Author Archives: Steve Walker

About Steve Walker

Once a tech in-house PR type, now professional photo/videographer and recreational drone pilot. Violinist. Flautist. Occasional conductor. Oenophile.

Farewell, Tasmania; Hello, Mainland

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Tuesday 17 September 2024 – We had to depart Tasmania yesterday, after 12 days and 1200km of travelling across and around the island. It was cold and windy most of the time, wet for some of the time, and even sunny for some of it – but we really enjoyed our time there. All we had to do for today was to get ourselves to Hobart airport, return the hire car and catch a Virgin Australia flight to our next destination – Canberra, the capital of Australia.

So, we bade a final farewell to the hotel’s fine view over Coles Bay

and drove the 220km to Hobart via some more attractive east coast scenery

and a brief stop at the “Spiky Bridge”, which is near a town called Swansea (to get to which you drive past Pontypool, I might add).

This is a convict-built bridge, with, erm, spikes along the top.

No-one knows why. If you look closely at the mortar, you can see the shells incorporated to provide calcium

which shows that material was probably taken from an aboriginal midden, similarly to what we saw at the Henry Jones Art Hotel in Hobart.

The popular legend is that the Spiky Bridge was built after a chap called Edward Shaw offered the Superintendent of Rocky Hills Probation Station, Major de Gillern, a ride home one night after a game of cards. Shaw intended to highlight the hazards for Tasmanian travelers and wanted improvements made to the road between Swansea and Little Swanport. Rather than wait patiently for his repeated requests to be granted, he raced the Major home at breakneck speed through the gully to prove his case. Needless to say, the bridge was erected shortly after.

The bridge was the last diversion on our airport journey, and we arrived wondering if VA could find any more ways of buggering us about, our anxiety stemming from when we tried its online check-in and it wouldn’t recognise the credentials we provided. We therefore joined the VA check-in queue and it turned out that they’d tossed only a minor googly in our direction; the flight was being fulfilled by Link Airways, we were too early for their check-in and so should wait fifteen minutes and queue up over there, no just there, to complete the process. So we got ourselves coffee and whilst Jane guarded our prized place at the head of this check-in queue, I went off to do a slightly better job of getting a photo of the devilishly charming art installation in the airport’s baggage collection area.

The queue for security was a bit of a zoo

and the flight’s departure was slightly delayed but otherwise everything went smoothly until the landing, which the captain accurately warned us would be lumpy due to high winds. A taxi whisked us swiftly to our hotel, the QT, which was behind a maze of construction work

which, we were told, was part of construction of a new light railway and had been going on for quite some time. We were a little dismayed to find that our second-floor room looked out over these works, which are due to start at 7am daily; so Jane had a chat with the receptionist and he was kind enough to relocate us to the sixth floor, looking the other way (our room, not the receptionist). So I’d like formally to apologise to whoever got room 215 for the night of 17th September.

After a bite to eat and a glass of something cold we went out for a bit of a stroll, obviously, round the back of the hotel

where some sulphur-crested cockatoos were tucking in to some yummy grass

and when we got back we found that our relocated room gave us a great view of the sunset over Black Mountain.

We have a “day at leisure” tomorrow in Canberra, and the weather forecast is good: 18°C and sunny. I wonder what we’ll do with the day?

Freixenet Freycinet

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Monday 16 September 2024 – After our two engaging, informative and photogenic days with Bushie, it was time to leave Jetsonville yesterday and head towards our final destination on this unique island (apart from the departure lounge at Hobart airport, that is) – the Freycinet Peninsula, which dangles off the east coast of Tasmania and is a National Park. In theory, the drive should have taken us just over three hours, but we somehow or other spent nearly five hours covering the 220km. Rather than take the swiftest route, we elected to take the coast road, our old friend the A3 along which we’ve covered so many kilometres, as this took us past a couple of places which promised some photographic action. First, though, we passed the hop fields we saw yesterday, and Jane took a photo showing how much more extensive they are than was shown in my photo;

and we passed through Derby, and took a photo of what we think is the bit of scenery which collapsed when the dam broke and ended the town’s tin mining period.

