. It was cold in the cave. 9 degrees all year round. The caves had glow worms and special type of spider.

^^Historic Clock Tower in Launceston. Our hotel was right near by and beside the bed was earplugs because this thing rings all night!

 ^^ Down town. Launceston had the most beautiful old homes. I would happily go on holidays where I just look at old houses. Tasmania certainly has that. Sadly we were only here for one day. Wish I had taken more photos of all the beautiful old architecture.

^^Cataract Gorge. The suspension bridge was almost a bit scarey lol. The Gorge is only 1.5 km from the city centre. Such a nice place to have so close.

 ^^ There were beautiful peacocks everywhere at Cataract Gorge. They were so beautiful. Our youngest daughter had never seen one before in real life and didn't think they were real creatures. It was fun to see her say 'Oh they are real. I've never seen a real one before.'

^^ There were such beautiful trees at Cataract Gorge. There was a very english garden there. Felt very fancy. Kids really wanted to ride the chairlift but were sadly denied by their parents :) The chairlift is the longest single span chairlift in the world!

The earliest recorded visit to this area was made by settler William Collins in 1804 when exploring the Port in the ship "Lady Nelson". He was particularly impressed by the South Esk and its cataract

Further up the River, at Duck Reach , a turbine-driven power station was constructed by the Council and it is understood that Launceston had the distinction of being the first City south of the Equator to be lit by electricity, generated by water power. On the 10th December, 1895, electricity was officially switched on. 

We left Launceston for a long Sunday drive to Port Arthur - our last stop for our trip.