Tag Archives: Scenery

Escape from Melbourne, and Day 1 on Tasmania

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Friday 6 September 2024 – Our entry to Melbourne was not entirely straightforward. Neither was our exit, which laid bare the sheer opacity of the airline ticketing process. We had been booked on a Virgin Australia flight yesterday morning from Melbourne to Hobart, a relatively short flight of an hour and a quarter or so. When we came to check in online, we found we were not allowed to do so; seats had not been allocated, there were no free seats except extra cost options (extra legroom seats, basically), and when I tried to pay the extra, all my various credit or debit cards were declined on the incomprehensible basis that I was trying to pay in a currency different from that of the original booking. I think it was something to do with it having been a travel agent booking, a suspicion which was reinforced later.

Some moments after failing to check in online, we received an e-mail from VA apologising for changing our flights. Instead of a direct flight at 10.40am, we were now on a 3.30pm flight. Closer examination of the e-mail revealed that the flight was to Sydney, and would be followed by a 5.50pm flight from Sydney to Hobart. None of the options we could explore online revealed that there were any direct flights available from Melbourne to Hobart. So we checked in for our multi-stage flight thinking that VA must have cancelled the original one.

We took a small amount of comfort from the later departure time, were able to have a relaxed morning exiting our apartment, and got ourselves to the airport for about 2pm. At this point, Jane’s caution about the whole thing paid off, as she was concerned about whether our bags would be checked through all the way to Hobart. So we looked around for an operative to help us and, as luck would have it, he, Irwan, was brilliant. He took us to a manned bag drop and started chatting with the lady there; between them, they figured out that there was a 1720 direct flight from Melbourne to Hobart. Irwan then spent quite a lot of screen time basically, we think, getting around all the objections that the system was throwing up against us being allowed on this flight. Again, the fact that this was a travel agent booking was mentioned as a complication. To cut what is already a long story short, he managed to cudgel his computer into allocating us extra legroom seats on this direct flight for no extra charge, proving that he was a Good Man. We had some time to kill before our flight, but would still arrive earlier than VA’s rather eccentric re-routing.

My suspicion is that VA had overbooked all the Hobart flights that day which is why it was rerouting us via Sydney; and further that we were lucky to find in Irwan someone who could get round the technological barriers put in place to make our lives more miserable.

So, we had three hours to kill before our flight. This could mean only one thing.

As it happens, our departure was delayed a further 30 minutes by the late arrival of air crew, but we still got to Hobart

earlier than we would have done had we gone via Sydney.

Awaiting us to transfer us to our hotel was a young Taiwanese chap called Stephen who was very proactive in helping us with bags and so forth, and so we were soon enough at the frankly quite amazing Henry Jones Art Hotel on Hobart waterfront. Only once before had we walked into a hotel which made such a striking impression – the Singular Hotel in Patagonia. The Henry Jones has a unique vibe and quite a history to it and I shall write about it in more detail in due course. For now, suffice it to say that we have a very large and very comfortable room and the lady who runs the bar knows her cocktails.

All that was yesterday. Today, we were booked to go on an excursion to Bruny Island, a very oddly-shaped island south of Hobart.

(By the way, the empty bit shown on the left of the map really does look like that on Google. That’s because it seems to be empty – it’s the Southwest National Park and appears to be devoid of anything which looks like civilisation.)

Our tour was billed as offering “spectacular landscapes and tastings of gourmet local products”, so I thought we were in for a day of mainly majestic scenery. Since it was raining when we were picked up, I also hoped that we would simply be ferried about to gawp at (and, of course, photograph) the views without getting too soused. The day didn’t turn out like that, actually.

Our guide for the day was Alan

who was wrangling a coach and 24 guests. We had a drive to the ferry terminal,

where there was also a marina.

As we crossed the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and looked back, it was clear that the Tasmanian scenery was going to be quite different from almost any we’d so far encountered.

