Glimpses of Australia part 4 – Tasmania

28 Oct – 7 Nov 2024

Throughout our time in Australia, we had been hearing people say to us “You’ll love Tassie” so we arrived with high expectations. At Hobart airport, my husband was able to get in the queue at the car hire desk while I waited for the luggage to come through. We were delighted that our hire car turned out to be a 4WD Subaru Forester – I had enjoyed driving an earlier model of this car twenty years ago as it was provided for the on-call GP in Shetland.

28 October – it was relatively easy to navigate through Hobart. We headed directly for the Bruny Island ferry. We just missed the 17.40 which we had never realistically expected to catch and had to wait forty minutes for the 18.20. I got out of the car and sat in the passenger lounge area to relish the views.

We were directed off the ferry quickly and efficiently at Bruny Island. I persuaded my husband to stop at the island neck and I climbed to the Truganini Lookout for spectacular views.

After we had unpacked and eaten at our lodge room, we decided to drive back to the lookout intending to view the return of the shearwaters to their burrows at dusk and the return of the penguins over the beach. We headed off equipped with our red light torches. We saw shearwaters flying overhead and heard them on the ground close to the walkway but no penguins.

29 October – we drove around to Adventure Bay and parked just beyond the village at the start of the Grass Point and Fluted Cape Walks. I left my husband who walked along the almost flat path to Grass Point while I turned off to climb steeply through the forest to the Fluted Cape Cliffs. I met a National Park Ranger who was assessing the ground for a possible planned burn either in the next two weeks or in the autumn. I was fortunate to be there before possible closure of the area for burning.

The cliff scenery is magnificent with huge vertical drops soaring over 270m as well as slender tall stacks. These are some of the highest cliffs in the southern hemisphere. This walk is listed among Tasmania’s sixty great short walks.

The route descended to Grass Point, where I detoured off to look at the sandy beach and the water channel between me and Penguin Island. There are remnants of whaling days near Grass Point which I saw as I walked along the level track back to the start point where I met my husband on the beach.

We visited the very friendly and well-stocked island shop to buy provisions, an ice cream and a takeaway coffee.

Returning towards our lodge on the west side of the island, we stopped at Two Tree Point – two trees stand at the place where Resolution Creek meets the ocean. Explorers Captain Furneaux in 1773, Captain James Cook in 1777 and Captain Bligh in 1788 stopped here for fresh water.

We explored Coal Point where coal was once mined and there is still a visible coal seam. Nowadays it’s a popular surfing area.

We stopped off at our lodge for lunch before driving in the opposite direction to Jetty Beach Campsite. The drive included a slow thirty minute drive along a gravel road. My husband completed a shorter walk while I headed off on a circuit of the Labillardiere Peninsula (also one of the sixty Tasmania Great Short Walks).

It was an awe-inspiring walk with many views of cliffs and stacks. I could see the rugged mountains of southern Tasmania across the water. The track ascends to the summit of Mount Bleak and there are fine views of Partridge Island off the coast at the tip of the peninsula. Partridge Island is home to the rare and threatened forty-spotted pardalote, a tiny bird only 10cm in length.

I walked across some overgrown scrub to reach a sandy beach which was deserted.

It was near the tip of the peninsula that I saw most of the wildlife – an echidna, two snakes and a red kangaroo.

I also spotted many different birds including gannets, gulls, oyster catchers, heron and even (possibly) a white bellied sea eagle.

The return loop of the path was less clear than the track which constituted most of the outward walk and there were fallen trees across parts of the route. However in the end I completed this superb trek over some of the most remote parts of Bruny Island in just over four hours.

30 October – it was already time to leave Bruny Island but before catching the ferry we had time to stop at The Neck again. We climbed the steps to Truganini Lookout. This time I was able to pick out the Fluted Cliffs where I had walked the previous day.

We were heading for Stanley in the north west of Tasmania and chose a scenic route through the Central Highlands. The road climbed a lot and we entered terrain reminiscent of the arctic.

We stopped at The Steppes Historic site. There is a circle of stones each with a bronze sculpture influenced by Aboriginal culture depicting aspects of the wildlife and history of the area.

Less than a kilometre from the sculptures and connected by a footpath is a historic homestead built in 1863, together with outbuildings. This had been occupied for over a hundred years by just two generations of the same settler family.

We drove on and stopped for lunch at a picnic area overlooking The Great Lake.

The road descended and we were below the tree line again in an enormous area of forest.

We stopped briefly at Wynyard where we were very fortunate to reach the tourist office just before it closed to receive advice about the area from an incredibly helpful and enthusiastic guide. This set us up well for the days to come.

