Tag Archives: Australia

Crossing Tasmania – Hobart to Strahan

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Sunday 8 September 2024 – We had to leave the delightful Henry Jones Art Hotel and hightail it across the island to the other coast. Our destination was a town called Strahan, which, for some reason known only to the locals, is pronounced “Strawn”. Audley, the travel chaps who  arranged our itinerary, had booked us a rental car, and so, having breakfasted and checked out, we walked the short distance to the Avis office to collect our car, a Toyota C-HR. Australia, of course, is civilised to the extent that they drive on the same side of the road as we do in the UK, so I was expecting to be able to deal with driving a car here with absolutely no problem.

Wrongly, as it turned out.

Not in a major way, you understand. But when I came to indicate left at the first junction and, in doing so, turned on the windscreen wipers, I realised that the cars here are Japanese spec – indicator and wiper stalks are the wrong way round. (Back in the UK, in the late ‘80s, I had a Toyota Celica Supra, which was a lovely motor, but which also suffered from this affliction, causing me to drive round roundabouts with the wipers going if ever I needed to rent a car. However, 30-plus years of driving UK spec cars in the UK has straightened out my left-right dysfunction, and it’s occasionally irritating to find myself once again falling into the trap). Never mind; in all other respects, the car is perfectly fine and provides a good way of getting from Hobart to Strahan.

Every time we mentioned to someone that we were driving to Strahan, someone routinely said something along the lines of “ooh, a windy route” – windy in the sense of twisty, not blowy. They were all correct, but to start with, we travelled along a multi-lane highway as we exited Hobart heading west.

 

As one might expect, after a while the multi-lane highway narrowed into a conventional road and the scenery became more bucolic.

We even passed some hop crops.

After an hour and a half or so, we got the opportunity to break our journey for a side excursion, to have a coffee and take a short walk to Russell Falls. The visitor centre there has a neat way of telling punters that there’s no WiFi:

not that we needed it, but it gave me a grin.

Several walks are available from the centre but since we had, overall, a five-hour journey to complete we just opted to take the short walk out to see the falls and then come straight back – about 45 minutes’ worth. The walk out is along a properly-surfaced path

past some very tall eucalypts

into rainforest

which features some really big trees.

It doesn’t take long to get to the falls,

which were a great deal more impressive than I had expected from photos I had seen beforehand, like this one.

Image Credit: https://waterfallsoftasmania.com.au/

Even an Icelander would concede that these

are proper falls.

The weather over the previous days has been pretty stormy – many people we’d chatted to have remarked on this – and so the river which feeds the falls is clearly full.

(Side note: the river which feeds these falls is the Russell Falls Creek. I’d aways thought of a creek as being something of rather minor pith and moment compared with a proper river. This one, however, seems pretty momentous at the mo.)

As well as the falls pictured above, it’s possible to walk a little further to another waterfall, called the Horseshoe Falls.  To get to this, you have to climb up some steps.

Lots of steps – 200, in fact. But it’s worth the climb.

(Photographic note – this is a handheld, half-second exposure, to capture that highly clichéd “milky water” effect which is supposed to convey dynamism and motion in the photo. Up to now, you would have needed a tripod to achieve an image that’s sharp – except for the intentionally blurred bits of course – but camera technology has progressed to the point where my Nice New Nikon can do it without all that tedious mucking about with extra gear. Nice!)

It’s not particularly cheap to visit the falls – a day pass for a car cost Aus $46, or around £25 – but the place is well-organised and well-maintained, so I don’t begrudge them the money.

Back on the road, in conditions that varied from showers to bucketing rain with the odd clear period thrown in, we could see that the tops of the mountains still had snow on them.

Not too surprising, I suppose – the temperature where we were was about 6°C. We took advantage of the occasional clear periods to take photos of the landscapes we drove through.

We’re not sure whether the yellow flowering tree is a wattle or a mimosa, but there were plenty of them livening up the colours of our route.

It was clear that Tasmania is not a particularly dry place from this hydroelectric infrastructure that we passed, the Tuncatinah Power Station

the occasionally marshy terrain

and the fact that it rained a lot as we went along.

We passed the geometric centre of Tasmania, which was worth a short stop. It was raining quite heavily at this point, so I sent Jane out to take a photo of the structure that marks the spot,

and the map which shows how they worked out the location.

The rain persisted for most of the rest of our journey to Strahan. Originally, we had planned to visit Lake St. Clair, which had been recommended as a side excursion, but frankly the prospect didn’t appeal. There was however one thing that Jane particularly wanted to see which she called “The Wall in the Wilderness”, and described as an evolving sculpture, so I resigned myself to trying to take photos of a large stone installation whilst getting rainwater down the back of my neck.

As we approached it, there were some sculptures mounted on posts on the track.

and a splendid eagle outside.

You can see what the weather was like, and there was something else that didn’t improve my mood, either.

