To complete our lap of dear Tassie (pronounced with a “z” sound), we headed to the town of Penguin in the hopes to see some penguins! While we tried to find a few other unique animals, we were gifted a wombat in the last few meters of a hike by Cradle Mountain. It was interesting getting into the history of Australia as the penal colony, and especially watching the longest running show in the country about several who managed to escape!
Fairy Penguins are Noisy!
Once we had our fill of peacocks and wallabies we made our way along the northern coast of Tassie until we reached a lighthouse in Davenport. There was a nice walk to break up the drive and waste time until we could get into our room.
In the town we also found a fun brewery to hang out in with some delicious brews, called Island State Brewing.
Our accommodation was a room in a house this time, and our host was very friendly and we chatted for probably 30 minutes before we made it up to our room. It had a lovely view and was nice to have the windows open to let in that cool air.
There was a fellow nomadic couple staying in Penguin for a few months and that evening we planned a meetup at a local restaurant. I had no idea they were also originally from Minnesota! It was funny how they seemed to travel nearly opposite to us speed-wise. We keep thinking that we’ve slowed down but in reality we’re only a little slower than most vacations, except for the occasional week break from being a tourist. They spend 2-3 months somewhere and even have a home in South Africa since that is their favorite.
I was amazed to find out that they’re not only bloggers, but for the last 10 years she’s been doing daily blogs! Occasionally she’ll skip times when they’re home visiting family but every travel day is documented by the following morning! It’s certainly impressive, but not a model I could sustain. We enjoyed learning about each other’s travel experiences and they were so sweet to invite us to stay at their house when we go back to South Africa someday. Thanks for a lovely time T & J!
The following morning we enjoyed a long sleep in and got lunch at a place called Hungry Birds to fuel us for a hike up “The Nut”. It was a little over an hour’s drive to the town of Stanley in the northwest. The Nut is a interesting formation, just a large rock in the ocean connected by a narrow strip of land. Someone built a chairlift so if you are not up for a steep hike, you can get to the top and enjoy an easy 1.5 mile loop around to see the views. We opted to do the hike, but we drove partway up to the parking lot at the chairlift to start the hike. I used a level app to measure and there were spots up to 22 degrees of slope! I’m glad there was a railing especially on the way down!
On the way back to Penguin, we stopped at the Ferngrove Reservoir trying to see a Duck Billed Platypus! If you are unfamiliar with these animals they are the only mammals that lay eggs. We walked around and read several signs which taught us that they usually are only out at dusk and dawn, so we were left with a decision. We could stay to try and find platypus, or we could go with our original plan to see the penguins. Given the title of this section I’m sure you can guess what we decided. Penguins!
Even though we have seen penguins before, and even this species once before in New Zealand, this was such a better setup. There are a few places around Penguin you can see the fairy penguins come in from their daily fishing but we decided to go to Lillico Beach’s viewing platform just 20 minutes east of Penguin.
They have a few volunteers there answering questions and shinging a red light along the beach trying to count as they came in. At that time there were 60-80 penguins coming in every night, but several were staying in their nests for a day here or there. The organization providing volunteers also built boxes to have additional spots penguins could use for nests but they were wired with cameras that can be seen 24/7 during the season, which was nearing its end when we were there in mid-March.
It was fun to watch the little guys work their way up the beach, hopping up steps and walking right under our platform. They come in under cover of darkness for safety from repedators, but are not affected by red lights so thats while all these pictures are red. Some of the boxes must have been under the platform and as we were walking out we heard many of them making quite the racket! Listen for yourself in the video below (nothing to see in the video, but you can enjoy the photo below of the southern stars while you listen).
Hiking in the Cradle of the Mountain
In the morning we checked out of our accommodation and headed south to Cradle Mountain (and St Clair) National Park. We crossed country a bit taking a road actually named “Back Road”. There was even a 15% grade hill though a narrow valley but we eventually arrived to the main parking lot and visitor center. We paid for tickets to board the shuttle bus up to Dove Lake. The ranger had suggested a certain direction as the trail is quite narrow so we didn’t have to meet as many people on the trail.
Before finishing our loop of the lake there was a trail that went off to our left towards Marion Lookout. It was quite steep, mostly with stairs and a few areas where steel cables into the rock gave us more confidence to continue. We met a few people going down but I was very thankful to be going up, otherwise I would have had to do it backwards anyway!
