The last days of Tassie

On the way to Port Sorrell we stopped at a car accident where an 80+ year old lady had rolled her Corolla on a bend. We arrived only minutes after it had happened. We helped hold up the car so it didn’t tip over while the scared but unbelievably not seriously injured lady sat in the bottom of the car. A registered nurse arrived and got in the turned over car with her and this certainly helped her calm down as she was having serious breathing problems. Lots of people stopped to offer assistance. Finally the ambulance and Fire Brigade arrived so we left so we didn’t get in the way.
We arrived at Port Sorrell and went to the Lions Caravan park where unpowered sites were only $12. It is quite rare now to find cheap sites at Caravan Parks.
It was our big night out so a couple of beers and $10 steak sandwiches for tea at the pub and a bit of Carlton Geelong on the TV.

It is our second to last day in Tassie and this last week has passed quickly. It is a little sad as we have both fallen in love with Tassie and have been checking property prices, employment and business opportunities. We have a long way to go jet and I’m sure we will find plenty of other parts of Australia that we fall in love with.
Off to Latrobe markets which unlike a lot of others these are quite cheap and have a good variety of goods, the first cheap local veggies we have found. We visited the Cheese factory and picked up some goodies.
An afternoon canoe at Ulverstone and a bit of fishing in the harbour. We found 100’s of small Salmon in the bay where some water was running back into the bay after high tide. My theory of where there are small fish there are big fish was soon answered with a nice size Salmon hooked. No luck in the lures but the bait was striking good. I picked up some little Salmon before landing some good mullet. We caught enough for Tea but I would have caught some more but didn’t have anymore bait.
Our last night is at Riana Pioneer park a $7 a night camp with hot showers. The caretaker is an ex pat South Australian and after a chat offered us a free night which we had to decline as we are leaving the next day. I’m not sure if we seem nice or look destitute but we have had so many free offers form people while we have been here it is amazing. We could have worked while we were here as well with leads offered more than once.
Tassie is great, the fishing is fantastic, the 4WD tracks and mountain drives in the forest are wonderful. There is so much to see and all easily accessible by the Great quality of roads and also the friendly people makes Tassie a must see for anyone who wishes to see Australia. The local Beers especially Boag’s is a good drop and there is so much potential here. Not sure how we would cope with the winters but I suppose you would get used to it.

Another nice day and Tassie is really putting it on for our last few days. A lazy morning packing up and a bit of a car clean up. We drove back to Devonport for the final time and are just bumming around town until we need to board. There are a lot of people fishing in the harbour so I’m quite tempted but Tassie has supplied enough fish for one trip.
We are on board and having some beers before we head off. There are about 50 motorcycles on board and they all looked cool boarding together.

On line data breakdown

Hi All, there will be a little delay in updates, Andy pulled a clanger while doing a Backup and has overwritten the last weeks worth of data.

Given that we drank to many "VB's", yes that is correct "VB" i cant remember the last week. As it comes back to me we will update on the Great Ocean Road and Avalon Air show.

The Lakes & Cradle Mountain

The morning was much calmer with little wind and just some drizzle. We cooked breakfast in the shelter and had a long chat with a couple travelling Aus in just a Troopy.
After packing up we drove the road back past the Greenies who coincidently were burning a fire to keep warm. I hope they brought some wood that is allowed to be cut down. We drove down the mountains then up some new mountains to make it to lake Arthur which is next to the Great Lake. On the way we saw our first Wombat that was alive not squashed on the road. Lucky he just watched me drive past. We stopped in at the Waddamana Power station which is a Hydro Museum. I was quite surprised and this a great place that is exactly as it was built in the early 1900’s. I was surprised to find out that the first Hydro Electricity plant was opened in Tassie in the 1800’s. They built these things in terrible conditions and it snows a lot here.
We carried on to another lake Penstock which also looks like it snows there, but we carried on to Arthurs lake and found a camp site there on the edge of the lake. Well it would be if it was full. Even in Tassie there are droughts in this part of Tassie and both the great lake, Lake Gordon & Arthur lake a good 10-30m below their peaks capacities.
We are not canoeing today it is just too cold even with the campfire it is freezing and the coldest nigh in Tassie by far.


