Thursday 12 September 2024 – Long post alert! Time to get a drink and settle down, I think.

Our task yesterday was quite simple – get ourselves from our Peppers hotel in Cradle Mountain to one in Launceston, some 150km away. With no excursions booked at the far end, we had the rare luxury of a relaxed schedule; Jane had found a couple of Things To Look At en route, one of which closed at 3pm, but we had plenty of time. Strolling over to breakfast took us past yet another pademelon

(which you can see was soaking wet from the ceaseless rain) but otherwise the morning was unremarkable.

Since kangaroos, wallaroos, wallabies, pademelons and quokkas are so similar in overall appearance, Jane did a bit of research to try to understand how to tell them apart. It turns out that the only obvious criterion is size. There is a bewildering variety of subspecies of each animal, but the only way to tell many of them apart is by examining their DNA, which is complex. So: size, it is, then. Consider the whole macropod phenomenon to be several varieties of quopadewallaroo.

As we set out, we passed through a landscape that could have come from the blasted heaths which make up the army-controlled areas near Aldershot.

Otherwise the landscape continued to be wet and marshy, and occasionally mountainous

as it had for what seemed like several days now. We stopped to admire the scenery caused by the Cethana hydro electric works

and also to look at a couple of murals plastered on the outside of a hydro-electric facility.

I’d have got better photos, but the layby was being actively used by some very large lorries which were attaching and/or detaching huge bits of plant machinery on trailers, so our freedom of movement was not what it might have been. But the point of the murals is important; they are part of an expanding project started in the nearest town, Sheffield.

During the 1980s, Sheffield was going through hard times. At a public meeting in 1985, the idea of painting murals around the town was proposed, with the hope of emulating a similar program’s success in the Canadian town of Chemainus. From this idea, a mural by John Lendis was commissioned, becoming the first of now several dozen murals in the town. There is even an annual Mural Fest, with a mural painting competition that gives nine new installations an airing.

Street art such as this is catnip to us on our travels, so we stopped there and went for a walk. Obviously. The town is a pleasant enough place anyway,

but it’s unique because everywhere you look, there are murals, and it makes for a splendid sight.

By the visitor centre is an area – Mural Park – with lots and lots all set up together.

I don’t want to bore you with all of the photos I took, but you’re welcome to overdose on them in my Flickr album if you’d like. But one of those in the Visitor Centre area display is worth pulling out.

It’s a picture of Greg Duncan in front of a section of The Wall, the astonishing installation he has created that I wrote about a couple of days ago. If you didn’t read about it then, shame on you – go and take a look. NOW!

By the time we’d reached Sheffield, the countryside had changed; we were driving through farmland. It hadn’t quite stopped raining, but the landscape was more open and bucolic and a lot less wild.

We had planned to stop at a steam engine museum in Westbury, but we had spent so much time in Sheffield that it had closed by the time we got there. However, seeing Sheffield was a delight and I’m glad we did spend time there.

Our destination, Launceston, was not much further on. We arrived at the Peppers Seaport Hotel in mid-afternoon and were awarded a splendid apartment, with kettle, mugs, Earl Grey, milk in the fridge and – praise be! – laundry facilities! “These things are important, you know”*.

The Seaport in the hotel’s name is a nicely gentrified area

which features many eateries, among them the rather oddly-named but very decent Rupert & Hound, where we availed ourselves of such local produce as Gummy Shark, which goes nicely as part of a fish’n’chip meal, and then retired for the night.

That was yesterday, Wednesday 11th. Today, we had a full day in Launceston with no activities or excursions formally booked. So when we woke up to find that

the sun was shining brightly, we sprang out of bed with a song on our collective lips and went for a walk. Obviously. In fact, we went for two walks, because Launceston (pronounced “lawn cess ton”, by the way, not like what they do in Cornwall) has a variety of attractive things for walkers to walk around.

To start with, we headed for Cataract Gorge, through which the River Esk flows. There are very well-organised and clearly marked trails along each side of the river, and we headed for the one that started on the far side of the Esk, the Cataract Gorge trail. To get there, we crossed King’s Bridge,

passing a sort of adventure centre with accommodation, created and run by Penny Royal.

There’s a water mill there

and various other entertainments

including a cliff walk which requires you to get a safety harness so you can navigate the cliff face. We didn’t do this. We just went for a walk beside the river,

which one can now do free of charge, but for which there used to be a toll, payable at the toll house.