It was short but so steep and slow going. Finally we made it to the top of this trail and we could see crater lake. Our trail met the other trail that came up more gradually from the dove lake shuttle stop and we stopped for a little break and snack. The view was amazing and there was finally a bit of breeze, we were both sweating on such a sunny and warm day.
As we continued down the shallower trail there were still steps and cables but it was much shorter and soon we were just hiking on an easy slope and long stairs. A guy we met on the stairs section told us that the way we went up was one of the hardest sections in the area! And I believe him, phew!
It was pretty easy hiking most of the way down but we opted to go off on yet another path through marshes on a boardwalk and over a few little streams. Instead of circling back up to where the bus dropped us off, instead this trail terminated at a different bus stop. We were just about to the end of the trail when we saw someone was taking pictures of at first just looked like a hill of moss, but when we got closer we saw it was an adorable Wombat!
I caught this video of him multitasking, scratching is rear end while eating and slowly making his way down the hill. He seemed oblivious to thees excited hikers taking his picture. Letting others get closer we continued down the trail, where someone was asking about a wombat. Just as we were telling them directions we spotted a tiny porcupine right next to them, again so cute.
We relaxed on a picnic table for awhile enjoying more snacks and a rest after over 6 miles of hiking and watching a few birds.
There were several people either parking or being dropped off on the bus up that had big packs on. There is a multi day trek you can take from this point, over Cradle Mountain and down to St Clair Lake. I bet that would be a beautiful backpacking trip!
We managed to get spots on the bus down the hill and then continued our drive south to the town of Queenstown. It was pretty views along the way but oh so windy! Queenstown is an old mining town tucked into the mountains and felt like a ghost town. There was a pizza restaurant we ordered out from and a grocery store but we were getting up early to drive to our next town anyway.
The Ship that Never Was
Early the next day we were on the road and only had an hour drive down a windy road to the small town of Strahan (pronounced ‘strawn’).
We got checked into our cruise and found the parking lot but had some time so we got caffeine at this little coffee stall – along with what seemed like half our fellow passengers. Then we were finally able to board.
The tables were assigned to seat six and we were lucky enough to get sat with two lovely couples. One was from Canberra, the capital of Australia and were visiting Tassie for their son’s wedding, and the other from near Brisbane who had just gotten married – on the same day, and were on their honeymoon. It was fun to share plans about trips around the island and learn about each other.
The cruise started up the Gordon river, heading first out to the ocean by the breakwater and a lighthouse. Then we headed upriver to Sarah Island which was known as the worst place to be sent as a convict. The warden of the island at one time was so strict and would have very harsh punshiments, including solitary confinement the longest of which was 17 days and was located next to the tannery – full of rotting hides that had yet to be processed.
There was also a bakery baking 200 loaves at once but most meat showing up on the island was very poor, but sometimes the convicts were able to get fish. Once a doctor started taking the good bread from the convicts for his chickens and the convicts sabotaged his boats by using round edged ballast, causing a ship to capsize within 24 hours. Eventually he was reported once he was found to be cheating them more and more. Also, contraband market allowed this one major to earn a ton of money by selling the hides the convicts would trade for tobacco or alcohol. Later this same major went into politics back in Hobart, funny how that works.
The conditions and tratement were so poor there was a 20% escape rate for all years until 1829, which is also the year that punishment dropped by 90%. Why would this happen so suddenly? A well known shipwright from Boston named David Huoy liked this special timber for building boats that could only be grown here in this part of Tassie, and his method was to incentivise instead of terrorize. Those who worked hard on his boats could negotiate for better sleeping quarters, be allowed to fish and even given a ration of rum. The chaos stopped and they began to reform instead of revolt and attempt to escape.
Towards the end of Sarah Island penal colony there were 10 convicts left working on one last boat. They had received word that they were going to be sent to Port Arthur which had even worse reputation, and I think one of the harsher majors they had on Sarah Island had been transferred there. As the ship was finished, they overpowered their skeleton guards, left them with some provisions and set sail in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere summer. They headed across the pacific and made it to Chile about 6 months later. They were taken in as shipwreck survivors and many left the country to the US or Caribbean. A few years later, however, the British found them and brought them back to Hobart for trial on account of piracy. They claimed since the papers were never finalized that they never stole a ship, just materials assembled “shipwise”. They were not hanged but imprisioned at a few different locations and one of them managed to escape once more.