Having expected majestic landscapes on our arrival, I was a bit surprised that the first thing that Alan was talking about was a cheese stop. As we headed there, Alan gave us a few facts about Bruny Island, and it was clear that it was reasonably close in spirit to French Island, where we’d been just a couple of days before. Larger than French Island, its population is just 600. It’s not so off-grid – there’s electricity, for example, and a greater range of retail options than just the one general store – but it’s still mainly national park, state forest and some grazing areas, popular as a holiday location with some surfing beaches.

And so this was our first destination on the tour:

the Bruny Island Cheese Company. It is the first time in my life that I have had a tutored cheese tasting.

The tasting was led by Paola

who did a great job of explaining about the company, its products and its ethos, all of which are rather impressive. The cheese business has been going since 2003, after its founder, Nick Haddow, spent 10 years working with specialist cheese makers in many different countries around the world. The milk used is from their own farm, Glen Huon, which is actually on the mainland and which raises three rare breeds. Unusually, it allows the calves to stay with their mothers and drink their milk for several months, which lowers the stress levels for the cows, thus improving the quality of the milk yield. The focus on solely Tasmanian produce shapes the way they make their cheese and what ingredients are used in its production. We sampled four cheeses.

(Apologies for the photo of food, which is normally against my principles, but it is rather the story, here.)

You’ll notice a glass of beer in the photo. That’s there because in 2016 the company also started brewing its own beer, again using only Tasmanian-grown ingredients.

It was clear that there was a lot of passion, dedication and expertise at work. As a result, the cheeses are award-winning.

As we trooped back on to the bus and moved on, Alan mentioned the other tastings we would be doing during the tour – chocolate and honey. So it became clear that this was to be a major component of the day.

Our next stop, though, was a scenery stop, with a historical twist. From the map above, you can see that the two major lumps of the island are joined by a narrow stretch of land, which is about 70m wide at its narrowest. We could take the opportunity for a good view over it, provided we were prepared to walk up

some 240 steps. I did this, and the view was, indeed, worth the climb. You can clearly see The Neck, the strip of land that connects North and South Bruny.

The historical angle could be found at the top;

a monument to Truganini, a powerful aboriginal woman who fought for the rights of the indigenous people against the early colonists. She witnessed the murder of her mother by sailors and the kidnap of her sisters by sealers. She formed an association with a lay preacher, George Augustus Robinson, who hatched various plans to relocate those aboriginals who had not been killed of by colonists and their diseases, and enlisted Truganini’s help in executing those plans. The various plans and promises came to naught – it is a depressing story to read, and her treatment after her death reflects even more badly on the colonists. Her life has become representative of both the dispossession and destruction that was exacted upon Indigenous Australians and also their determination to survive the colonial genocidal policies that were enforced against them.

The area around the lookout is also home to Little Penguins and Mutton Birds (Shearwaters), and their burrows can be seen in places, and beside a lower boardwalk in the same location.

The bitumen of the road running along The Neck was changed from black to white

in order that the penguins could better be seen by motorists. We saw no penguins – it’s the wrong time of year for that here – but I did spot a blue wren.

We moved on past the pleasant scenery of the island’s settled areas,

and stopped for a short walk in the Mavista area, where there’s a walking track through rainforest.

It has a very prehistoric feel to it, due to the ferns and moss that dominate the environment.

Our next stop was to be lunch, in an area called Adventure Bay. En route, though, Alan spotted something quite unexpected – a white wallaby.

It was actually nearby another, conventionally grey, wallaby,

and the two of them seemed quite unconcerned by a coachload of people taking their photos; Alan said they actually relished the attention.

The lack of predators, the indulgence of the local people towards their cuteness, and the lack of colour prejudice amongst the animals themselves means that the white wallabies prosper on Bruny. (The jury seems to be out when it comes to deciding whether their colouring is leucistic or albino; whatever, it’s quite striking). It is also the name of a gin which is used as the basis for a local spritzer-type drink

which we drank to accompany our fish-and-chips lunch.

In the same area is the Bligh Museum of Pacific Exploration,

established in 1954 to display historic maps, paintings and other artifacts relating to the landings at Adventure Bay by various famous explorers, such as Tasman himself, James Cook and William Bligh. It’s quite small, but has masses of content

including the very tree stump to which Captain Cook moored his ship, the Resolution, in 1777.

