Tasmania: A Lot of Highlights and A Few Disappointments

Just finishing up our last day in Tasmania.  What a surprise this country has been.  The people are wonderfully friendly and gracious.  The country is really well developed with cattle and sheep graziers and lots of farming, potatoes, corn and other food stuffs.  The coastline is gorgeous and we have spent a lot of time on it going from beach to beach.

Highlights of our 9 day trip here were:

·      Port Arthur- a convict settlement south of Hobart that was the first place to establish a population center on the island.  Convicts were sent here from England, Ireland, Wales to do hard labor and clear the forests, build houses and roads and every kind of manual labor imaginable.  Some for many years others for a few before they were released.  Conditions were grueling and overseers could be sadistic and kept people locked in totally dark cells in isolation for days on end for the slightest infringement.   Eventually they had to build an asylum for those that could not mentally coup after being released from solitaire.

The buildings left behind at Port Arthur detail the tough conditions these early settlers were subjected to working all day in, damp and cold conditions clearing forests and spending their nights in seclusion in jails barely big enough to lay down and equally cold and damp.  It is surprising so many actually lived to see their freedom granted and to go on to settle Australia or return back to New England. 

·      Wineglass Bay- on NE coast it is a truly lovely beach that you come to after a rather arduous walk up the mountain 45 minutes to a viewing point and then a serious walk downhill (1 hour) knowing you will have to return and walk up the mountain again.  Thus it discourages the faint hearted and so there are very few people on the beach.  The bay is about as picturesque as one could ask for the sandy beach is clean.  While some ventured into the surf we were content to lay in the sun on the sand and enjoy the peace.  We stayed in a cabin in a little camper van park at the National Park entrance near Coles Bay and it reminded us of the little cabins we rented in Rocky Mt. Park when the kids were small. 

·      Devil’s Corner- A Tasmanian Sauvignon Blanc from the Tamar Valley in the North Central part of the state was a delightful respite at the end of the day.  Tasmania has become quite a center for boutique little vineyards and this one was named after a part of the beach where ships were want to wreck offshore.  The vineyards are beautifully kept and like most of Tasmania, from apples to pine trees, planted in regimented rows and kept up as a matter of pride and economic return.

·      The Air BnBs that we have rented have been mostly FABULOUS. What a GREAT idea.  We have had a number of good ones. The first one was in Torquay off Bell’s Beach a surfing mecca near Melbourne and was fabulous.  The second was above a pub and  hotel  that was built in the 1850’s for seafarers.  It was dated and pretty rustic but the convivial noise floating up from the bar and the incredible meal of lamb and fresh vegetables was one of the best in all my travels.   The Acacia BnB also an Air BnB was a beautiful old house in the midlands of Tasmania  at Sheffield where we stayed in a 4 poster king bed and shared it with 2 delightful traveling boomer couples from this part of the world.  The gardens and the house were picture perfect and the breakfast an array of local foods. 

We are now in Sandy Bay near Hobart at an amazing little studio apartment that has a grape arbor outside our door and a 3 story garden running up the side of the hill, full of every kind of plant one can imagine, overlooking the Sandy Bay.  You can’t compare these experiences to a stay in a motel or hotel.  Just the best!





·      The beaches are amazing.  While a bit too cold to swim in they are gorgeous and some venture out.  But the sand and long expanses of beaches are terrific.  There were so many as we traveled along the east and northern coast.  We went to one up in a reserve with an aboriginal name called Narwantapu and it was almost deserted and absolutely beautiful. The harbors and ports are active and picturesque and still support many fishing fleets that work out of them.

Bakers Beach Narawtapu National Park

The flora and fauna are the outstanding highlight as there are weird and unusual trees like the palm trees in this mountain environment that look like Dr. Seuss trees, lots of different beech and gum trees, a pine tree called King Billy, a really different flora and fauna than

we have seen anywhere else in the world. 

Disappointments were:

·      Cradle Mountain- Tassies and travel books make a big deal about this national park.  It’s great that it is a national park as it saves the ecosystem of this unique mountainous Tasmanian environment.  It is really the only mountain of any significance in Tasmania with the exception of the Asbestos Range.  That’s right we took a dirt road right through the latter.  Don’t know why they call it that. It was dry and generally uninteresting but a shortcut to where we were going.

However, being from the Rocky Mountains we are so spoiled.  There are at least a hundred walks that are more appealing than Cradle Mountain right outside our back door.  

Outside America Tasmania has some of the tallest trees in the world.  After they die they stand for 70-100 years as there are no termites and they are so heavily oil rich that they resist deterioration and rotting. So you see lots of dead tree hulks across the countryside.    Of course,  they also have several of the most poisonous snakes in the world one of which we literally walked over before Rob stopped to photograph it leaving his bare ankles exposed for a bite.    It was a 3 foot long black tiger snake that is highly poisonous.  (And Jenny did not want me to bring my snakebite kit. )

·      Tasmanian devils the little night moving carnivore with sharp canines are dying off of facial cancer.  They are trying to segregate the unaffected population on an island off the coast of Tasmania and keep them healthy to reintroduce back onto the mainland.  The true Tasmanian tiger of a dingo like size is now totally extinct and has only been seen in infrequent and undocumented sightings in the far NE corner of the island. 

·      The Roadkill is rampant. You see a lot of of wombats, wallabies and and echidnas with a few kangaroos that have met their end on the roadways.  The amount of road kill is a telling story of the fact that now the main predators of these species are mostly man and their automobiles.

I have to say there has not been much that we did not enjoy about Tasmania.  Rob took a few hard knocks from time to time but survived them well.  

We would highly recommend it for others to explore and travel here.