Back on the cruise we were served lunch which was quite filling. Mr. Wander and I opted to try another local cider while we chatted with the couples. Our last stop was at a nature stop which is one of only two place sin the world to achieve 7 of the 10 criteria to become a UNESCO site. It was just a simple walk around trees talking about the various species but the real importance is the Huon Pine, that same timber that had brought David Huoy all the way from Boston to build ships.
It’s highly prised because of natural oils that resists rotting and a slow growing tree creating fine grains. It grows toberween 10-20 meters tall (about 30-70 ft tall) and will occassionlly grow to 30m (100 ft). In an area north of where we were there is a stand of these Huon pines that have reproduced vegetatively and the stand itself ads a single organsim is estimated to be 10,500 years old.
On our way back to the harbor we learned all about how in the 1980s a dam was nearly built in this area that would have destroyed the environment for these trees but was thankfully stopped. Finally we made it back to our car and picked up some groceries for dinner that night.
We had one more event which they had advertised quite a bit on the cruise and that was for the longest running play in Australia, The Ship That Never Was. It is performed every night – >8600 performances over the past 40 yeras – and many of our tour guides on the cruise are the cast but they alternate days since they only need two each night.
For the rest of the characters they pull in people from the audience and have little parts of costumes and some people got more into it than others. The set was a bunch of pieces but eventually became a ship and I thought it was so cleaver how each part appears or folds out of trap doors!
For those that didn’t get to come on stage they gave us things to say as certain phrases were mentioned, and passed around water spray bottles for an authentic feel of sailling across the Pacific. They called it “Audience Precipitation”. For the story we already knew most of it, as it was all about that group that escaped to Chile on the Frederick! They never actually told us the ending to entice people to buy tickets for the show to see how they all fared, but I decided not to leave you in the dark. It’s still worth watching and I am sure it is different every night if you are ever in the area.
Curse of the Forgotten Kindle
Yes, yet again we have forgotten a kindle in our rooms! I think the score for us together sits at 4, with only once not getting it back. Thankfully we had to drive through Queenstown on our way back towards Hobart from Strahan. I had contacted them as soon as I realized it was missing and they had it waiting for me the following morning. We then headed to Lake St Clair, the Southern half of that national park we had visited a few days prior.
We hiked three miles around a few loops hoping to see more platypuses but we were a bit late. There was a cute restaurant called the Hungry Wombat for a few sodas and “toasties”, or toasted sandwiches, often open faced for our lunch. When we checked into our lodge we weren’t expecting to get a few slice of frozen bread! While I had already been appreciating the self catering setups in most hotels having plates, bowls, silverware, glasses, a kettle, and a toaster available even if you did not have your own kitchen, and even some tea/instant coffee/hot chocolate, this was the first time we had been given bread! We put melted some cheese on the toasted bread which went very well with our dinner of ramen that evening.
As it was St. Patrick’s day, we opted to visit the bar at the lodge for their last guinness, some irish whiskey with ginger ale, and our favorite Australian dessert, Sticky Date Pudding.
In the morning we headed out of the mountains and back into Hobart. We had a few hours and made it to a winery for a tasting. They were quite nice but it was the tiniest pours I have ever seen. Then in town Mr. Wander had found a small falafel shop and we managed to find a parking spot since it was a busy lunch rush during the week. The falafel was so tasty and the shop so sweet, I wish we could have frequented that restaurant many times over but it was soon time to leave Tassie.
We had a bit of time to wait until we could check in so we went to this beach by the airport to watch a few planes come in. Someone was there that must do it often as he had a radio checking the traffic and an eye on flights coming into the city with his phone on a flight tracker.
As he was giving us updates a flight came in that looked a bit like one for the Air Force and since we knew the Royal Family of Denmark was visiting he thought it was those coming ahead to prepare security. Our flight the next afternoon was mysteriously delayed blaming weather in Melbourne, our connecting city. The weather was great in Melbourne which makes you wonder whether this had anything to do with the Royal family having the reverse itinerary….
Next Time
Leaving Tassie, we hopped through Melbourne to return to one of our favorite countries – New Zealand! We were both excited to visit with a friend we met on our bike charity ride in Wales and then welcomed travel companions who would accompany us all the way back home. Mr. Wander’s parents landed and we started a whirlwind road trip across both islands starting with the north. I was excited to finally see “Mount Doom” (Mount Ngauruhoe for the non-Tolkien nerds) as it was completely socked in with clouds the last two times I have tried to see it. We visited the Weta Workshop in Wellington and managed to make it to the south island – but without our car! Until next time when I’ll share all the adventures. Cheers!
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