Australia -Tasmania - Launceston, Cradle Mountain and preparing to fly to New Zealand

ExploringRTW

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10th - 17th December 2007

Australia -Tasmania - Launceston, Cradle Mountain and preparing to fly to New Zealand

We were heading for Launceston where we were going to visit an antique car & motorcycle museum. The Museum, whilst not vast, turned out to have enough to keep us interested for a couple of hours whilst we admired some older classic cars & bikes, such as Suzuki’s RE5 Rotary disaster & some beautifully restored British & American sports cars. There were also a pair of un-ridden BMW motorcycles looking like they were from around the 1960’s which were beautiful.

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The disastrous RE5, apparently Suzuki poured huge of sums of money into its development and production.....

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......either that or they sunk too much money in manufacturing, assembling and fitting these huge indicators......and I have large hands/fingers. I reckon about 2kg each !!

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One of the un-ridden BMW's.

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Used for Hill-climb meetings. Yes, they are nuts and bolts painstakingly drilled and fitted to the tyre.

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Now, back in my day when I first started riding motorcycles you could.....


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A very nice Square four......

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...and an even nicer (but not oem I think) oil catching receptacle.


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A fairly early Corvette Stingray.

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I think this was a Morgan, and as you can see, it was in fantastic condition.

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Ever wondered what happened to The Ghostbusters ? well ,they're are alive and well on Tasmania...well their car is anyway.

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The Daddy of them all.....Nuff said !!

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After that we checked in at what looked like it may be a reasonable camp site (despite being near a major highway) and had lunch, and made dinner almost immediately after as we were going to have a stew. We’d thought that the only noise we would have would be traffic. However, we were woken up around 00:45 by some drunk Americans(I think). I went and told them off. They were ‘sorry’ after an initial protest and went to bed 15/20 mins later.

We awoke having both had a rubbish nights sleep, initially broken by the drunks next door but then maintained by being back in a now disturbed sleep with the traffic roaring by !! We popped into town for an Internet café to see if we could find ourselves somewhere in NZ to stay for Christmas. We also popped into a German bakery…well you have too !! Some cake and coffees later we were on our way to Cateracht Gorge, and then onto Cradle Mountain, probably Tasmania’s premier natural attraction.

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Cateracht gorge, just outside Launceston.

On the way we stop for some lunch by a river and later find a Honey Shop which was great fun Everything was Bee or Honey orientated-They really had made an effort to inform and amuse the young and old alike with high quality displays and products. We ended up trying their Honey based ice-creams……I tried their Chocolate Truffle, and Mango. If you could do taste testing through this screen you would be licking it now for the Chocolate Truffle…amazing !! Sylvia had Macadamia nuts and Vanilla. Hmmmmmmm.

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The Honey shop....we couldn't bring ourselves to photo the ice-creams for you.....

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...so Sylvia made this mature pose for you instead.

Ahem, anyway, back to the serious matter of touring. We then continued to Solomons cave but we arrived just too late for the last tour and so continued to the Cradle Mountain reserve area and found ourselves a nice and secluded little camp spot. We were greeted by a Pademelon (like a Kangaroo) and its Joey hanging out of her pouch.

After dinner and a few beers we settled down to Ewan & Charlie on the Long Way Down as they (& we) went through Episode 5 through Rwanda & Uganda. Poor Sylvia was being yo-yo'ed between Ewan & the washing machine as there was only one working and everyone was watching for it‘s cycle end like a possessed Hawk.

We then departed to our very very cold beds. As we prepare for bed, Sylvia mounts enough clothes to keep an Alaskan warm if they were sleeping out in the open and I retire with just a T-shirt which Sylvia encourages me to upgrade. I, of course declare that I am British and we don’t go in for that sort of Johnny Foreigner nonsense……which about 2 hours later I regret !! It was really cold but I was in one of those ’it will be all right in a minute moods‘…..all night ! And as a result spent most of the night awake or being warmed by Sylvie. To make matters worse my air-bed has been going down lately and as a result I have to keep turning over as my shoulders and back have started hurting if I keep in one position for any period. Hmmmm, great !

The following day we finally get up enough courage to face the world by 10:00 am, me having tried to claim the lost cold sleep as the sun warmed us up a bit. With our late rising we are aware that the 2 treks we’d hoped to do today at Cradle Mountain came to an end, as there just won’t be enough time. We enjoy a slow breakfast as we relax with the now accepted later start.