A nice sleep in this morning because we had to wait for it to get warm enough to get out of the car. Luckily around 11.00am the sun finally broke through and the temp finally got above 5°. We packed up and decided to move on to somewhere warmer like Mole creek. The sun was beautiful for the drive through central Tassie and we spent a sunny arvo by Sassafras creek in the little Mole Creek Caravan Park.

A pleasant morning greeted us as we headed off to Cradle Mountain. This is very windy road up large mountains which Tina drove. The weather is crap but we are going on anyway. We made lunch and rugged up in our waterproof jackets borrowed form Mel & Glen. We took the shuttle up to the edge of Dove lake. It is a 2 hour walk around the lake and provides views of all the surrounding mountains including Cradle peak. Well we couldn’t really see it today. But the views here are truly spectacular once again. As usual it wasn’t really that cold just wet. It was a great walk and of course it was only raining in the mountains as soon as we left and drove down towards the plains it became a beautiful sunny day.

Strath Gordon

We are staying in New Norfolk and with some pending bad weather we are staying for a couple of relaxing days along the Derwent.
We walked up to the town centre for some beer supplies and a bit of shopping. The storms haven’t really been to bad here and we didn’t get the 100km/r they had predicted. We had some beautiful marinated steaks for tea as well as the Oysters we collected yesterday. We Skyped the kids, Cheryl, Megan, Nathan & Carol and caught up on some overdue Blog stories. All in all it was a good easy day. Now I know a lot of people think what do you need a rest for you don’t work, but travelling isn’t all easy when you are living in the back of a 4WD. Everything gets unpacked and repacked every time you move which has been mostly daily in Tassie. So it is not all beer and Skittles you try finding a new place to live everyday.

Its not to bad a day when we awake but there are dark clouds looming pancakes, cream and the Blackberries we picked are for breakfast and we are all packed up and out by 10.00am as required. After getting some Diesel we left town passing a road side Police blitz. I could just imagine how long we could get stuck at one of those if they actually wanted to search the car. At least they might find some stuff we have lost and or didn’t even know we had.

A drive along the Derwent and then to the South West area to Strath Gordon home of the largest Hydro dam in Australia which supplies 15% of all the power for Tassie, It also has the highest dam wall in Australia to.

This Dam is so large it is just amazing and the scenery along the way is once again rain forest land. We have taken a movie of this as the rain pours down. We walked down to the Dam wall and walked across in lets just say Wintery conditions. We are staying at Ted’s beach on lake Pedder which joins Gordon dam via a channel. Lucky there is a great camp ground shelter here because it is bloody pissing down and not like that soft SA rain this is fair dinkum Darwin rain only about 25° colder. It just didn’t let up it was just amazing with some 100k/m winds to.

The morning was much calmer with little wind and just some drizzle. We cooked breakfast in the shelter and had a long chat with a couple travelling Aus in just a Troopy.After packing up we drove the road back past the Greenies who coincidently were burning a fire to keep warm. I hope they brought some wood that is allowed to be cut down.