The stump had been left in its original location, with a plaque attached describing its significance, until some utter wanker removed the plaque, leaving the V-shaped gash you can see. At that point, it was moved to the museum for its own protection.

Further up the road is Two Tree point (I’m still trying to work out a gag around one Two Tree, but have so far failed). This is thought to be where Cook’s artist painted a picture, of which a reproduction is on display.

This is my version of it.

You can see a beach there, but the recent violent weather which marooned us on Kangaroo Island and which has made south Australian lives a misery over the last week actually caused much of the sand to be washed away.

All those rocks used to be covered in sand.

Enough of this history; it was time for some more artisanal experience – the Bruny Island Chocolate Company. Actually, we didn’t get sucked into the vortex of possible chocolate purchases, but instead joined Alan and a group of others in exploring the neighbouring gardens of the chaps who have created and run the chocolate company. One of them got his love of chocolate from years of work as a chef; the other is a dentist, which seems rather a neat partnership for demand generation.

The gardens – normally private, but open for our group to visit – are rather lovely.

You’ll notice, in the final picture above, that the cock appears to have, well, a cock. It doesn’t; it’s actually its foot you can see (the one on the right, below).

There’s a lovely globe, made out of bits of scrap from the garage of one of their fathers

and various other nice exhibits.

After this, it was time for our final artisanal experience of the day – the Honey Pot.

The honey made here comes from bees which are moved around the island, following the nectar flows so that they can create their honeys from a variety of flowers. One can taste them, so when a coachload of people turns up, there’s a bit of a feeding frenzy.

We were given some honey ice cream and a taster pot of our choice to take away with us.

That was it for the tour – we headed back to the ferry

and thence to our hotel, after a day which was very enjoyable but nothing like what I had expected. We have no formal programme for tomorrow, bar a tour of the Henry Jones Hotel, but I expect that the obvious thing for us to do will be to go for a walk. Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to report about it here, so do please keep in touch to find out how the day unfolded.

Heading south through the “Top End”

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Saturday 24 August 2024 – After our short time in the area, it was time to leave Darwin and head southwards, aiming for Adelaide, some 2,600km away. To do this, we would cross the “Top End”, a rather vaguely- and informally-defined section, basically the northernmost bit of the Northern Territory. This was to be a train journey, but not just any old train; we were catching the Ghan.

As seems to be inevitable with these things, it involved an early start, so the alarm went off at 0500 so that we could take breakfast before checking out of the hotel and in for the train journey. Having taken breakfast, we noted that there was a special desk set up in the hotel lobby for the train, with people’s bags clearly waiting to be transferred. We chatted with the guy there and picked up our lanyards and went to get our cases.

The baggage aspect of this had been the subject of much planning and a certain amount of angst as we worked out our strategy. A strategy was necessitated by the fact that our accommodation on the train wouldn’t have room for our suitcases; we needed to check them in and keep a few essentials back for use during a three-day, three-night journey. We had brought special foldable bags for just this purpose and so we had spent a bit of time sorting these out yesterday evening.

Imagine our surprise, when we got back to the hotel lobby with our bags, to find that the chap, his desk and all the cases had vanished, and yet it was only 7am, well before our official pickup time. There followed a certain amount of agitated making of phone calls, and we eventually established that someone was on the way to pick us up.  In the end, a small bus with a luggage trailer turned up and ended up being our private transfer to the Darwin Convention Centre (which would only have been 4 minutes’ walk away) so that we could do the real check-in. The driver told us he was the “sweeper” as there was apparently a bit of confusion generally that morning!

There were a load of people sitting outside the convention centre

And, as it turned out, inside as well;

The blurb had promised “light refreshments” – in fact we could have taken a full breakfast here, had we known. We did manage some champagne disguised as orange juice…

After a few preliminary announcements, it was time to troop out to the coaches to take us to the train, which was actually a good way away.

