The route cross-country from Coles Bay to Queenstown seemed straightforward enough, and for the first hour that proved to be the case. It was only when we turned off the main road and joined a quicker, more direct (according to the map!) minor road that our problems started. The tarmac stopped abruptly and we were confronted with a dirt track which not only meant an uncomfortable ride but the likely voiding of our insurance!
We presed on regardless and were soon driving through what appeared to be an ancient and often petrified forest. Huge swathes had been cleared, no doubt by loggers, leaving grasy plains dotted with tomstonelike stumps of trees.
Hours passed bumping along the road before we saw the mountains in the distance which meant Queenstown was close. The road twisted through hills which had been gouged bare, revealing stone which ranged in hue from ochres through cadmium yellow to russet. Continuous and extensive mining in the search for gold, copper and minerals had literally left no stone unturned and had left a lunar landscape in its wake.
We dropped down into the valley into Queenstown, a smallish town which still semed like an oasis in the midst of the lifeless hills. We soon found the caravan park and setled into our budget cabin. Faced with the prospect of a concrete pillow, Alex produced her trusty Swiss Army knife and promptly gutted it! A willful act of vandalism that countles future travellers would have the neck saving benefit of later.
The next day we backtracked down the road to Lake St. Clair. There were several walking options but the seven hour circut to Mt. Rufus looked the best as it would take us through the bush and up the mountain which would give us, hopefully, good views of the lake and surrounding landcape.
Despite the almost constant attentions of marauding flies, the hike to the summit was well worth the effort. We were rewarded with pnoramic views which included the Lake, the rugged mountains of North West Tasmania and, to the northeast, the unmistakable outline of Cradle Mountain.
On the way back to the car, we crosed a broad, grassy plain, the sides of the track occasionally dotted with the unmistakalbe shape of wombat scat, so shaped so they could pile up their droppings, sometimes stacked four or five high, to mark their territorial boundaries.
As usual, my underestimation of map distances meant that my lan of visiting both National Parks using Queenstown as a base was completely unfeasable. Although adjacent to each other, Cradle Mountain was unreachable so we decamped and set off in driving rain for Sheffield - the town of murals!
Although the rain had let up by the time we reached Sheffield, enough had fallen to cause the postponement of the rodeo - much to the annoyance of the redneck family staying in the backpackers who now found themselves with nothing to keep their obnoxious and violent kids amused.
The famous murals aorned almost every gable-end in town and pistured events and scenes of daily life. Impresive mainly due to their large scale, we much preffered the photography exhibition which was taking place at the National Park. Mainly showcasing Tamania's beautiful natural assets, there were also fantastic shots from the 1953 Everest Expedition.
We returned to the park next day with yet another summit trak in mind - this time to the top of Cradle Mountain. The park is Tasmania's most frequented and the enormous carpark was almost full when we arrived. A shuttle bus ferried us into the park and we were soon stood at the trail head.
Proportionally perfect infront of us stood the most photographed scene in Tassis, and it was easy to see why. Fitting squarley within the dimensions of a snapshot was a stunning lakeside foreground with step hills rising on either side, stretching up and back and culminating in the captivating presence of Cradle Mountain itself.
The trek was tough but the views were incredible, until we reached the shoulder which would take us to the top - then things got serious! The whole of the top of the mountain was splintered and fragmented, huge slabs of rock were propped against the face or hanging out into space, semingly ready to fall at any moment.
It took almost two hours to pick our way p and over the monolithic obstacle course but our slownes also meant we had the summit to ourselves and the views were breathtaking. The sky was clear and we sat transfixed, trying to capture a lasting mental picture.
Once we'd recovered, it was a race against time to get back down to catch the last bus out of the park, stumbling down the final rocky descent onto the lakeside path was particularly hard going but we made it with minutes to spare. On the way back, the bus driver pointed out some wombats on a grassy verge near the road. We saw wallabies too - and a possum on the way back to Sheffield - a major event as the possums we usually saw were very flat and very dead!
