After a sleep in the van and a run on the beach we drove to the town of Penguin about 50kms west of Devonport on the coast of Tasmania. We discovered that the place to stay was at the Lions Club park in the centre of the little town, so we made our way there and settled the van and doggies. The town of Penguin lives up to its name with penguin litter bins and a giant penguin on the sea front.
It was all very quiet late on the Saturday afternoon, but Paul and I decided to have a drink in the local pub and stayed for a meal – curried scallops for Paul and garlic prawns for me. It was very nice and then we watched the ladies Australian Open Final on the giant TV in the pub lounge.
The next day we took the dogs to the off leash dog friendly beach right by the van and Tia immediately got jumped on by a huge grey mastiff dog which must have been twice her size. Paul went to her rescue and when I next looked there was Tia with the mastiff on top, and then Paul on top of them both in a sort of sandwich heap! The mastiff wasn’t really angry, just over excited and his owner was pale with anxiety as he rushed over to help Paul pull his dog off poor Tia. The mastiff had clearly never had a human leap on its back – it had a puzzled look on its face as Paul slid off. Like – “what the.......???”. Anyway no-one was hurt and the dogs just walked off quite unconcerned, so all was well. I did think Paul was brave to throw himself into the middle of it and I was just sorry I didn’t have my camera at the ready...
I went to the local Penguin Market and wandered around stalls of bric-a-brac and crafts, while Paul did some work on his laptop in the van. The weather was humid and thundery looking as we travelled on through Burnie, a large industrial port town pop 20,000, with a prominent paper mill on approach. We decided not to stop but drove further into the Tasmania north-west corner to Wynyard for lunch. The town was surrounded by rolling hills and wonderful beaches with the River Inglis estuary flowing into the sea. We had a lovely walk along the river which was a shady alternative to our normal beach walks with the doggies. We laughed at the little crabs which scuttled sideways into their holes in the muddy river bank when our shadows fell on them.
This north Tasmanian coast has miles of nesting ground for the small fairy penguins. In nesting season (December – January), they can be seen scuttling back up the beach at nightfall to feed their young nesting in the dunes. Much of the coastline is sensitive terrain under stress for them and fortunately the authorities have created some conservation areas to help their survival.
We drove to the Table Cape lookout and Lighthouse, past fields of poppy seed pods which were ripening, and empty fields which would be transformed by tulips in spring time. The sky was very misty so the views were a little limited but beautiful anyway. Table Cape is a great plateau 180 metres high. The volcanic lava lake of 12 million years ago is now the richly fertile soil that is perfect for growing tulips. We must come back for a visit in spring!
On we drove again, further west to Crayfish Creek Caravan Park for the night. This park was in a bush setting with trees all around and very basic facilities. Apart from flies and mosquitoes, there were beautiful and unusual birds, giant bees that should be in the Guinness Book of records for their size, and later in the evening some bouncing quokka-like animals appeared. Hopefully they weren’t just giant rats...
Our destination the next morning was the beautiful town of Stanley – which has the title of ‘Prettiest Fishing Village in Australia’. It is also supposed to have the purest air of anywhere in the world. It is positioned against the lower slopes of a great table-topped monolith, made by a plug of lava from a long extinct volcano. The local call the lava plug ‘The Nut’ and it extends out into the Bass Strait with a wonderful beach on each side. After gathering maps from the Information Centre, we headed first to Tallow’s Beach for a magnificent run with the doggies in the shadow of the vast ‘Nut’. The beach was almost empty and went on as far as the eye could see and to our delight there were no council signposts with long lists of what wasn’t allowed such as No Camping, No Dogs, No Swimming, No Fires, No Golf. It was wonderfully ‘freeing’.