We were introduced to our cabin,

which was actually a lot smaller than I had been expecting, to be honest. I still had memories of a Southern Orient Express journey we’d undertaken between Brisbane and Sydney over 20 years ago, which had actually offered accommodation with a double bed, whereas this was self-evidently a bunk-up, which is getting dangerously near to camping as far as I’m concerned. At least we had shower and toilet, which is much better than the original Simplon Orient Express, which was just the bunks plus handbasin, with shower and loo down the corridor,  when we did it a few years ago.

Still, we had a good location, right next to the bar

And the dining car.

A few words about the train itself. In 1878, work started on a planned 2900km railway link between Australia’s southern and northern shores. Starting at Port Augusta on the south coast, the narrow-gauge railway reached nearly 700 km away, at which point work stopped for 40 years, and the work of transporting people and materials northwards to Alice Springs was undertaken by camel trains, which were mainly operated by people from Afghanistan. It’s widely thought that the name “The Ghan” is derived from these hardy Afghans, though many other (mainly less charitable) versions of the derivation also exist, according to the Wiki entry. It wasn’t until 1929 that the railway reached as far as Alice Springs (1200 km from the start), and it took until 1980 for a standard gauge route to reach all the way north to Darwin.

Confusing the issue slightly is a locality somewhat south of Alice Springs called Ghan, which  also owes its name to the role played by the Afghans and their camels in opening up central Australia.

Our train was 750 metres long and had two engines and thirty-five carriages, which underlined the convenience of our carriage’s location; we might have had a long walk to the bar, and that would never do.

The train set off dead on time at 0900, and having had breakfast at our hotel first thing, and been offered breakfast at the convention centre, we were then called for 1015 brunch in the dining car, which was good food and very efficiently served. It’s clearly going to be difficult not to eat too much during the three days of this train trip.

The countryside that we passed as we left Darwin showed more evidence of the burning that we’d seen.

On each of the three days of the trip we had booked some kind of excursion, at least one of which should be jolly exciting (stay tuned for more…); today’s was a sedate cruise up the Katherine River, or Nitmiluk as it’s called in the local language.

Our stop was, unsurprisingly, at the city of Katherine, where there were kapok trees in flamboyant flower by the rail side,

and we embarked on a 30-minutes coach journey, driven by the ebullient Harry, to our cruise departure point. Harry was good enough to depart from his official route to show us a bridge across the river

which apparently had been under water in the extra-exciting flooding of 1998, giving one an idea of just how much water they can get here in the wet season.

Our cruise departure was slightly chaotic, as there was no-one to tell us where to go after we got off the coach, and a coterie of the leaders determinedly set off in what turned out to be the wrong direction. But eventually it became clear where we should be going and so we all trooped on to the boat for our cruise.

The lass in the pink hat was our driver and guide, and kept up a dryly witty running commentary about what we were seeing, educating us on crocodiles, particularly the difference between salties and freshies (should you fall in, one swims towards you, the other swims away) and the difference between a canyon and a gorge (the latter has a perpetual supply of running water), as well as some of the geology that was very obviously going on around us.

The scenery was striking, with some impressive cliffs and rock formations.

They do have crocodiles here, mainly freshies, which have various nesting sites on beaches along the river (salties lay eggs among rafts of sticks in the water, apparently).

Salties would kill and eat freshies, so great efforts are taken to remove the former should they end up here, which they can when the waters run high during wet season. Therefore, from the start of the dry season various tactics are used to detect and relocate them, with a clear period of six weeks with no sightings being the requirement for declaring the area clear of rogue salties.  One tactic is very simple – a buoy.

Salties, being curious creatures, will bite these to see if they are edible, and it’s the toothmarks that give away their presence and possibly even their size.

The Katherine River Gorge actually consists of 13 gorges, something which only becomes apparent during the dry season, when the waters recede and rocky barriers appear; in the wet, the waters are high enough that there is only one gorge apparent. We were here towards the end of dry season, so we eventually reached the dead end of the first gorge

and in order to carry on, we had to get out and walk about 500m to the next gorge along.

This walk led past some rock art, painted puzzlingly high up on a sheer rock face;

and one could see the water trickling down from the next gorge along.

We hopped on board a second boat

which took us past some more impressive slabs of masonry,

and some wonderful colours.