The next day we made an abortive attempt to take a walk in the Walls of Jerusalem National Park, then we decided to pay a visit to Trowunna Wildlife Park which had a large colony of Tasmanian Devils. We spent ages at the park, I cuddled a wombat, we watched a pack of Devils annihilate a quratered wallaby (skin, fur, bone and all!) and checked out all manner of inidgenous creatures. Despite their fearsome reputation, the Devils seemed quite cute, especially when one of them was lapping the enclosure at high speed, a big chunk of wallaby in his mouth and half a dozen of his mates in hot pursuit, all the time shrieking and yowling at each other.
Late in the afternoon, we returned for the final time to Cradle Mountain National Park and strolled to Wombat Lke, hoping to spot some creatures in the wild. We knew that the fork in the path would take us back to the car park or along a boardwalk to a grassy plain which was said to be the home of a range of wombat population. I returned to the car and Alex took the boardwalk , I'd drive down to the next carpark and catch up with her there.
It was nearly dusk, and sure enough, I could see the rounded grey / brown shapes of foraging wombats everywhere. I'd counted about a dozen by the time we met up, the pick of the bunch a mother and baby on a grass verge no more than ten feet from the boardwalk. We walked back to the car, the wombats going about their business with little or no regard for our presence.
We drove to a neaby nature walk and completed the short circuit behind two extremely loud ladies. Just before setting off we stood quietly watching a tiny betton, a small relative of the wallaby, who bounded off at an incredible speed when he'd had enough of us. Of course the racket the two extremely loud ladies made meant we saw nothing on the trail but there were some more wallabies in the car park when we returned.
It was dark as we drove back to Sheffield and hundreds of fat, suicidal moths were illuminated in our headlights, suspended like little snowflakes in the air and occasionally thwacking against the windscreen with an audible crack. A possums zombie red eyes were the next to be illuminated but, best of all, the twin beams caught the figure of a Devil crossing the road, it's hopping, skipping gait and white 'v' on his chest leaving us in no doubt to what we'd seen!
Such was our excitement, we forgot to lock the passenger door that night and in the morning persons unknown had opened the door, nicked Alex's "Keep Australia Wild" sticker from the wildlife park and ripped the parcel shelf while trying to get into the boot. We taped it up from below and hoped the hire company wouldnt notice!
We were due to sail on the Spirit of Tasmania II Ferry at 9pm that night so we had along day ahead of us in Devonport. We filled the time by mooching around the shops and spending an hour on the internet at the library. What should have been an uneventful hour was enlivened no end by one of the librarys 'regulars' loudly describing in great detail the dramatic change in appearance she'd just witnessed in an acquaintance. Apparently, they had just started making public appearances after a sex change operation, "I've known him ever since he wanted to change sex" she almost shouted, "now he comes in with new boobs...they look really good too!" She also passed comment on 'her' wardrobe - to the supressed giggles of the entire internet room.
Late in the afternoon we drove out towards the town of Latrobe where we'd been told playpuses could be seen frolicking in the Lake at Warrawee Park. Sure enough, one of the strange marsupials was regularly breaking the surface while scrabbling about in the shallows at the edge of the lake. A strong breeze suddenly began to blow, rippling the water and making tracking its movements impossible so we headed back to Devonport and the ferry.
We dropped the car off and made our way onto the ship. We sailed at 9pm and the estuary was calm as we slipped out of port. It wasnt long before it was lights out and we tried to sleep knowing that we were heading out into the notoriously rough Bass Strait. A tannoy announcement revealed we were indeed set for some stormy weather and accurate almost to the minute it was predicted, we began to pitch and roll alarmingly. We experienced a weird moment of weightlessness at the top of each wave before falling down into the next trough. Each time we pitched forward and slammed into the face of the next wave there was an awful clanging noise like someone was smashing a sledgehammer into a steel door. We looked out the porthole and the inky water was given a silvery sheen by the light of an almost full moon. Occasionally the sea spray would completely obliterate our view.
There was nothing to do but get back to bed and try to sleep. It seemed as though I'd only just fell asleep when a disembodied voice informed us we were approaching Port Phillip Heads and were about to arrive in Melbourne in half an hour.
So, the Tasmanian adventure was well and truly over and the next adventure was about to begin - The Great Ocean Road by campervan!
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