Stanley was settled in 1825 as the base for Van Diemen’s Land Company to administer the enormous sheep farms across Tasmania’s north west. The town itself is still full of the original 19th Century cottages, all immaculately kept with flower gardens and brightly coloured paintwork. There was not one bit of litter or any graffiti to be seen, no hoons and no hobos. We were totally captivated by this perfect little town – beautiful beaches, chocolate-box scenery and friendly locals. I took a ride on the Nut Chairlift (the only thing missing was a pair of skis on my feet) to the top of the lava plug and enjoyed a circular walk around the Nut State Reserve in the company of Mutton Birds and Quokkas, while Paul bought lots of goodies for dinner in the Providores shop and then ‘ran’ up the steps to the top of the Nut – what a champion!
We parked up for the night at Godfrey’s Beach with a couple of other motor homes and our view from the van while we had dinner was definitely a million dollar one – rugged coastline, stately rocks and roaring sea pounding on to a pristine sandy beach. A dinner of sweet and sour Tasmanian caught fresh blue grenadier and scallops followed by Tasmania Brie and Cheddar with fresh local Blueberries and Tasmanian Riesling. Yum Yum!
The wind picked up during the night and by the next morning the town of Stanley was being well buffeted along with our van. The windows were covered in a sea haze film and we could hardly see out. We did want to visit Highfield House which was recommended in our guide pamphlet, and so we drove along a very scenic coastal road for just a couple of kilometres outside Stanley to the historic house. It was built in 1835 for the chief agent Edward Curr (with wife and 13 children), of the Van Diemen’s Land Company and was only recently restored by the National Trust.
We did enjoy walking around the elegant Regency styled house and estates, built by convicts and imagining the harsh life for the first European Colonists, who initially loathed the land they had been sent to, even those with some means and education. They called it “a hateful Country’. Eventually they warmed to Tasmania but it was always a long and hard struggle. The Aboriginal people were treated dreadfully and so very many were murdered, often the perpetrators weren’t even put on trial.
By the way, the Van Diemen’s Land Company (VDL) still exists today. Its original wool enterprise failed at the time, but the cleared land proved excellent for agriculture and the company profited from land sales. It now operates from New Zealand and Woolnorth at Cape Grim.
In the afternoon we visited the Stanley Marine Aquarium and saw all the sea creatures we had read about (or eaten), live in large tanks: crayfish (lobsters), eels, crabs, seahorses, sharks, baby octopus, star fish, puffer fish and much more.
After a walk along the edge of the beach with the dogs (it was high tide, so we had less than a metre to walk on without getting our feet wet) we drove 50kms back to Wynyard and stopped at the showground along with about 10 other motor homes for the night. This was a free ‘night rest area’ for self-contained vehicles – you could stay as long as you slept in your vehicle, had your own water, waste tanks, toilet and cooking facilities. Great for us.
It was windy and stormy the next day though still quite humid and we spent most of the day in Wynard walking, shopping and doing heaps of laundry at the local laundrette. It was good to get the dogs beds, seat covers, sheets and towels done, though there was another person of dubious character who had positioned himself in the laundrette, along with all his belongings!
We decided to get to Hellyer Gorge for the night as the rest area there had the big tick of approval in our camp book. Sure enough, after a 50km drive along very narrow and windy roads on the Murchison Highway, we came to a beautiful rain forest valley, full of giant tree ferns and a rushing, stony river running through. It was a lovely place to camp for the night and we settled down to watch the first version of Mad Max and have dinner after a bracing walk with the dogs. The rain came down and carried on for most of the night, keeping us awake with large drops falling from the trees on to our van roof.
In the morning we continued on the ‘Western Wilderness” touring route and travelled through Tullah, stopping only to find out if the bush fires that had been raging for the last few days in the area were well and truly out with the rain. We could smell the smoke still and the hills looked both smoky and misty with drizzle. On we went to the mining town of Rosebery at the foot of Mount Black, Paul visited the mine heritage centre and we parked by the active zinc mine for lunch. Then we all went for a short rain-forest walk to Stitt River Falls, but missed the turn and did a complete circle back to our van without seeing the falls! It was a pretty walk, but extremely humid, and once back we all jumped back into the van and turned the air-conditioning on. Apparently Rosebery also has the steepest golf course in Australia, along with Tasmania’s highest rainfall and highest postcode...
