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Day 27
Port Arthur -> Hobart <Map>
Today 85 Total 3766
After yesterday's mind-blowing boat ride, today was a far more subdued affair. One of the things that we'd been coming across during our time on the Tasman Peninsula and surrounding area was the aftermath of the devastating bushfires in Nov/Mar 2012/13. Around Dunalley, while there were numbers of brand new houses replacing those destroyed in the fires, there were also lots of vacant house blocks with just a brick chimney standing as a reminder of the home that once stood there. In January in the Dunalley area alone, 65 buildings were destroyed including the police station and the primary school. More than 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of bushland were destroyed, and over 2,000 residents and tourists had to be rescued by boat, as the fires forced people onto beaches and into the sea.
Remarkably, the trees were well on their way to recovery.
New growth coming out of the tree trunks
Day 28
Hobart <Map>
Today 50 Total 3816
A lovely day having lunch with Hobart friends (Thanks, Menna and Leon and boys!) and getting the lowdown from the locals as to what to see and do on the second half of our trip.
Day 29
Hobart -> Mt Wellington -> Hobart <Map>
Today 75 Total 3891
From our friends' place yesterday afternoon, we watched a light dusting of snow settle on Mt Wellington, so decided that we should go and investigate.
All green. No road closures today!
The road to the top of Mt Wellington was constructed in 1930 as a relief scheme for the unemployed. It is quite narrow, but has spectacular glimpses through the trees of Hobart and surrounding area on the way up. The climate at the top (1270m or about 4200') can be very variable, so taking warm clothes is a really good idea. When we arrived, the temperature was about -2°, but with the wind chill factored in, it was calculated at -12°. Nice bracing weather.
Someone's going back to get another layer! Snow left over from yesterday
The tower in the background is for TV and radio transmissions, as this is the highest point for miles around. The fact that it has numerous high-powered transmitters may have something to do with the fact that Charlotte (our GPS) couldn't get a fix on any satellites while we were up here. There is also a sign making vague references to this in the lookout.
Your brain's being slowly fried while you read this... (Electro-geeks may wish to click on the photo to get a better view of the text)
Electronic interference aside, the mountain provided us with magnificent views over Hobart.
Hobart : Tasman Bridge (left), Hobart CBD (centre), Wrest Pt Casino (right), all set on the River Derwent
Day 30
Hobart <Map>
Today 75 Total 3891
Time for a walk around the Hobart CBD this morning, followed by lunch then a trip back to the past with another convict site visit in the form of the Female Factory at Cascades.
As can be seen from the photo above, Hobart is right on the River Derwent's edge, and a lot of its history is near the waterfront. We parked the car close to the centre of the city and decided to have a stroll around. From a mainland point of view, parking in the city is both easily accessible, and cheap - $1.40 per hour!! Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne councils take note!
"Thomas lazily waits outside the shop."
Part of Hobart is closed to vehicles and has a number of quirky bits of street furniture.
Around New Year, Constitution Dock is a hive of activity as the yachts in the 630 nautical mile Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race arrive and are moored here.
Constitution Dock in its normal quiet state with three classic vessels moored. Mawson Place on the left
Adjacent to Constitution Dock, the crayfishing fleet was getting ready for the opening of the season to commercial boats
A row of 19th Century buildings at Salamanca Place
Salamanca Place consists of rows of sandstone buildings, formerly warehouses for the port of Hobart Town that have since been converted into restaurants, galleries, craft shops and offices. On Saturdays, there is a very popular market here. The day we were there was Melbourne Cup Day, and consequently it was populated by lots of ladies in outrageous hats and equally impractical high heels competing in a "Fashions on the Field" event in the square. We had lunch then left before the main event.
It has been said that if history had been only slightly different, Australia might have been French. It could probably also be claimed that we might have all been speaking Dutch had things been different. On 24 November 1642 Abel Tasman sighted the west coast of Tasmania, which he called Van Dieman's Land after Antonio Van Dieman, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies in Batavia (now Jakarta). On 3 December 1642 on the east coast of Tasmania, Tasman claimed formal possession of the land for Holland. Presumably, no one bothered to tell the English about this in the intervening 128 years until Cook arrived in 1770 and claimed the whole east coast of Australia for England.
Three-in-one memorial to Abel Tasman (right), his ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen and the stone sculpture near Salamanca Place
Final stop for today was at the Female Factory. This was to women convicts what Port Arthur was to males.