We arrived at Stanley, a village with many traditional buildings from early settler times. We enjoyed dinner at the main hotel where local sea food and meat is a speciality.

After dinner, we were in time to go and look at the fairy Penguins wandering ashore, their young creeping out under the boardwalk to meet them. There are fixed red lights to enable viewing. It was a magical experience.

31 October – the day began with us wandering around Stanley to photograph the historic traditional buildings.

We proceeded to walk the extremely steep path to ascend The Nut.

This striking 143m high and 12 million year old core of an extinct volcano dominates the scenery in the village and surrounding area.

There’s a walk around the summit plateau with four different viewpoints.

We spotted shearwater burrows (the birds are at sea during daylight) and were delighted to encounter red-bellied pademelons (small marsupials similar to wallabies) which are only found in Tasmania.

We ate lunch on the balcony of our room overlooking Godfreys Beach before walking down and along the walkway and road behind the sandy foreshore.

We walked up to Highfield Historic Site spending much longer than we had originally planned. The house was built in 1835 for the chief agent of the Van Diemen’s Land Company and has been carefully restored by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. Displays in the rooms outline the story of the early settlers, their abhorrent attitude to the Aboriginal people, their use of convict labour and their internal arguments which culminated in the suicide of the surveyor.

We drove out through the nearby town of Smithton past enormous fields of cattle. This is an important area for dairy farming. We diverted to Stony Point and looked out towards Robbins Island. We saw large abalone shells on the beach and a pair of pelicans on the water. At dinner that evening, we ordered a starter of abalone.

After dinner, I made a further ascent of The Nut as darkness fell. I spotted some shearwaters returning to their burrows and many pademelons – they seemed to be having a party! However it became very dark and there was no one else around so I descended to look at the penguins walking ashore next to Godfrey’s Beach. There was a veritable procession of penguins in a line walking across the rocks.

1 November – we followed the Tarkine Drive (as recommended by the tourist guide at Wynyard). Fortunately we realised that there wouldn’t be time to visit all 22 of the stop-off points and we picked out our priorities beforehand, travelling in a clockwise direction. The Tarkine forest is the second-largest expanse of temperate rainforest in the world, and the largest in Australia.

Trowutta Arch was a definite for visiting. This is an awesome feature in the depths of the lush rainforest.

The arch is an extraordinary and rare geological feature formed by a collapsed cave with an exposed water-filled sinkhole more than twenty metres deep on one side and a dry one on the other side.

Next on the list was the Tayatea Bridge, one of the historic wooden bridges crossing the Arthur River.

After this we stopped at Sinkhole Lookout, a water-filled sinkhole with dark waters and stunning reflections by the side of the road. We could hear an animal making a low pitched sound – “deadum, deadum” and tried very hard to locate the source of the sound but couldn’t see anything.

Next on our itinerary was Dempster Plains Lookout. It was quite an adventure negotiating the rutted and potholed road to get there. We walked the short distance from the car park to the lookout and enjoyed views over an enormous open plain with button grass growing. The pattern of intermittent controlled burning has been ongoing for thousands of years.

We drove back down the road and round to Lake Chisholm. This was the first stop where we had seen anyone else! There is a short walk through the rainforest past huge eucalyptus trees to the picturesque lake, itself yet another example of a limestone sinkhole. We kept an eye open for duck-billed platypus but were out of luck – they are more often seen at dawn and dusk.

We ate lunch at Kanunnah Bridge near the Arthur River. As we arrived we saw the back of a Tasmanian Devil dashing across the road – our only sight of this dog-like iconic Tasmanian animal.

There followed more driving on winding and undulating roads through the forest to reach the coast. We drove towards a shack community at Couta Rocks and walked through it to see impressive coastal rock formations.

We followed the coastal road and turned down to Sundown Point State Reserve. We followed a track near the coast at the southern end of Arthur Beach to search for Aboriginal rock carvings. We found what appeared to be knife sharpening marks. In retrospect I can also see possible petroglyphs on a couple of my photos; these are carvings in circles and other geometric shapes.

We visited the Edge of the World lookout at Gardiners Point to view the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. The next landfall is the east of Argentina.

We had a further stop near Arthur River bridge and saw the Arthur River red boats – we wondered if we might book this for our final day in the area. We also popped into the helpful visitor centre just up the road.

Our final stops were to view further dramatic coastal features at Bluff Hill Point near the lighthouse and at West Point State Reserve.

2 November – we drove in the opposite direction from Stanley, heading east towards Rocky Cape. We explored the area near a shack community and saw a view of a now inaccessible Aboriginal cave as well as reaching another Aboriginal cave.

