This posting sees us reach our furthest point south. On 24th January, we flew from Melbourne to Hobart in Tasmania and as we looked out to sea from there, we knew that there was nothing between us and the Antarctic.
We had read a lot about the shameful history of the settlement of the island and approached with some trepidation as to how we would feel the imprint of this. For those who don't know the history, Tasmania was one of the earliest parts of Australia to be settled by Europeans and probably the region which had the greatest conflict with the Aboriginal population. The culmination of this was that the Governor General of the time approved a policy of hunting them down. This led to an operation known as 'The Black Line', where the settlers literally formed a line to sweep the island, killing or capturing any Aboriginals that they could find. The objective was to exterminate them from Tasmania - the small numbers captured were sent to an offshore island, where most of them died from disease or the hardship endured.
It is still debated whether any 'pure' Tasmanian Aboriginals survived, but most think that at least some did and pleasingly there remains today a burgeoning Aboriginal culture in Hobart. We were in Hobart for Australia Day, which marks the anniversary of the arrival of the first fleet of British ships. Many Aboriginals still treat this as a 'day of mourning', but overall our impression was that there is a mood of reconciliation in the air and a desire to move forwards rather than dwell on the past.
We only had a week in Tasmania, which proved to be not nearly enough, but a thoroughly enjoyable week nonetheless. Our time in Australia to date had been mostly urban based, so here we went for some nature therapy: staying for 3 nights in the small country town of New Norfolk, on the banks of the Derwent River; 2 nights in a farm in Deloraine, a small town on the edge of Cradle Mountain National Park and 2 nights in Swansea - no, not that Swansea, this one had glorious views out over Oyster Bay and the Freycinet National Park and not a coal mine or steel works in sight!
We started our week off with a Saturday morning in Hobart, where the lively Salamancer Market was in full swing. We sat in the warm sunshine by the harbour eating freshly landed oysters ($7 for half a dozen, a rare Aussie bargain) and Scallop Pie (a local speciality, baked in a lightly curried creamy sauce), washed down with a chilled cup of Tasmanian Sauvignon Blanc.
Hobart has a great setting, with its colourful bungalows and town houses scattered around the natural harbour and Derwent river valley and reaching out up the slopes of Mount Wellington and Mount Nelson. A road switchbacks 1,500 metres up to the top of Mount Wellington and we lurched the full course in our boat of a car hire. The views from the top were magnificent, but it was one to be admired briefly, because it was bitterly cold up there with nothing to stop a brisk Antarctic wind and to add to this, it started to sleet as we got out of the car!
Our home for 3 nights was a charming whitewashed timber framed colonial building, with a large English style garden. It was run by a couple of ex-pat South Africans who made us very welcome and we were able to sit drinking tea in their peaceful conservatory, chatting with the other guests. Robert, an Englishman on holiday was in town to watch the ladies cricket - but we're sad to report that even the English ladies are losing to Australia this year!
We also used this as our base to look around the Tasman Peninsula in the far south east of the island. It is almost cut off from the rest of the island by the wonderfully named causeway Eagle Hawk Neck. The area was infamous as housing one of Britain's first penal colonies at Port Arthur and Eagle Hawk Neck was populated by savage dogs at this time to deter the convicts from thoughts of escape. These days, the isolation is being put to a better practical application. Tasmanian Devils are endangered by a combination of habitat loss and an infectious facial cancer (apparently 'devil foreplay' includes sinking those fangs into each other's faces!), so the Tasman Peninsula is being used to isolate healthy animals.
It was good to hear an environmental good news story, because the new Australian government appears to be running roughshod over what had been reasonably enlightened policies. We were horrified to hear 2 such stories whilst we were here: firstly it has passed a special resolution to allow 3 million cubic metres of dredge spoil to be dumped into the Great Barrier Reef National Park in order to allow better export access for a coal mine in Northern Queensland; secondly they have applied to have 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian World Heritage listed, slow growth, ancient forest to be de-listed, so that commercial logging can extend into the area. This seems tragic to us and a terrible example for an affluent society to be setting - putting short term commercial gain ahead of long term environmental protection. We hope that this application will be rejected by the World Heritage body when it meets.
But enough politicising. From Our base in New Norfolk, we headed north for a long driving day, taking in a wide circuit of the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clare National Park. Our route took us up through some of the wonderful aforementioned forests (filled with huon pine, tall eucalyptus, pre-historic looking 'fern trees' and other indigenous Tasmanian flora), past steely blue lakes surrounded by jagged mountain peaks and onto Strahan (a sleepy fishing port / tourist town and the only significant town on the west coast of Tasmania) before heading east for our farm stay in Deloraine on the edge of Cradle Mountain and the Western Tiers.
Deloraine was a peaceful stop for a couple of nights. The owner of the farm emigrated to Australia from Northampton when he was 14 and is shortly to retire from the business with his wife who runs the B&B and travel around Australia in an RV. He took us out one evening to an area at the back of the farm favoured by wallabies and we spotted several of them hopping around in the fields on the edge of the tree-line. We had one full day in the area, which we spent in the Cradle Mountain Park and did a great 3 hour hike around Lake Dove, with stunning views of the mountain and the area around.
Our final stop was intended to be in a country inn by the side of a lake, but we arrived to find the place closed - it seems they hadn't got our booking and decided it wasn't worth opening! No matter, we carried on to the east coast to the village of Swansea, which we used as our base for exploring the Freycinet National Park. Here, we did another fantastic hike climbing through forest to a ridge and then descending down to Wine Glass Bay, by all accounts one of the most beautiful beaches in Australia and only reachable on foot or by boat. Take a look at the picture - we're not sure you'll spot many beaches better than this anywhere!
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