This rather simple sign cannot convey the hardships that happened here over 28 years
Unlike Port Arthur, there is not very much left of the original Female Factory. This is because most of it was sold off and dismantled early in the 20th century before our convict past was deemed worthy of merit. The Factory was located in an area of damp swamp land, and with overcrowding, poor sanitation and inadequate food and clothes, there was a high rate of disease and mortality among its inmates.
We signed on for a guided tour (it turned out we were the whole group) which was very informative and fleshed out the rather naked outlines of the buildings on the ground with stories of some of the women who were either incarcerated here, or were responsible for running the place. Very informative, but not exactly a high point on which to end the day.
Day 31
Hobart <Map>
Today 45 Total 3936
MONA - The Museum of Old and New Art - is a rather quirky establishment on the banks of the Derwent upstream from Hobart. It also has a hotel and is in the middle of a vineyard. The site has a European history going back to 1804 when the land was originally cleared and fruit trees planted. In 1995, entrepreneur David Walsh purchased the site and started turning it into the centre it is today, combining the gallery, hotel, restaurants, wine bar, Moo Brew micro-brewery and inter-stellar launch facility (OK, I made the last one up).
It's difficult to get an all-encompassing view of the place from both a physical and mental point of view, so here is just something to set the tone as you walk to the entrance.
A wrought iron concrete mixer with filigree finials and other extras.
MONA has been created by inserting itself into a sandstone cliff. There are no windows onto the outside world, but the 3 storey interior excavations are left bare to create very impressive galleries. One of the design criteria was that the building should be as exploratory and challenging as the art it contained.
The Void Bar
"There's a chair in there,
And a bar as well..."
A slightly modified Play School theme seems to work well in here. :-)
This binary barcode-like installation changes every few seconds. My phone's barcode reader was confused.
The Fat Car - originally a Porsche Carrera
Gnip Gnop
How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
Don't know, but you can obviously fit 5 fairies on a dragonfly - part of a large work involving a freeze-dried possum
Couldn't find any info on this piece...
God + Mistress drive Mercs. I suspect that mere mortals parking here would be the recipient of a thunderbolt from a clear sky
In our minds (what's left of them after the visit), MONA is up there with Tate Modern in London and Dali's Museum in Figueras for messing with one's grey matter.
Day 32
Hobart
Today 34 Total 3970
Just housekeeping and shopping in preparation for tomorrow.
Day 33
Hobart -> Bruny Island <Map>
Today 95 Total 4031
Bruny Island is situated near the main island of Tasmania and is separated from it by the deep D'Entrecasteaux Channel. It's nearly 100km by road from north to south with two main sections - North and South Bruny. These sections are separated by The Neck - a narrow isthmus of sand between Isthmus and Adventure Bays.
The only way to get to Bruny Island is on the double-deck vehicular ferry Mirambeena. For extra Trivial Pursuit points, it is equipped with a Voith-Schneider propulsion system.
We were aiming to free camp here, but the weather hasn't been kind of late. As we are reliant on our solar panels to charge the batteries in the van, a heavy cloud cover does us no good at all, so we opted for the only caravan park on the island at Adventure Bay. As an aside for the van buffs out there, in three days the panels generated an average of 5 AmpHrs/day, so we were hardly going to have an excess of power!
We dropped the van off, then set out for a bit of exploring. There is a rather potholed and eroded dirt road across South Bruny that proved no big deal for our 4WD (or the number of small 4 cylinder hire cars we came across).
Beautiful stands of Eucalyptus near the highest point on Bruny - Mt Mangana at about 520m / 1700'
Our sightseeing tour was aimed at Cape Bruny Lighthouse in the South Bruny National Park. (Yes, more Ross lighthouse visits...)
The old Cape Bruny Lighthouse
This original lighthouse was built in 1835 after three vessels were wrecked in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. Because of the ill-charted dangers of Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland, many skippers still preferred the passage around the southern tip of Tasmania. The lighthouse was built by convict labour and was the third lighthouse built in Tasmania. It was decommissioned in 1996 and replaced by an automated solar lightstation on the adjacent headland.
Are we having fun yet? Climbing to the Cape Bruny Lighthouse.
It was blowing quite fiercely with occasional showers, but the scenery was worth it, being very rugged.
With this sort of coast, it's a really good idea to have a lighthouse
Day 34
Bruny Island
Today 3 Total 4034
Bruny Island Cruise Day. The word 'cruise' is used here in a very tongue-in-cheek context. As previously related, we had done the Tasman Island Cruise and thoroughly enjoyed it. With that in mind, we decided to do the Bruny Island Cruise with the same company. We boarded the boat just down the road from the caravan park on Adventure Bay.