I was keen to walk to Sisters Beach and the main problem was whether the inland route or the coastal route would be the more scenic and interesting. I didn’t want to miss visiting coastal features further on which was why I didn’t want to walk the full circuit. In the end I chose the inland route as the summary mentioned a hilltop trek with views both to the coast and inland.

I also made small diversions to include two high points at Tinkers lookout and at Broadview Hill.

I was reunited with my husband at Sisters Beachwhere he had already discovered an excellent café in the village for lunch – we were just in time.

We drove on to Wynyard where we saw various geological features of note including eroded rocks, layered sediments, and the granite columns of Doctors Rock.

Having eaten a cooked meal at lunch time, we didn’t need to rush back for dinner in Stanley. Hence we were able to make the long drive along a side road to look at Dip Falls and the Big Tree and enjoy an evening picnic in the forest.

Dip falls were definitely worth the journey. The river cascades over two tiers of black hexagonal basalt columns – indeed an awe-inspiring sight.

It wasn’t much further to reach the huge tree – 16m in circumference at the base of the trunk and 56m tall. The size can only be appreciated when someone stands next to it to give some scale. Near the bottom of the trunk there was a shape that looked like a wombat carved in it – but this is just how it has grown. The massive tree is estimated to be 400 years old. Around it were many more huge tall trees although none looked quite as broad.

3 November – we visited a café in Stanley for breakfast rather than eating in our room. Delicious and decadent food including avocado!

We had managed to book a cruise on the Arthur River for the late afternoon and including a forest barbecue.

En route to Arthur River, we stopped at an amazing viewpoint high above Smithton.

We continued to Arthur River where we popped into the visitor centre to ask for the walk details to the Church Rock. The helpful ranger explained that crossing the sand is dependent on swell rather than tide and should be passable.

My husband walked as far as the beach where there were sculpted sand banks and dunes as well as hundreds of huge logs which had been swept down the river in recent storms.

I proceeded alone on a scenic walk along a path close to the coast and terminating at the huge church shaped rock.

I could see large banks of pebbles and shells – the parks leaflet explained that these are an Aboriginal sacred site so not to walk on them. I went close enough to lean over and take a photograph of the pebbles interspersed with old and eroded shells.

I met a couple of walkers who thought there are Tasmanian devils in the area – they had found a lot of the typical scat. Usually the devils are more active at night but at this time of year young thrown out of the family den can sometimes be seen during daylight. I didn’t see any but I did have a good sighting of an echidna.

The afternoon cruise proved to be a highlight.

We saw white bellied eagles – the boat company obligingly throws fish into the river for the birds to dive and catch.

A Tasmanian Farmer on the cruise educated me further in snake bite management so I decided to invest in a snake bandage at the next opportunity (just in case). Using the bandage to immobilise the bitten limb can slow the rate of venom release into the main circulation and make the difference between life and death.

We got off the boat and enjoyed a guided walk in the bush – Boris, our guide, explained about how to recognise different trees and also showed us where paths had been swept away by recent storms with streams flooded and in spate as well as winds of 160km per hour.

There followed a wonderful barbecue and then a cruise back down the river.

4 November – we had another long drive ahead of us to the Tasman Peninsula, especially as we planned to follow a scenic route over the mountains (a different road to the one we had used to drive north). We drove close to Cradle Mountain, at 1,545m the sixth highest in Tasmania.

We stopped just beyond Queenstown to go along what promised to be an exhilarating boardwalk, clinging to the mountainside, in order to view the impressive Horsetail Falls.

We stopped again not long after to visit Nelson Falls, reached by a short walk from the road into the forest.

We continued on our scenic drive, stopping near a bridge over the Franklin River for lunch and then a couple more stops in the afternoon, including the opportunity to buy a snake bandage that I hoped I wouldn’t need.

Eventually we were on the Tasman Peninsula but it was still quite a long drive to our destination at Port Arthur. We had told the accommodation providers that we would be late and been reassured that arrangements were in hand and it wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately despite arriving before 18.30, it took us well over an hour to sort out getting our keys. Luckily we had bought some food at the same time that I purchased the snake bandage so we didn’t have to find a restaurant. However, in the end we were treated well and in recompense for all the difficulties we were treated to a free drink each at the site restaurant on the next evening.

5 November – we began by driving then walking on a track to the Remarkable cave. This is an impressive sea tunnel with a partially collapsed cave and a side entrance.

Unfortunately some other visitors at the site didn’t think that the sign telling people not to climb down to the beach applied to them so the pristine sand wasn’t quite untouched but includes their footprints. They said they wanted a better view!

I also walked round part of the coast path to look at the blow hole. It wasn’t blowing but the views of the coast were fabulous.

We returned to our accommodation to leave the car and then wandered round the Stewarts Bay Track to visit the Port Arthur Historic Site, amongst other uses a convict prison during part of the nineteenth century.