So: I was to be charged Aus$22 to see something and not be allowed to photograph it??? The words rag, bull and red come to mind. However, Jane was adamant, and, importantly, this Wall thing appeared to be indoors, which was a plus, given the weather.  So I gloomily stumped up the funds and we went inside.

It turned out that I was wrong on multiple counts: firstly that it was a stone artwork, secondly that I would photograph it and thirdly that I wouldn’t enjoy it.

It started well – there was coffee available. The slightly odd but very charming chap who took my money also served us coffee and explained that one should walk around this thing in a particular direction. So in we went and….

It was breathtaking.

It is a wood carving.  It is a vast wood carving. It is huge and hugely impressive – a stupendous piece of work, created by one man over decades.  It is not, and never will be, finished, but the unfinished parts of it make what has been completed all the more impressive.

It would have been impossible for me to do justice to it in photography, so, in the end, I didn’t mind being told to put my camera away.

It’s made from 51 panels of wood, each one metre wide and three metres tall. 25 panels form one side, 25 back on to them as the other side and there’s one at the end. The carving on these panels is brilliant envisaged, wonderfully executed and beautifully lit. The panels tell “stories”: Footprints, Hydro, Forestry, Tiger, Endangered Species and “Her Story” (the last a bittersweet imagination of a romance which ended badly).

I normally take pride in using my own photography to tell the story of a day or a part of a day in these blog postings, but not today. It is possible to buy a photographic representation of the panels of The Wall – typically, this is a cynical attempt to get money out of punters (Glory Portico in Santiago, I’m looking at you). But here, because one simply can’t capture it in photos without a huge and complex project, it’s simply a way of taking home a memento of this extraordinary – thing.

One can find on the web a photo of the sculptor in front of his project, which might give some idea of the scale of it.

From the Wall’s website, here is a photo which attempts to show the detail in the carving work

 

As you can see from this, the textures that the sculptor, Greg Duncan, achieves are remarkable – folded paper, cloth, rope. As I said – breathtaking. He has now retired and although his son is a talented sculptor in metal (we assume those were his works outside) he does not work in wood, so The Wall will never be finished.

Deep breath….

We carried on our journey, coming down from the central plateau

to a town called Queenstown,

whose environs showed a clear history of mining

but which these days is just this town, you know?

And so we eventually reached Strahan some seven hours and 300km after we set out.

It’s not a large place and so we quickly found our accommodation for the night, a charming place called Franklin Manor.

Its interior is well in keeping with its colonial-era appearance,

and our welcome by Leeanne was warm, friendly and well-organised. As was the bar, with husband Chris displaying expert cocktail knowledge and interesting refreshment suggestions.

So ended a long, wet and interesting day.  We have just one night at Franklin Manor; tomorrow we’re off on a short cruise before departing for an area of the island where we hope eventually to see some of its unique wildlife. Exactly where and what, you can find out by keeping in touch with these pages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diversion: The Henry Jones Art Hotel, Hobart

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Sunday 8 September 2024 – I promised earlier (and earlier) that I would write about the hotel we stayed at in Hobart, the Henry Jones Art Hotel, because it made such an impression on us as we arrived a couple of days ago. For a first impression, the only place to have exceeded it was the Singular Hotel in Patagonia, and for a similar reason – the elegant reuse of a historic space as a hotel. The Singular saw the transformation of an old lamb canning factory; the Henry Jones was a redevelopment of a waterfront warehouse that was once used in the whaling industry and then repurposed for making jam. Henry’s story is a remarkable one; he started in the jam factory, sticking labels on tins, rose through becoming foreman to buying a controlling interest in the business and reconstructing it in his own name, with the “IXL” (“I Excel”) brand name.

Like so many waterfront properties the jam factory fell into disrepair and was practically on the point of collapse when the current owners rescued it a quarter of a century ago and reimagined it as the hotel it is today. The construction of the hotel preserved as much of the surviving jam factory as possible, with only four beams being replaced for safety.  So the fabric of the building exudes the history of its links to its jam-making past.

And the connection with the art world? From the 1970s through to the 1990s, art students from the adjacent Tasmanian School of Creative Arts partied (and maybe lived) in the dilapidated building – and photos we saw of that time show that it looked more like a multi-storey carpark that had been destroyed by fire than anything else. The once-students were subsequently invited to walk through the new building and create art based on what they saw. This art became the first art displayed in the hallways upon opening. Ever since then, the hotel has been a living, breathing art gallery. So its charisma comes from the combination of its historic fabric and its unique art displays.

Its fabric: the corridors are redolent of its warehouse origins.

Its walls betray some of its origins: in the mortar, one can see traces of possum hair (compare the use of horsehair in old European buildings)

and fragments of shells, originally taken from an indigenous midden and ground up to use the calcium in the mortar.

There is a great open area, under a uniquely-designed roof, available for conventions and other gatherings

and the hotel’s other spaces have wonderful decor.