As ever, the scenery on our drive was lovely, made more so by sunshine,

and we soon reached Pyengana, a village which is noted for its cheese production. We could have stopped for a cheese tasting, but somehow the idea didn’t appeal; instead we took an 11km diversion to see a waterfall, the St. Columba Falls. Jane wasn’t too sure that this would be a worthwhile detour, an impression which might possibly have been emphasised when we got there and took a look at the track leading to the falls.

Someone had clearly seen the netting across the entry to the track and thought “bugger it, let’s take a look anyway”. We decided that if that person was prepared to take that risk, then so would we, dammit. (Also, we talked to people coming the other way, who said it would be OK; we like to live dangerously, but only when it’s safe to do so). There was a problem on the path

but it was relatively easy to clamber over it and carry on, past some riparian scenes

and some pretty amazing tree ferns

through which we could just about catch sight of the falls

so it looked like it might be worth all that danger after all. The falls are really quite impressive (yes, an Icelander would concede that they are actually waterfalls), but photographically really quite difficult to capture, partly because of the viewpoint offered and partly because of the position of the sun. The best I could do is via video.

After the falls, we stopped for a coffee at St. Helens, an attractive coastal town,

before moving on towards our next diversion. En route, we passed a landscape that was difficult to decode.

We think that the foreground planting is grape vines, but can’t explain the background – dead trees among live shrubbery; very strange.

Our next diversion didn’t take us far off our chosen route. We reached Bicheno, another coastal town

and went to look at the beach. Or, rather, the rocks,

which look very fine with their covering of lichen. Beyond them, you can see froth and foam, which gives a further clue to why we stopped here.

(So does the title of the video, I guess.)

After Bicheno, it was but a short drive to the ~~Freixenet~~ Freycinet peninsula,

National Park and Lodge, which is where we were due to spend a couple of nights.

Freycinet National Park occupies a large part of the peninsula, (named after French navigator Louis de Freycinet), and Schouten Island (which on the map looks like a drip falling off the witch’s nose that is the Freycinet peninsula). Founded in 1916, the park shares the distinction of being Tasmania’s oldest park with Mount Field National Park, which is in the Uncharted Quarter – the southwest of the island.

Freycinet Lodge is quite an impressive operation. By the reception are the bar and restaurant areas

and our cabin, or rather our “coastal pavilion”, which is some 300m away, nestled among the woods

is very swish

and has obviously had a very cool and with-it designer, which made the interior exceedingly chichi and almost totally unusable for practical purposes. I should have realised this when in order to get in to the place we had to open the door by pulling it. Also, it’s great having nice low mood lighting throughout, but there are times when actually I would appreciate being able to light the place such that I can see what the fuck is going on; but it’s not an option – gloom is, apparently, trendy. The light switch system is so complex and mysterious that it needs the instruction manual which you can eventually find on the in-room TV, and it’s got a great supply of all the things you need for a comfortable stay – fridge, kettle, that kind of thing – but all hidden behind panels that merge in seamlessly with the walls, so you have to go round experimentally tugging or pushing at bits of the wall to see if they move in some way to reveal what’s behind. Very, very chichi, but very, very frustrating in the dark after a couple of large gins. [ On the plus side, comfortable bed, good shower, and a bath outside on the deck for star-gazing – Ed ]

Generally, the environment around the lodge is very pleasant, again helped by the sunshine we’ve had of late. There are nice views available

but the Australian ravens

sound very derisive.

We had the day to ourselves today, with no formal programme, but a strong recommendation for a walk to a lookout point over Wineglass Bay. One can walk all the way from the lodge to the lookout point; on the other hand, one can drive 3km to the car park whence the actual walk starts. We’re ~~on holiday~~ travelling, so we took the lazier option, but I should make it clear that it’s not like we put in no effort at all.

We had sunshine, which was good, and slightly unexpected, but the wind was a cold one, which made Getting On With It a good idea. It’s a well-marked path

with some steeper bits

past some amazing boulders.

We did stop to take some pictures of the views on the way up. You can see the nearest town, Coles Bay, quite clearly.