Admission included a boat trip in the bay to see the place where the separate juvenile prison had been and also the Isle of the Dead. We were told that convicts were initially buried in unmarked graves although later the grave sites did have a mark. Staff of the prison and their families were buried with full headstones on the higher part of the island.

Once back on dry land there was plenty to see – the main prison building (previously a flour mill), the commandant’s quarters, officers’ quarters, a house for political prisoners, the hospital, the asylum, the semaphore area, the segregation block, the church and the ornate and formal staff gardens.

We were there almost all day before leaving to drive round to the north of the peninsula to look at the historic mine area. Here 600 convicts worked under very poor conditions at the height of the mine operation. We saw remains of accommodation buildings as well as a pit head, inclined plane and ventilation shaft.

6 November – my husband drove me round to the north east part of the peninsula where we spent some time looking at a huge blowhole (not blowing), a massive natural arch and the Devils Kitchen rock formations.

At this point he left me to walk, agreeing a time to meet at Fortescue Bay to the south. Initially the walk continued on surfaced paths to another arch and a lookout over Waterfall Bay.

After this the terrain became more difficult with a steeply rising rocky path. I took a diversion to the scenic waterfall bluff. After returning to the main track, the route continued relentlessly upwards through the lush forest. As I approached the top, a man was walking down towards me. This was the first person I had seen since the diversion to waterfall bluff. At the top there was a group. Later I realised that the man I had seen first was supporting the group who, in fact, were walking in the same direction as I was going. I gradually overtook the entire large group.

The downhill walk, steep in parts, led to huge high cliffs with awesome vertical drops and enormous needle like stacks. The rocks of Cape Hauy no longer looked so far away.

I descended further and heard birds calling a warning signal. I saw these were yellow tailed black cockatoos.

I reached Bivouac Bay campsite and sat on one of the camping platforms to eat lunch.

After I began walking again, I saw the man supporting the group walking towards me. He must have descended then driven round to Fortescue Bay area to walk up and meet the group. I passed Canoe Bay where a sailing vessel was anchored.

Eventually I arrived at Fortescue Beach and walked along the beach to the car park at the far end.

I realised that I still had just over three and a half hours left before the agreed meeting time. Going by the pessimistic timings on the signs so far compared to my speed, this would give me plenty of time to walk to Cape Hauy and back (advertised as a four hour walk).

The path continued and was uphill. Walkers on the Three Capes Trail were descending towards me looking exhausted although they had walked much less distance than I had done. I spotted an echidna – but having seen a few I didn’t stop to take photos this time.

Eventually there was a fork on the path and I deviated leftwards towards Cape Hauy. Towering and picturesque cliffs came into view. the last section out to the cape was the most scenic. I stopped at the end of the path for about fifteen minutes, looking at the amazing views of the cliffs and The Mitre Rock and Lanterns Rock beyond the cape.

A small bird joined me, doubtless hoping for some crumbs of food.

I retraced my steps to the Fortescue Beach car park, arriving there with fifteen minutes to spare although my husband was already waiting.

I had enjoyed what was probably my favourite walk of our visit to Australia on our final full non-travelling day.

7th November – our flight to Sydney wasn’t until the afternoon so we had time to visit the Eaglehawk Neck Historic Site after crossing the thin causeway between the Tasman and Forestier Peninsulas. We saw the old dog line area where up to eighteen vicious mongrel dogs would have been stationed across the thinnest part of the land in order to prevent prisoners from escaping.

The staff quarters building is nearby. In the times of the convict gaol this would have been a lonely place to work. The quarters were eventually bought by the Costello Family who made it their long term home for over 70 years. The building and land was bought by the Parks and Wildlife Service in 1991 and has been conserved so as to best show all stages of its history from convict days to family home.

We continued our exploration of the area by visiting the tessellated pavement – a natural pavement formed by differential erosion. The part which is lower down the beach and has more time covered by water shows greater differential erosion such that the slabs are more like loaves where the softer parts between the hard stones have been eroded much more than the corresponding parts closer to the high tide line.

Pirate bay lookout was a great stop for coffee and excellent views of the coast where I had walked the previous day.

Our final stop, before travelling to the airport, was at Dunalley where a canal was built so boats could sail through the narrow neck and avoid the long and rough voyage around the Forestier and Tasman Peninsulas. Differential tides on each side of the peninsula mean that silting is reduced. A side effect of the canal has been that Tasmanian Devils on the peninsula have stayed free of Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease – they cannot swim across the canal and there are “deterrents” on the bridge to reduce the risk of them crossing.

I really enjoyed our time in Tasmania – the high expectations we had were more than fulfilled!