4WD Adventure

Off to Cockle Creek and now our aim is to reach the most southerly point we can in Tassie we reach the most westerly & easterly tip already (you can’t get to the most Northerly without a permit. I have been told you can get there after a short walk.
We had a fish in the bay where we are camping and finally a breakthrough even though it was just an undersize Salmon it was still a fish. Apparently it was bigger than Brian’s 4cm Flathead.
Another nice night a little chilly but its OK because we are finally listening to the Aussies kick arse in the cricket. Unfortunately not as good a news for Adelaide United but better than the last 6-0 final we played against Melbourne Victory.
A pleasant morning a little cloudy has greeted us, along with 1 million mozzies. A peaceful morning is spent updating stories and reading the paper. We only have 1 week left in Tassie and although during the trip I had thought it was to long now I’m a little sad it is coming to an end. We are going up through the centre of Tassie on the way back to Devonport so some fresh water fishing is in the cards. Look out Trout here I come.
In the afternoon I headed out for a canoe in the bay. I’m not a keen one to head out to far into the ocean so I tend to hang within 100m of the coast. There is a lot of kelp here so I just kept moving around the bay. After an hour I have not had a single bite and are getting a little frustrated. The wind has picked up so I have headed into the mouth of Cockle creek and I’m in search of Bream. After ½ an hour or so still not bites so I’m just about ready to chuck it in. I head back down the estuary towards the mouth and then bang I’m on and the reel is spinning. I get it to the canoe and it’s a Flathead my first ever on a lure. He seems a tad small so I let him go. The lure goes back in and bang of it goes again, another just undersize flathead. Off again and this time the reel is spinning so fast I think I’m going to run out of line. A good fight and finally I get a big one to the canoe. Now what do I do, should of bought that bloody landing net. He is at the side thrashing around with his big spike so I cut him lose lure and all. I’m sure I have mentioned this before but fishing in a canoe isn’t all its cracked up to be, sure you can get to good spots but getting thrashing fish into the canoe without falling in or losing everything else is bloody tough work. I have already lost two lures today so I put on a big hook and bluebait to try to flush out something else. And it didn’t take long a big hit but not much fight, must be a gummy shark. Well it was and it was big got him to the canoe and had to cut him loose. I have seen Rex Hunt And these guys on the TV doing the catch and release and it didn’t feel that bad, mind you they do always get the hook out. It was one of the best days fishing I have had in Tassie and not a single fish to eat!!

Although there has been lots of great forest tracks in Tassie there hasn’t been quite as much real 4WD to be done. All the logger roads are in bloody good nick. So after we packed up today I was in search of the mountain track that links the South with New Norfolk, otherwise you have to drive all the back through Hobart. We picked some blackberries before we left to have with pancakes, they are everywhere here. And then headed back towards Huonville. We stopped a t a spot where we were told there are oysters on the Huon river. There certainly are and we picked up 20-30 in about 5 minutes most coming off without even a knife.
We got to Judbury and stopped for lunch before heading off in search of the mountain road which is marked on the map. Off we went down Judd creek road which had no signs on it about making it through to Lachlan this is not a good sign. The GPS was not happy with me and was ordering a U-Turn, you think by now it would know that I ignore it. The road was quite good for about 20km and seemingly heading the right direction when it turned into a track. A brand new one just made by the Bulldozer. TI use the term brand new but let me assure you that means it is fallen trees, big rocks, and massive waterholes. We climbed for a while before the track became nearly impassable and turned around. A little way back there was another bulldozer track so we tried this.
We bumped into a Forestry Tassie guy who was sure the track went through but tried to seriously talk us out of it. Despite some hesitance from Tina we were off. According to the GPS the nearest road is 23km away. Low range 1st gear and we are off. The Tojo is getting a serious workout slamming rocks underneath and lots of water crossings, this all at 600m above sea level on a big steep mountain.
This track went on for ever with some great hills and mud crossings. It’s a real shame that the pictures don’t show you just how hard this track was. Finally we got to a section that was not just dozed but was the old track at the other end. He we were thinking great it will be easy form here. This is where it got exciting massive washouts, huge boulders and deep water holes (mostly filled with hidden boulders.) Well didn’t the Tojo get a bashing at one stage we thought we had smashed a hole in the exhaust but it turns out the end pipe is just crushed, I’ll cut that off tomorrow. We made through and the car still works, well the step tread has a big rock dent and I bet it needs a new Wheel Alignment but this was the best 53km of 4WD I have done and we didn’t get bogged once. (we did have to winch a fallen down tree earlier in the day of a track) Maybe tomorrow we should go back and Tina can have a turn.