Some of the original equipment is used for decor touches

or just pictured

and some places betray its history, such as this leakage of ancient jam down a wall as it was released when the room was warmed up.

What adds to the impact of this fabric is the art on display. We went on an official Art Tour of the hotel (led, it has to be said, by a very irritating lady, but revealing some great stories). Everything in the hotel is available for sale, which means that the pieces around the place do change over time; and there are specific areas which are dedicated as galleries.

I’m not a great one for spending time wringing the meaning or significance out of artworks, but some were very impressive pieces of work.  This one, for example, a photo-realistic depiction of an indigenous woven basket

is not, as you might think, a photograph; it is done in, of all things, crayon on sheets of black paper.

This picture of woodland after a forest fire

was created from its actual ashes, individually selected, mixed and dropped in specific patterns – nine months’ work.

Many of the other pieces have political or historical significance; some are winners of the John Glover Art Prize, a competition sponsored by the hotel.

As well as all that intellectual and historical stuff, it does other good hotel things. There is a good bar

where chief cocktail wrangler Jenn will give some good cocktail theatre;

and, in the room, some good attention to detail in little extras provided: a trawl through the historical records to see if there were family connections to the convicts who were transported here; and I draw your attention to the bottom left of this drawer, which was next to the thoughtfully-provided kettle and fridge.

We enjoyed our time in Hobart immensely, and the unique nature of the Henry Jones Art Hotel added unique memories for our time in the city.

OK, then.

Back to the mainstream of our Australian travels in the next post, as we travel across Tasmania to the west coast. Do come back and read about that, won’t you?

Wandering round Hobart

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Saturday 7 September 2024 – With a day at leisure stretching before us, it was obvious that we would go for a walk and Jane had discovered a self-guided walking route for us to follow. Hobart is an interesting city to walk around, as it’s the second-oldest capital city in Australia after Sydney, having been founded as a British colony in 1804 and settled as a penal colony by hard-bitten British and Irish convicts. There’s quite a lot of Georgian architecture from this convict era, and it makes for a very attractive place to wander round.

We are staying at the Henry Jones Art Hotel, more of which in a separate post, but it stretches for quite a long way along Hobart’s waterfront.

Outside it by the water, there are various statues: the “walk to freedom” – remembering the female convicts (and their children) who settled here;

and various references to Australian Antarctic exploration, for which Hobart was a centre.

The chap on the right above is Belgian-born explorer Louis Bernacchi, the first Australian to winter in Antarctica, and who accompanied Scott as chief scientist on one of his expeditions.

As is often the case in waterside cities, the waterfront area is attractive

with a selection of unusual boats, the purpose of which is not necessarily obvious.

The other side of the waterfront area from our hotel was given over, it being a Saturday morning, to the Salamanca street market, which is A Thing.

It is vast

and diverse, with stalls offering fresh and prepared foods, clothes and accessories of all kinds as well as a startling range of niche products.

Models made from ammunition
Meringue specialist
Sock specialist
Fossil specialist

It is clearly very popular – it was very crowded indeed, and so we headed out past it towards  Battery Point, which is set on a hill above the city. Its name stems from the fact that the first Battery was built there as part of Hobart’s coastal defences, and well stocked with arms and ammunition which, in the end, were never used in anger, just mainly for ceremonial salutes.

To get there, we passed the old semaphore station

and entered the Battery Point area proper, where there are many  styles of colonial buildings, from cottages to grander houses.

One very attractive diversion took us to Arthur Circus, which has several old cottages, originally constructed for the garrison officers of the Battery, surrounding a small park area.

Walking on took us past many more really attractive older buildings, lovely spring blossom, and some great views over the city.

We stopped for coffee

at a place where they had fantastic cakes

(yes, we had some; yes I took photos; no, you won’t see them here) and at least one interesting item on the day’s menu.

Our path took us past St. George’s Church, a Greek revival church built in 1838 to serve the Battery Point residents (the classical tower was designed by English architect James Blackburn in 1847).

Steps took us back down to the Salamanca area, where we found more quirky statuary

It’s entitled “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”

some helpful people,

and, on the lawns outside Parliament House, a Masked Lapwing, a bird we had seen before,

and a Pied Currawong, one which was new to us.

The city has some attractive, imposing and, indeed, historic buildings, too.

The oldest continuously-licensed pub in Australia

City Hall

Post Office Building

The slightly odd bell tower of St. David’s Cathedral

We went into St. David’s Cathedral,

which is odd in that it has a gift shop beside the pews

and it has some lovely stained glass, both classic

and modern.

Opposite the cathedral is a statue of someone or other, but

Franklin, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Actually I do, but couldn’t resist the joke.  It’s Sir John Franklin, an Arctic explorer and former Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the convict era.

That was it for our walk around the city, and very pleasant it was, too.  We got back to our hotel in time for a tour of our unique hotel, which is what I shall write about next; I hope you join me to read about it.