We pottered around this second gorge for about half an hour, admiring the scenery,

and then retraced our steps to await the boat to take us back through the first gorge,

which was driven by Johnny Depp, who’s obviously out of real work at the moment.

Right at the end of the cruise (which would also have been the start, but we weren’t told about this then) our lady skipper pointed out a specially-built viewpoint high up on the opposite bank.

If you examine the rock formation under it, it would appear to be balanced on the nose of a crocodile – a pleasing illusion. [ Crocodile Rock – ? Ed ]

A bus ride then took us back to the train,

our evening meal and a relatively early night, as we had to be ready for the morrow’s adventure, which was something that we’d both been greatly looking forward to. Exactly what it was is something you’ll have to find out about by keeping in touch with these pages.

 

 

A Day in Litchfield National Park

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Friday 23 August 2024 – Our stay in Darwin was really more of a staging post between the Kimberley cruise and the next segment of our Australia trip, more of which later. However, we had a whole day here, and it was to be filled with an excursion to Litchfield National Park, about 100km south of Darwin. The tour was included in our formal itinerary, but entry tickets to the park were not. These are only available online, so we stumped up the AU$10 each before we set out. At no stage were we asked for evidence that we’d paid our dues, by the way. I don’t know how, or even if, it’s policed in any way.

Anyway, the itinerary included some interesting-looking items, such as seeing termite mounds, rivers and waterfalls, and some of less, OK no, interest – going for a dip by the rivers and waterfalls. It was billed as a “small group” tour, and turned out to be 17 people on a small bus

on a tour led by Emily.

The park was about a 90-minute drive, which included a coffee-and-loo stop

and travel through a countryside which showed some evidence of burning.

Much of the burning was intentional, programmatic and necessary, though there was some evidence of an incidental bush fire – nothing major, though, just some smoking undergrowth.

The indigenous people have developed a detailed understanding of the “right way” to go about burning the bush. Although not nomadic, they would move between seasonal locations, gathering food according to the location, weather and climate. Having harvested, they would burn the area before moving on; so when they returned later on, there was fresh growth breaking through to be harvested again. The controlled burning also removed much of the flammable detritus in the undergrowth so that lightning strike-induced fires were less likely to burn out of control.

On the topic of the indigenous peoples, one of the learnings for me of this trip is of the highly variegated nature of the indigenous cultural geography. Emily told us about the various indigenous peoples whose land we were travelling through, mentioning that the Australian land mass was actually split into some 250 countries, each with its own indigenous people. There’s a very good interactive map, which gives more details, but here’s the overview.

After a while, Emily swung off the road and parked up for our view of the two sorts of termite mounds on display. Termites split broadly into two types – wood-eating and grass-eating – and the first evidence we saw was of the work of grass-eating termites, and plenty of them, too.

If you view from an angle, you can see that each mound is actually a blade-like construction

and each blade is aligned north-south along Earth’s magnetic field. Hence, the termites are called Magnetic Termites.  In mounds built this way the termites receive the warmth of the sun on their eastern and western sides in the morning and evening while exposing less surface to the sun at midday when the nest might overheat.

Each mound belongs to a single queen, who pumps out eggs for several years; while she does this, worker termites are maintaining and growing each mound, the building work being visible as spikes of new material at the top.

When the queen dies, then that’s the end of the colony in that mound; vacated mounds can be distinguished by their lack of spikes.

Eventually, the mounds simply collapse and all the nutrients in their construction are returned to the earth.  What causes the collapse?  Mainly rain.  In the wet season, the fields which look so dry in the photos above can be covered in water, and it’s this which undermines the decaying mounds.

As well as the Magnetic Termite mounds, there were some of the more conventional style of mound, called cathedral mounds.  We had seen plenty of these as we drove along, but there were a couple of monsters at the site where we’d stopped.

Here’s the same thing, with people for scale.

Following the termite mound viewings were visits to three water features.  The first was the Florence Falls

which can be seen from a convenient viewpoint, and then visited by going down some 135 steps

and past the odd occasional sylvan scene.

I had formed a sort of half-hope that I might be able to take a photo of the falls without too many people in it, but it was clear, as we arrived, that this would be unlikely.