The final push to the top is up some more steps,

around 326 of them, and at the top there’s a circuit of viewpoints to navigate,

with more impressive boulders on the hillside

and (of course) a great view of Wineglass Bay.

Had there not been a good view, I would have been a bit tetchy, and not without justification, I think. The way down is slightly different from the way up, if you follow the signposts (like almost everybody did),

and continues to give good boulder.

There’s one mysterious rock quite near the bottom;

we can’t fathom how those dimples came about. Reaching the car park, we passed a rather cute structure shaped like a whale,

which I assume is a bicycle rack.

The road from and back to the lodge passes Honeymoon Bay, so we thought we’d pop down for a quick look;

our visit was short and sweet, much, I suppose, like your average honeymoon (eh, Starmer?) and we were soon back at the lodge and taking it easy for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow, we have, with some regret, to depart these shores and return to the Australian mainland. We’ll therefore be heading north which means that it should at least be warmer. Whether it’s more interesting or not will be revealed in these pages in due course.

Bushie, tailed again

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Saturday 14 September – Bushie called for us at around 9.45 and we tailed along again for another day of mystery, excitement and information overload. The only thing Bushie told us was that we were headed for the far north-east of the island. And the first thing he did was to stop at the pond just down the road where yesterday he said there were platypuses. At first I was dubious about the wisdom of this, given our failure yesterday to see anything at this very place. I should have known better, and trusted Bushie’s knowledge and judgement, because

there were three platypuses in the pond, and we saw them all. I even caught one having a scratch

and got some video snippets, too.

so I was very happy that we’d spent the time there. Bushie was confident that we’d see them because he knew that they came out here at around 10am, hence his collecting us at 9.45. He was slightly disdainful of the people that walk by the pond, saying that they might walk by every day, but they’d never actually seen a platypus; all you needed to know was the time(s) that they came out to feed. He was also somewhat more disdainful of the experts who opined that platypuses were crepuscular, and rightly so; here was our evidence that they come out during the day, too.

Between this pond and the next (which also had at least one platypus in it), there was a bank, and one could see the tracks that showed where platypuses move from one pond to the other.

Yesterday, as he’d driven us round, Bushie had casually pointed out various ponds and told us the number of platypuses in them. Today, he proved that he knew whereof he spoke. It seemed that there were more ponds with platypus inhabitants than without; they may be elusive, but in this corner of Tasmania they’re not rare.

A nice little nugget from Bushie: platypus young are called puggles, a term also applied to baby echidnas. There you are; a trivium you can deploy when you’re down the boozer, or trying to solve a crossword puggle clue.

Our next port of call was the town of Legerwood (emphasis on the middle syllable, according to Wikipedia). Its USP is a series of memorial carvings, which have a great story; but first, let me show you the carvings, as they are very impressive.

On 15 October 1918, twenty-five Turkish pine trees were planted in memory of the village’s fallen soldiers following the end of the Great War. In 1999 the trees were deemed unsafe from blight and the local council recommended they be cut down. Determined to retain the memorial, in 2004 the Legerwood Hall and Reserves Committee commissioned chainsaw sculptor Eddie Freeman to carve a series of sculptures on the dying trunks based on the lives of the people they represented in remembrance. The photos above are just some of the 25.

We pressed on, through some lovely scenery,

(note the incipient distant rain in the last photo) and past some hop fields.

Hop fields were everywhere in this area at one time, but have declined markedly, which Bushie blamed on the Great American Hop Glut of the 1940s; the end of prohibition in the USA led to a vast expansion in their hop production, leading to a major surplus, with knock-on effects globally.

We stopped for coffee in the town of Derby, which is a major, even global, mountain biking centre, because of the excellent trails in the surrounding hills.

They have even staged world championship competitions here several times in recent years and there is a Derby Derby – which only sounds good as a phrase because they pronounce the name of the town as der-by not dar-by. Derby was, in earlier days, also a centre for tin mining; our coffee bar had a picture showing what the town looked like then – pretty ghastly, as is the case for anywhere near a mining operation. Derby suffered particularly when overuse of water cannon to shift the soil led to a collapse in a river dam and the inundation of much of the town. So the mountain biking craze has brought life back into what had become a very quiet place.

