Tasmania

As I am sure most people are aware, Australia is huge. And, unless you are going to stay here for many, many months, you have to really calculate where you are going to go. Initially, it was my goal to get to the opal mining town of Coober Pedy, located in the middle of nowhere where it is so hot that they have to live underground. When I used to teach 7th grade geography, I’d always show a video that had a bit about this town and it just stuck with me as being a place that I had to get to. Well, fast forward to now and knowing a little bit more, I realized that it is far too expensive and takes way too long to get there to make it worth the trip (Plus, everyone I’ve talked to has thought I was crazy for even wanting to go. Apparently, the people there are pretty weird…), so in looking for a substitute, Tasmania came up on the list. This small, southern island, originally known as Van Diemen’s Land, is a hidden treasure packed with so much natural beauty and interesting history that one could easily spend months on end here. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that long but we made the best of the six days we were there.

Although Tasmania had been inhabited by Aboriginal people for at least 40,000 years, most of its recorded history didn’t start until the arrival of Europeans (imagine that). It was ‘discovered’ in 1642 by a Dutch explorer named Abel Tasman who named the island Van Diemen’s Land in honor of the governor of the Dutch East Indies. By the 1800s, the island falls into the hands of the British who start using the island as a place to send their convicts, as their own penal system was overflowing back in England. Of course, this new influx of people will lead to conflict with the Aboriginal people and will see their numbers nearly wiped out, either by death or forced removal from the island (sound familiar?). Over the course of about 50 years, more than 80,000 convicts were sent to Van Diemen’s Land to serve their sentence. Much of the early infrastructure on the island can be attributed to their labor. The practice of transporting convicts across the world was ended in the 1850s and now Tasmania is better known as being home to some of the most beautiful landscapes and unique wildlife in the world. Seriously, if you are coming to Australia, put Tasmania on your list!

Van Life….is not for me

Everywhere you go in Australia, you will see people living out of camper vans. It makes sense, considering how big the place is, you can easily move from place to place and have a place to crash whenever you get tired. Kaitlyn had this great idea that since this is the thing to do here, we should do it while visiting Tasmania. You would think that since you are driving around in your accommodations, this would be a cheaper option than booking hotels….it wasn’t. It also was not comfortable, showers were scarce and it was much more difficult to find a place that would let you stay overnight (for free) than you would think! Bottom line is, although it was an experience, I will not be rushing to rent a camper van again any time in the near future. Below you will see the overnight parking locations of Georgie for each of the six nights we were in Tassie.

Port Arthur

The first place we visited upon arriving in Tasmania was the Port Arthur Penitentiary. Over the course of its history, over 2000 convicts, soldiers, staff and their families lived at this location. Most of the buildings still have at least small portions of them visible. It was rainy and dreary when we were visiting which added to the experience of how miserable prison life would have been.

Port Arthur is also the location of the last mass shooting in Australia. In 1996, a gunman walked into a cafe with an AR-15 killing 35 patrons and injuring 24 more. Within two weeks, the government established heavy restrictions on the use of automatic and semi-automatic weapons and Australia hasn’t had a mass shooting since…so…why can’t we figure this out in the US…?

Unzoo

The next stop was to the Unzoo, which houses Tasmanian Devils and other animals in a natural environment. They are pretty much free range, with the exception of the devils. You need to cage those things up or they will eat your hand off! Here we saw four devils, pademelons and were able to feed more kangaroos!

Pretty Sights Along the Drive

These are from Eaglehawk Neck National Park.

Random stops along the highway….all built by convicts

Bay of Fires

Located on the northeast coast, this area was a meeting place for Aboriginal people. In the 1700s, a European explorer named it the Bay of Fires when he saw the fire from the Aboriginals on the beaches.

North/Central Tazzie

From the coast, we cut inland working our ways towards Cradle Mountain. Along the way we stopped in Scottsdale to hike Mount Stronach.

We stopped at a lavender farm. It was off season, so there was no lavender growing but they did have some good ice cream!

Grindewald was supposed to be this Swiss themed town, but it turned out to be basically a Swiss themed amusement park which was a total let down!

Launceston was the first place where we encountered traffic of any kind, which in hindsight was really nothing but enough to be irritating. So, we stopped and got a beer and then left!

Deloraine was an amazingly cute little town where we ended up staying in a hotel for night four. A local hotel/restaurant has a man who does daily free ‘platypus walks’ down by the river. We joined him and were actually able to catch many sightings of this mythical creature!

Cradle Mountain

Next stop was Cradle Mountain which is a World Heritage Site that takes up about a quarter of the state of Tasmania. In order to be a World Heritage Site, a place must meet one of ten different criteria. Cradle Mountain meets seven! (It is tied with Mount Taishan in China for meeting the most criteria.) This place is loaded with wildlife, vegetation and has weather that can change from perfect to deadly in a matter of minutes. There is nothing quite like seeing wombats and echidnas in the wild.

Hobart

Our last day was spent milling around in Hobart, Tasmania’s largest city. It was a funky little town with a lot of history.

Just a couple more weeks until this Aussie adventure comes to an end. Next up will be a dive trip to explore the sunken ship, the Ex-HMAS Brisbane and a drive up to Bundaberg to hopefully see some turtles hatching! Stay tuned!