Sure, I could take a photo of the falls

but the wider picture was all full of people.

It seems that Australians are incapable of passing by a scene like this without throwing themselves in, something which requires too much faffing about to be of any interest to me. But it was a hot day, and I suppose it’s a way of cooling off.

In the trees surrounding the falls there were flying foxes – fruit bats.

And Jane captured a photo which demonstrates very clearly why Pandanus is sometimes called “screw pine”.

The second water feature, Buley Rockholes, was less dramatic

but equally crowded.

 

The third, Wangi Falls, was probably the most photogenic.

The other entertainment for the day was a “crocodile cruise”, on the Adelaide River. Having seen some crocodiles as we cruised the Kimberley, I guess I was expecting a quiet half-hour pottering up and down the river spotting crocodiles.  On the other hand, as we approached our cruise, there were signs for “Jumping Croc Tours” and similar, so I began to wonder if we would see something a bit more dynamic. I half-remember a crocodile cruise in the USA, about 30 years ago, where we were treated to the sight of a largish croc called Elvis leaping out of the water to catch bait dangled for him.

Our cruise leader was a chap called Rex

who ran a small and slightly ramshackle operation, but who was friendly, quite well-organised and knowledgeable.  He spent a reasonable amount of time explaining that we were dealing with saltwater crocodiles (“salties”), which are large, voracious and very, very dangerous – so no limbs or extremities outside the boat, or even camera lenses, as these could be the target of an attack. He pointed out that crocodiles, like sharks, have been unchanged by evolution over millions of years – in other words they are as good at their job as they could be, and that job involves stealth, aggression and voraciousness. We noted that Rex was wearing a gun.

After the preliminaries, we went off on to his boat –

– the smallest on the river, apparently, but still well-guarded with bars and solid steel mesh, only slightly bent, he told us, in encounters with salties  – and set off, with Rex telling us about the life of crocodiles on the Adelaide River.

Salties are very different from fresh water crocodiles (called, logically enough, “freshies”) – larger, much more aggressive and highly territorial.  We started off in the territorial waters of a large male called Sneaky.  Whilst we waited for him, there was the opportunity of capturing a couple of shots of local bird life.

It seemed the parrots weren’t too afraid of the hawk, though.

Rex attracted Sneaky to the boat using chunks of chicken dangled off a pole. A long pole. When he turned up, it was quite disconcerting to see how big he was and how evil he looked.

He was called Sneaky for a reason – he actually managed to snaffle the first piece of chicken whilst it was still underwater, but eventually Rex was able to get him to jump and take the bait. It was so swift and dramatic, that it was impossible adequately to capture by photo or video – for one chicken nugget he jumped so high that his head was higher than the roof of the boat; then he crashed against the side of the boat as he went down, which was really rather alarming.

Rex wasn’t just doing circus tricks; our time with him was quite educational as well as being disconcertingly dramatic. He introduced us to a female called Flicker, whom he also inveigled into taking bait, but he explained that she had to be cautious because Sneaky, the alpha male of the stretch of water, was still around.

We moved up the river into another male’s territory.  This one was called Gnasher. He’s a big bastard.

We also had a visit from a whole herd of Whistling Kites.

On the way back to his dock, Rex explained to us the import of territoriality. Any stretch will have an alpha male; alpha status is settled by fighting, if necessary to the death, and imposes a kind of order to the crocodile community. So when it was decided that there were too many crocodiles (for which, read: too many people killed in accidents) and it was decided to cull some of the alpha males, the result was actually carnage. Instead of making the river safer, it resulted in a whole series of fights as the remaining crocodiles established the new chomping order. It’s now reasonably accepted that culling is not a good idea, and the crocs are allowed to get on with life in their own way.

The crocs we saw today were much larger and more frightening than any others I had come across, and my respect for them has only increased.  It was an entertaining and educational hour or so we spent with Rex.

After that was just the journey back to the hotel and preparation for the morrow when, as I say, we embark on the next segment of our Australian trip. We will travel from Darwin to Adelaide; exactly how we go about this is something you’ll have to come back and read about another day.