It’s not called Cascade Gorge for nothing,

but the cascades are not the only attraction along the walk. The views are quite nice, as one might expect,

and after a kilometre or so, one reaches a suspension bridge which allows one to cross to the other side.

Careful examination of the photo above will reveal that there appears to be someone suspended in the middle of the bridge. This is an illusion caused by the presence of the slowest chairlift in the world, in which one can ride in a very leisurely fashion, from one bank to the other. To get to the lift station on our bank (in pleasant gardens, with a bandstand and a cafe, albeit not open today as this side of the river was suffering a power outage!), we passed a peacock and several wallabies

and gravely allowed the attendant to explain how to get on the lift for the ride without mentioning the several hundred chair lifts I have ridden during my skiing years. The chair may be slow, but it does have the distinction of having, at 308 metres, the largest single span of any chairlift in the world. The ride down gives a nice view of the suspension bridge and the park on the other bank.

The park features a café, which we stopped at for a coffee, before exploring the suspension bridge further,

and then heading back towards Launceston along the Zig Zag Trail, which is clearly signposted as being “steep – hikers only”. And with good cause, too;

the trail climbs a good 80m before descending 100m to King’s Bridge. En route, we got a good look at a Tasmanian Nativehen (called a “turbochook” by the locals, apparently)

and a curious crystal formation on the rockface.

This is zeolite, a hydrated alumino-silicate mineral, rarely seen in such an accessible site, probably derived from molten magma associated with the cooling rock.

We also got a nice view over Launceston,

at around the same place as we passed a group of climbers who were, erm, climbing the rock.

As we headed back to the hotel, we noticed that the mural virus had spread to Launceston; the wall surrounding the King’s Park beside the hotel was decorated

on both sides,

although the picture above does seem to be of more informal decorative work.

By this stage we’d covered about five miles, but we still hadn’t explored the city of Launceston itself. So we went for another walk. Obviously.

Heading into the city, we passed the Custom House

and could see a huge brewery.

This is James Boag, which produces beer that’s very popular in Tasmania, although it’s not a major player in the overall Australian beer market. As we passed it, a chap sat on a bench recommended a visit, which seemed a good idea. But first we thought we’d explore the Tramway Museum (Launceston had a tram system between 1911 and 1952, apparently). We headed off to where Google told us it was and pretty much failed to find it. We eventually realised that we’d actually walked past it at about 3pm

but it was closed, despite a notice telling us it was open until 4pm. We did find an old tram station, though – Inveresk Launceston.

By this stage, the brewery seemed an attractive idea, so we walked past the vast array of buildings that it is comprised of and went into

The Brewery, where we were able to sample various of Boag’s beers,

and visit the Brewery Museum. This had pretty much normal brewery museum-type stuff

with a couple of exceptions. One was a photo of the vermin elimination machine

which was always called Oscar, whichever gender it happened to be, and whose vets bills were passed off in the books as repair costs for the machine. The other was a mystery object.

It’s called a Meteorphonium. It’s a musical instrument. No, really. Please spend a minute watching a very charming video about it. (Sorry, for technical reasons, I can’t embed it here. Grrrr.)

After this refreshing interlude, we walked around Launceston in order to take a look at the old buildings for which is well-known. We started by going past the Albert Hall

towards the City Park

(note how the brewery dominates the skyline). The park gave us an opportunity to get a closer look at Masked Lapwings

which have really spooky faces

but very cute chicks.

Then we walked along Cameron Street, where most of these old – and very attractive – buildings are.

The Post Office stands out particularly

and one can go in; but although they’ve kept a lot of the fabric of the original building, they’ve filled it with a modern post office in a box, which I think rather ruins its interior charm.

Of course, not all the buildings are old or attractive,

but we enjoyed looking around the parts of the city that we saw. And the beer was quite good, too.

We ended our walk with a meal back at Rupert & Hound, a choice of staggering unoriginality but one which gave some confidence of a decent meal.

And that has been it for our time in Launceston. It has been a delight to walk around in sunshine, after what seems like an age of cold and wet weather. The forecast for tomorrow seems to return to some degree of moistness, but we move on towards the north-east corner of the island, near a town called Scottsdale. Some wildlife adventures are promised there, as well as some impressive-sounding landscapes, but, to be frank, we’re not quite sure how things have been organised for us. So, please join us over the coming days as we find out.
* © Chris Walker