More delightful scenery was on offer at The Little Blue Lake, which is a lake that is

not very big and, erm, not very blue, either. Bushie told us that the colour was due to reflection of a blue sky, but I’m not so sure. I’ve seen that colour before in glacial lakes (e.g. Lake Louise) but this was possibly mineral in derivation. Anyway, pretty. And inundated with frogs:

We then headed for the Mount William National Park, which sounds a whole lot more impressive than the reality; Mount William is just 150m high. Musselroe Bay is part of this national park and we saw some bird life there.

Pelican

Kelp gulls

Australian pied cormorant

Bushie said this was a Mollymawk, but I reckon it’s a juvenile kelp gull

Just by the beach at Musselroe Bay was an old aboriginal midden.

These show where aboriginal folk had simply discarded things, such as shells. The layers are like a journal, showing that they’d left the area and then come back as the seasons dictated.

There was not much more to see in the Mount William National Park. A pair of kangaroos (mother and grown-up joey)

and, as the weather was really closing in by this stage, a camper grimly determined to have fun no matter what.

We high-tailed it out of the park, with Bushie making rude remarks about the National Parks authority investing its money in white elephants such as the Dove Lake Visitors Centre at Cradle Mountain (which, admittedly, is a major over-achievement) rather than maintaining areas like Mount William, which has fallen into neglect, allowing kunzea shrubs to take over what was once grassland and rich grazing for Forrester Kangaroos.

The dramatically-changing weather gave us some great landscapes as we headed for a village called Gladstone,

which is where I saw my first-ever emu,

with a very haughty-looking demeanour. It’s not strictly a wild bird, having been raised from a chick at a farm, but it’s lived an unpampered life, so I claim the tick box that says “emu” for this trip.

Bushie seemed to be rushing us back to Jetsonville, when he suddenly turned off the road on to a rough track

and we realised that we might be in for another Bushie Evening Special. Indeed we were. The track led to a pond

(which, of course, had a platypus in it) by a cabin

where Bushie’s wife, Janine, awaited us. We were offered another of Bushie’s excellent snack platters, but had to turn it down, as we knew we had a dinner date with Madeline and Guy back at the farm, and we needed to preserve our appetite for that. But beer was also on offer, and that went down well. Although the rain (and occasional hail) had stopped by this point it was, however, damn’ cold, so Bushie prepared an outdoor fire in a marvellous contraption

made up of various cogs, wheels and the inside of a washing machine. It was a great chance to meet Janine and talk about their life and business as the sun went down. Eventually she left us and we repaired inside the cabin, which was delightfully warm

and which had lighting and a window through which we could watch developments on the sward outside. About four pademelons came out and fossicked about until something scared them off. Eventually, another shape came shuffling out of the undergrowth;

a brush-tailed possum, perhaps with joey(s) in her pouch, which was lovely to see.

Janine and Bushie had agreed to take over stewardship of the cabin from the local council, as it was being used for all sorts of youthful skullduggery, involving drink and guns, and they wanted to avoid the tragedy that was otherwise pretty much inevitable. Their plan is to gradually build back the confidence of the local wildlife to provide even more of a viewing spectacle for their guests – we were only the second set of people to be taken here, so felt very privileged.

We had to leave in order to get back to the farm, and we had a delightful evening talking to Madeline and Guy about their lives and livelihoods. Two Jetson brothers came over from Leicestershire in the early 19th Century and started farms, which is how the area came to be called Jetsonville; Madeline and Guy are the only Jetsons now farming, raising a mixture of beef cattle and crops. To our mutual delight we discovered that Madeline’s middle name is Jane – while Jane’s middle name is Madeleine – which is wonderfully symmetrical.

We have to move on tomorrow, as we near completion of the circuit of the northern part of Tasmania. Our time in the north east has been excellent, filled with new wildlife and glorious scenery. I wonder what excitement our final destination on Tasmania will bring?