Initially there is some confusion between us over which trek we should do, an 1-2 hour comfortable walk-around-a-lake-see-the-mountain-from-afar(you can see where this is going already don’t you !) or to climb the steeper track to a very good look out point and then clamber down an even steeper track !! The confusion over we both enjoy stretching our legs again after having had quite a period off since our last major exertions to the Everest Base Camp. The weather is fairly good although it was hard to stay dressed appropriately as one minute we were in hot sun and the next in a very biting wind. We took photo after photo as this was a long awaited moment for Sylvia who missed the opportunity to see Cradle Mountain 16 years ago.

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Beware, mighty thug Kangaroos in the area wrecking cars....Dusk to Dawn !!


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Shots from our Cradle Mountain trek.

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Benny Hill always was an inspiration to me !

We return to the car and drive back to check if our Hob-Nobs are still edible(they were !!…and yes, you can get them down here !) and to partake of a cup of tea. Whilst making the tea we notice a sign on our kitchen window warning us of the possibility of Possum intrusion which we both find quite amusing. (I also now understand why Dame Edna Everage referred to the more mischievous folk as “naughty possums“-they are Australia’s answer to the American Raccoon. This is shortly followed by dinner, a few beers, some web-work & the final episode of Ewan & Charlie's trip through Africa.

We spend a few days visiting various sights along the west coast, amongst which we saw a phenomenon called tasseting(spelt something like that anyway). What happens is the way the sea erodes the base rock leaves it looking like it's been deliberately cut that way. In the same areas we saw huge concentrations of live sea shells, some urchins and very beautiful surfs. So, here, rather than explain each area, have a look at these and enjoy.

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Some clear examples of tasseting

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This time covered in sea shells.....

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...and urchins or anemones .

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The following morning we drive to Strahan which turned out to be ok as a town but a major tourist trap where we ate an awful fish combination dinner. We wandered around for a bit but were left generally uninspired. After some cheesecake & coffee we drive to campsite on the grounds of a Motel-type operation where young boys were racing around on quad bikes & dirt bikes until 11 or 12 pm. It was a weird place, and whilst not hostile, you got the feeling you were the outsider and if we’d stayed longer, we start finding things going a missin’ every now 'n again.

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This gave me a good chuckle.

A reasonable night sleep later, under the circumstances, we head off to meet up with an old friend from University, Patrick, and his family.

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On the way to see Patrick we have three rare opportunities to watch these very shy Tasmanian Echidnas. They curl up like a hedgehog if you get too close to them.

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Yes-Siree. I bet they hurt !!

We arrive in plenty of time for his Graduation from a Christian focussed course and have a really nice day/evening. The village they have been living in for the past year, Poatina, was bought from a power station company some years before. The power company originally built the village/town for workers at a local Hydro-electric dam. Once the dam had been built, the workers moved out and left the village empty. The Christian organisation, Fusion, bought the whole village and have used it to train counsellors and to provide a safe haven for recovering Alcoholics & Drug addicts or battered woman since. The village has an amazing feeling of trust and security. The children & parents love it alike as they can play safetly without undue worry.

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Patrick's Graduation shot..he's in the white shirt.

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His Graduation class attempting to cut the cake simultaneously whilst the photographer prepares for the shot.

I hadn’t seen Patrick for a while and so we end up chatting about this and that until around 2:30.

Despite the late night we still manage to go to Church the following morning and go to a beautiful waterfall with friends and his family in the afternoon, despite originally planning to move on. We have a really nice afternoon walking and playing with Jason, Patrick’s son.

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A few shots of the Liffey Falls.

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Our group on the walk, obviously minus me !

In the evening, Tina & Johan, friends of Patrick & Evi from Greece, treat us all to dinner in Poatina’s main restaurant and we all have a great evening.

Sylvia and I had already decided to stay another night once we agreed to going to the waterfall. For some bizarre reason that escapes me now, we decided to watch ‘Shaggy dog‘, a really lousy Tim Allen Disney-type story until too late.

We wake up with our time in Tasmania now coming to an end ,and Patrick, via some contacts, sorts us out some free accommodation for our last night, tonight, back in Hobart on farm-type area.

We drive to the farm and discover we have been ‘lent’ the leaders of a ‘Fusion’ care centres home for the night whilst they are on Holiday for the Christmas period. Once established, we use the evening to clean everything ready to fly to New Zealand where we understand their concern for bio-hazards at immigration is legendary. Our efforts are a little hampered by 2 resident goats who are somehow confident that we have some food for them, and as a result, become intent on standing on our tent whilst we are preparing to clean it. Once we have everything cleaned and ready we go out for a very average Chinese meal and watch Mel Gibson’s ‘Patriot‘.

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One of the goats on our tent !!

We retire knowing tomorrow night we hope to be sleeping in New Zealand.

Mike
 


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