Our next stop was Zeehan, which we could quickly see was a near ‘ghost town’ with homes and buildings in varying states of disrepair. In 1642, Abel Tasman became the first European to sight the island that now bears his name, and his brig, a tiny vessel by today’s standards, was called the Zeehan. Zeehan was established to service the mining industry and became Tasmania’s third largest town.
In its mining glory years, Zeehan was called ‘the Silver City’ and there was still some evidence of this in the restored Gaiety Theatre in which Dame Nellie Melba had performed. We visited the West Coast Pioneers Museum next door which was an amazing display of early pioneer photos, minerals, surgical instruments and steam locomotives. We also visited the Zeehan Lodge (now closed) and found out a little about the Lodge secrets!
We were both badly in need of a hot shower, so we booked into the local caravan park for the night and again it rained most of the night. In the morning we did a final walk around the near deserted town before driving to our next anticipated stop at Strahan. It was only about 50kms away but the road was windy and rough and towards the end we noticed that the van suspension was getting a bit squeaky again. Hope it’s not serious.
Strahan has many extraordinary attractions and is called a ‘microcosm’ of the history of Tasmania. It is on a huge waterway called Macquarie Harbour – about 6 x the size of Sydney Harbour - which was discovered in 1822 by the whaler/adventurer Captain James Kelly. A harsh British convict settlement was established in 1822 on Sarah Island in the Harbour. It was designated for re-offenders and turned into a ship yard using the abundant Huon Pine and the convict hard labour. The penal colony was closed in 1833 after more than 100 ships had been built. The entrance to the Harbour was just 80metres across and became known as “Hell’s Gates” by the poor convicts who sailed though not knowing what fate awaited them!
Strahan then became a major port servicing the inland mines but eventually the ships became too large and the entrance too narrow, so fishing and tourism took over. We had been told that the unmissable Strahan experience was to cruise the Harbour and Gordon River on a catamaran, so we headed for the Information Centre and managed to make a booking for the next day – with me to go in the morning and Paul in the afternoon so we could baby-sit the doggies!
The sun had come out and the weather was much brighter so we went on a lovely walk through ‘The Peoples Park’ to Hogarth Falls and then stopped in town for a drink and fantastic local fish and chips – maybe The Best Ever... Then we drove to the golf club and paid $7.00 to stay the night parked on grass by the first tee along with 5 or 6 other self-contained motor homes.
The night was absolutely freezing and the temp dropped to 10 degrees, my feet were like blocks of ice and I had to add extra covers and eventually sleep in my dressing-gown. But no worries as the next day was just perfect for our catamaran trip – blue skies, hardly any wind and the mist completely cleared so the mountain and sea views were clear and bright.
The boat trip left the jetty at Strahan and headed straight out of the harbour entrance at Hell’s Gates which has a lighthouse on each side, viewing Tasmania’s longest beach called Ocean Beach, then we powered back in to the harbour, passing modern fish farms that harvest salmon and crossing the length to the entrance of the Gordon River.
The water here was satin smooth and the banks covered with thick rain forest that is recognised as part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. It is one of the last true wilderness areas on Earth. Many of the trees are protected species and we got off the boat for a walk along a board walk to see Myrtle Beeches, Huon Pines and Sassafras trees. The biggest danger to this area apparently is a bush fire that would allow the common Gum Trees to take over. There seemed to be moss and lichen and fungi hanging off the trees - one Huon Pine was over 2,000 years old.
Our next stop on the boat trip was Sarah Island and we had a tour of the ruins and heard the island’s history from a passionate actor/guide. I had been reading the classic “For the Term of his Natural Life” by Marcus Clarke – all about the brutal life of an innocent convict sent to Sarah Island and written only 50 years after the penal colony closed, so it was pretty special to see the setting for the novel and be able to imagine the story unfolding. Then it was back to shore , our brains buzzing and plenty to discuss, recall and mull over before a second night at the Strahan Golf Club.
