The Eighth Week 11/03/2012 to 17/03/2012

Here we are at the start of our 8^th week in Tassie; we are at Hamilton for one more night. Today, Sunday we took a drive to Bothwell, a small village at the southern end of the Great Lakes area. As we were driving into the township there was a group of men carrying something across the road in a tarp and Gaila made the commented, “Look they’re carrying a body across the road”, well guess what, it was a body. A body of a bloody great Stag, the boys had just gotten back from a hunting trip. The things you see. Anyway Bothwell was a nice clean village, nice village green in the middle, some lovely churches with nice stained glass windows. It is also known for its Black Angus cattle and having the first golf course in Tasmania.

BOTHWELL

Monday morning we continue our journey westward heading for Queenstown, quite a journey towing a large van behind you, I suppose it’s easier than pushing it. On the way we stopped at “The Wall in the Wilderness”. The Wall is a work in progress of Master Sculptor Greg Duncan; it is a bas-relief carving on 3 m high, 100mm thick by 1 m wide laminated sheets of boat grade Huon Pine, the eventual length of the wall will be 100m, currently it is approximately 30m in length. It is truly astounding, I would go as far to say that it would have to be one of the best attractions in Tasmania, by far the best man made feature – in the words of Molly Meldrum, if you come to Tassie “Do yourself a favour and check it out”. Check out the website www.thewalltasmania.com.au


QUEENSTOWN FOOTY GROUND

We arrive in Queenstown mid-afternoon, what a depressing place and the caravan park was not the greatest, gravel sites and barely a blade of grass in the place and at $30 a night. We pulled up next to a little van about 10’ long; an old pommie guy owns it. It was his pride and joy, he showed us inside, it had 2 beds, kitchen and a shower toilet room, and it was about 40 years old. Amazing. Tuesday we took a drive to Zeehan, Reece Dam, Strahan and back to Queenstown. We found Zeehan to be a sad and depressing place, not their fault I suppose. I was talking to a shop owner and he was saying that although there is a mine just outside of town the township see very little of the workers or the money the mine generates. The workers live on site, work 12 hour shifts and do 4 on and 4 off, so most of them travel in from the coast, do their shifts and travel home again. They don’t even go into town for a beer; they bring their own from the coast. So you get little towns like Zeehan withering and dyeing while the mine prospers. We visited Strahan on our last visit 18 years ago so we gave the river cruise a miss, didn’t think that the river and forest would have changed that much in that time. We did drive out to Hells Gate, the entrance to Macquarie Harbour, quite a calm day; I could imagine how nasty it would get in shitty weather.

HELLS GATE - NEXT STOP SOUTH AFRICA

Wednesday we took a drive around Queenstown, nice Main Street, the rest not the most pleasant place in the world.

Leaving Queenstown today, (Thursday) heading to Waratah, staying here as there were no sites available at Cradle Mountain. It rained most of the way and has not stopped since we arrived in Waratah. Nice place Waratah, neat little town, the locals seem to take pride in the place. There are little tourist attractions in the town for free, or leave a donation.  Nice little museum, waterfall and a working ore stamping mill.

WARATAH FALLS

Friday morning and it has rained most of the night, so we are going to head off to Cradle Mountain to have a look see (maybe). Well we saw glimpses of the mountain through the cloud, mist and rain. We walked to Glacier Rock and to the Boat House; they are on opposite sides of Dove Lake, so we went to one of them and then turned around and went to the other one rather than doing the complete lap of Dove Lake. The weather was not the best to do the complete lap.

CRADLE MOUNTAIN

THE BOATHOUSE DOVE LAKE

Saturday morning and time to pack up again – getting it down pat by now. We are heading off to Stanley; we arrive around lunch time after a pleasant drive through the Hellyer Gorge, raining, so we decided not to stop. Stanley, what a nice little town, everything neat and tidy with a range of old buildings with a range of goods and services, lots of B & B’s along the port. We are heading off to the Pub for dinner, so that will bring us to the end of our eighth week in Tasmania.

THE NUT (THE OTHER ONE)

PS. The dinner at the pub was great, Gaila finally got to have her Tasmanian lobster - well that put a hole in the budget - baked beans for the rest of the week.

STANLEY