Our sister boat loads at the jetty at Adventure Bay
Adventure Bay wasn't named after anyone's great boy's-own adventure, but was named after the ship of one of the many famous navigators who came here. Abel Tasman tried to enter the bay in 1642 but was blown out to sea by a storm. Tobias Furneaux was the first European to land here in 1773 and it was he who named the bay after his ship, the Adventure. Four years later in 1777 Capt. James Cook landed here, and in 1788 and again in 1792 (this time with Matthew Flinders), Capt. Bligh landed here.
While it was just about flat calm when we went for the cruise off the Tasman Peninsula, it had been blowing strongly from the East at Bruny Island over the last few days. The seas in Adventure Bay where we started were pretty cam, but as soon as we ventured outside, we copped the full force of Mother Nature. Having the swells up to 4m dash against the coastline of cliffs created very confused seas with waves climbing above the level of the boat from time to time. Some on board were not actually enjoying this, even though the crew passed out ginger tablets before we ventured outside. Because of the sea state, we were tossed about a bit and it certainly beat any fairground ride we'd been on.
More impressive sea stacks
The scenery was similar to the Tasman Peninsula with sea stacks and caves, but with the sea conditions being what they were, we didn't look like going into any of the caves.
Australian Fur Seals at The Friars. Lots more than on Tasman Island.
Second highest dolerite cliffs in Southern Hemisphere – 270m/825'. Highest were on the other trip.
Note the difference in weather conditions between the seal photo and the cliff photo. They were taken 4 minutes apart!
Not too many photos of this trip as :-
a) it was very difficult to get good shots, even when were were just idling along, due to the rough conditions and
b) because unless you were actually there, it was quite similar to the Tasman Peninsula trip. Even so, we were very glad to have done both trips.
Late afternoon at Adventure Bay, and a Sooty Oystercatcher is busy trying to catch Sooty Oysters
Day 35
Bruny Island <Map>
Today 70 Total 4104
Today was all about satisfying one's inner man (or woman). Bruny Island has become a bit of a gourmet's delight with some well-renowned outlets for wine, cheese, seafood and fudge. We started today's trip with a visit to the Chocolate Factory. This has absolutely no relationship to Cadbury's factory in Hobart. Among other produce, they have fudge in a range of flavours. We sampled some, then being unable to decide, just bought lots. :-))
Cheers! View from The Smokehouse deck
Next stop was The Smokehouse, where they smoke local produce such as farmed Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon (I still have trouble with how Atlantic Salmon got into the South Pacific...) wallaby, mussels, quail, duck and a host of chutneys and preserves. We did a taste test on some of the chutneys (Yummy) and tried their Chilli Sardines. We then sat down to lunch of Smoked Salmon, salad and home made bread helped down by a glass of local chardonnay. A bit pricey, but delicious.
A tree root sculpture in front of The Smokehouse
Turning for home at the other end of the island, we then stopped at the Cheese Factory for another tasting, followed by the after-lunch coffee we didn't have at the Smokehouse.
Mmmm, Cheeses! 'T' is for 'Tom' - one of their hard rind cheeses.
On the way back to the van, we had to cross The Neck again. This is the isthmus that separates North and South Bruny. There is a lookout on top of the highest sand dune, from which you get a great view south.
The Neck, looking towards South Bruny (penguin rookery down walkway on left)
Finally back to the van to have a siesta, and started packing for an early-ish start tomorrow. After dinner, we ventured out again to The Neck to see if we could spot any Fairy Penguins coming ashore. They spend their day out at sea, then return to their burrows just after dark to feed their chicks. The only problem is that by the time they emerge from the breakers, it is to all intents and purposes DARK. For those of you who may not have tried, it's a bit like trying to see a black cat in a dark alley at midnight. As flashlights and camera flash equipment are not allowed, this just leaves pushing one's equipment to the absolute limit to get anything. SO we ended up with:-
Fairy Penguins coming ashore 30 minutes after sunset (f5.6, 1/20sec, 300mm, ISO 10000 (Ten Thousand!))
A bit blurry, too far away and just about pitch black, cold and windy, but great fun! They actually ended up underneath the boardwalk we were standing on, but by that time even my new whiz bang camera couldn't see a thing.
I've always known these Penguins as Fairy Penguins. It would seem that political correctness now wants us now to call them Little Penguins. However until the authorities change the name of the town (Port Fairy) on the Victorian coast to Port Little, I shall continue to call them Fairy Penguins.
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