Port Arthur & Hobart

We drove down the east coast today through the mountains as usual some beautiful costal towns as well as rainforests. It is raining a bit and the roads are quite slippery. We stopped off at some of places like the Blowhole, Tasman Arch and Eaglehawk neck. This is truly the most spectacular coast line and the ocean colour has changed again. We arrived at Port Arthur and had a bit of drive around. It is not really a town. We drove down to White beach CP only to find out they do not offer powered sites to people who do not have a van or camper. I will not explain this because we don’t understand it ourselves. Back to the Port Arthur CP where a power site was secured. I drizzly day with some relaxing and fishing. No luck here either but I did see a guy return with a good size parrot fish. We didn’t fish long because of the weather.

Up early and off to Port Arthur historic site. The stories of the convicts are a great read but I must say the actual buildings aren’t really as exciting as I had expected. I think they could have rebuilt the odd room to its original state this would give us a much better insight. However the real scary bit is the memorial for the Port Arthur massacre. After this we drove out to Lime Bay to camp the night. No fish here either.

We drove to Hobart today once again taking the dirt road costal route. The landscape changes in Tassie are amazing and over every mountain range there is anew landscape. Hobart is not what I expected and there are traffic jams in the city. I’m a little amazed that Hobart can 4 & 5 lanes highways with a small population but Adelaide can’t even build one main road through the city. No I take that back I have always thought the government in SA to be the most backward I have ever seen. Saying that however I’m not impressed with Hobart it just doesn’t have a friendly feel about it and it is probably the least liked place I have stayed at (well apart form Swansea but that’s another story.)

We did get down to the wharf to see the Steve Irwin and the damage inflicted by the Japanese whaling boat collision. It has been 4 days now since I caught a fish!!! We finally found a place to stay at a caravan park unpowered sites only left but on the banks of the Derwent.

We are up early and keen to get down to the Salamanca Markets. I’m either getting old and cynical or the fact I don’t have a job and that means I don’t have any money to spend but I have lost a lot of interest in markets once a place of unique items and wonders, they have become very predictable in their content and ever increasing price. Not many bargains at these anymore. Now for some excitement the drive up to the top of Mount Wellington surely this will restore my faith in Hobart. But no bloody clouds everywhere up top, and after a little scary drive mouthing words of abuse under my breath for all the idiots to dumb to turn their lights on their cars. It is narrow windy mountain climb with no visibility not sure why you would leave your lights off. Finally at the top the best view in all of Tassie had visibility down to about 5m in wet cloud, are well these things happen.

Back to the east coast

We drove to Swansea to continue down the east coast.
We drove along nine mile beach to Point Bagot a free campsite. I went down to the outlet for a fish in search of Salmon. There is so much weed coming out of this outlet into the bay Salmon fishing is not easy. I did see plenty of Mullet swimming into the bay so I swapped over to Bait and hooks for a try of this. As seems to be the case in Tassie you need to fight of the little fish to allow bigger fish to get them. A school of some bigger mullet swum past so I cast out into them and bag got a good size one. There were to many small fish here so I moved along the bay. In about an hour I caught 20 odd mullet and Salmon but most had to be returned. I wonder how the fish know how to stop growing just before the reach legal size. This is the first time I have fished where there are other people and I’m the only one catching fish. The young lads were soon pissed off that they couldn’t catch anything and they left. That left me and another guy who even tried to rig up the same way I did but still couldn’t catch anything while I was pulling them in. I hope this means I’m getting better at catching fish. I do feel I’m beginning to understand the conditions better and where the fish are more likely to be. I hope this is so!!

It is quite windy this morning and no chance of canoeing here so we will move on. There is rain coming today or tomorrow so we are off in search of a more sheltered place. There are very few camp sites now along the coast so we have had to back track to Mayfields camp site which is still in Oyster Bay. It is pretty popular. No fish here just weed. We have spent a couple of quite days here relaxing and putting up with some rain and wind.