Heading West...

ONLY 5 WEEKS TO GO!!!!!!

Making tutu's!

We were warmly welcomed back to Caroline and Richard’s house in Melbourne and had arrived in time to celebrate Stuart’s god-daughter’s third birthday! Happy Birthday Elsie!! The whole week was pretty much spent playing with the girls - Elsie (3) & Emily (1). We went to Elsie’s kiddie party at the Community Garden CERES, watched her Fairy Dancing concert, had a surprise party at the local park for Uncle Stuart and a second family birthday party for Elsie at a miniature train park. Did I mention I also spent nearly 12 hours straight sewing pink and red ‘sticky out’ tutu’s for the girls on my last day in Melbourne! I miss my sewing machine and loved every minute of it! The girls loved them and danced around the kitchen wearing them non-stop until we left! Since leaving Melbourne, Caroline has sent us photographs of the girls going shopping – both wearing their tutu’s!

Behind the scenes Stuart was busy getting the car it’s 100,000km service and having the zipper repaired on the camper as we had actually worn out the zipper slider! Stuart had to argue a little to get it fixed under warranty, as CUB said the zips don’t wear out and it must have been abused! But CUB settled to fix it anyway out of good faith. Whatever! Its fixed now, so we are happy!

I also caught up with my wonderful friends Brenda, Amanda, Elise and Kirsty, along with a little retail therapy! When in Melbourne...


At the 12 Apostles...

Our exit route of Victoria was via the Great Ocean Road, but unfortunately our planned side trip to the Grampians was cancelled as the majority of the park was still closed due to previous flood damage. The Great Ocean Road was pretty wet and FREEZING cold as well, but we did our best to grit our teeth and get out of the car and explore anyway! The 12 Apostles were definitely worth it but we passed on the Otway Lighthouse, which claimed to be ‘the most significant lighthouse in Australia’ and was charging $17.50 per person to even get close enough to look at it! Fair enough to do a guided tour, but we just wanted to see the coastline where it stands! Still, the drive out there was worth it though, as we met some very cute koalas on the roadside! We also had some interesting walks along the beaches of the Shipwreck Coast, locating some of the anchors from ships that have been wrecked on this notorious stretch of coast.

On one of our walks, Stuart found a juvenile little Blue Penguin, who had crawled out of the pounding surf alive but exhausted and shivering in the freezing wind. Given it was low tide, he would have ended up back in the water soon after, so Stuart picked the little one up and relocated him just up the beach behind a dry rock just above the high tide mark. He seemed to pick up just being out of the wind, and thanked Stuart with a snap at his fingers! We left hoping that he survived the night and got back to the ocean for a feed.

For a while our plans have included some kayaking on the Glenelg River on the border of Vic and SA. We headed to the border in some pretty cold weather, unsure if we would end up on the water, but we set up camp anyway. We ended the day rugged up with multiple blankets on the bed and woke up to sun, lots and lots of glorious sun! And a beautiful 33 degree day! I think we were so relieved that we just laid about all day reading and soaking up the warmth. It wasn’t until after dinner and the sun was setting that I finally got into my kayak and went for a beautiful warm sunset paddle. In a singlet and shorts! Stuart was happy enough playing with his camera on the jetty!

Our newfound sun and warmth stayed with us as we crossed the border and headed to the World Heritage Area of the Naracoorte Fossil Caves in South Australia. We were really impressed with the underground bed of fossils found in the limestone caves. The story was that during the time of the megafauna animals would fall down a long narrow hole in the ground called a solution pipe, formed by water pooling and dissolving the limestone below. The animals became trapped in the cave and died. The excavated fossil bed we saw on our tour was about a 10m x 5m area, but the remaining unexcavated area was huge, around 60m x 20m, and down to a depth of 4m according to our guide. Who know’s what they’ll find in future excavations, as they have already identified over 100 different species from what they have dug! It has revealed two entire skeletons of extinct megafauna, one a giant relative of the wombat and the other a giant leaf eating kangaroo. They have also discovered another 42 species of kangaroo which do not exist today. Apart from the fossils the limestone formations within the cave were also very beautiful. As we left our cave tour we were delighted to find the weather still warm and sunny! (It’s a novelty to us! Not like you Perth-ians).

However...we woke up this morning to grey clouds and as we left the caves area it started raining, and if you have seen the weather report, it hasn’t stopped since! We had been planning a three day stopover in the Coorong National Park, but we drove through the park to find all the campsites wet, muddy, windy and swarming with mosquitoes! Some of the tracks were pretty slippery, with the car and trailer sliding around sideways! Yes I was freaking, and yes Stuart was grinning!! The Coorong is a significant pelican breeding site and was the filming location for the movie ‘Storm Boy’. We still saw lots of pelicans looking majestic as they soared in formation over the inland lagoon, and fishing in the shallows, but disappointingly we decided a change of plan was in order.

So after an extra long day driving in the increasingly heavy rain, we are holed up in a cabin right on the bank of a very swollen Murray River. And we are sitting here shaking our heads in disbelief because the news just reported widespread flash flooding in Adelaide and surrounding areas!

C’est la vie

Last days in Tassie...

Stui here!

Well, we have braved the ferry without chucking up (it was quite a bit rougher than the trip over!) and now back to the mainland after almost 2 months in Tassie! We’ve had some fantastic experiences, even with the somewhat wet weather we have encountered!

After our couple of days at Lake St Clair, including our freezing paddle, we spent a very wet day driving through to the west coast at Strahan. On the way we took in the stark hills around Queenstown which have been pretty much completely denuded as a result of all of the trees being cut down to feed the copper mine smelters last century, whilst the pollution from the smelters poisoned any regrowth! With a lack of vegetation, the rain pretty much washed away the topsoil. We later found out that the current mine operators are spending millions on rehabilitating the hillsides.

Once in Strahan we booked ourselves into a cabin for a couple of nights of luxury, along with booking ourselves on the Wilderness Railway and a Gordon River cruise. The historic railway ran from Queenstown through to Strahan and was built to transport the copper from the mines to the port. Given the mountainous terrain, the railway uses the APT system, which is a third toothed rail fitted between the two standard rails which the engine engages via some additional cogs fitted underneath it. The extra rails allow the trail to climb gradients of 1:16, compared to a standard railway’s maximum gradient of 1:40. It was a great little trip, travelling alongside the King River which is now biologically dead – the pH of the river is between 3-4 which is acidic. This is another environmental disaster resulting from the Queenstown’s mining history!


The calm waters of Macquarie Harbour

 The next day the weather cleared, which was brilliant for us as we headed off on our Gordon River cruise. We motored out through the Devils Gates, which is the very narrow entrance to Macquarie Harbour, only about 80m wide and usually pretty rough! Thankfully it wasn’t too bad! From the entrance, we headed down to the actual Gordon River, cruising up the river to have a look at the spectacular reflections on the still water! Absolutely spectacular, with the reflections almost perfect! On the return leg to Strahan, we stopped at Sarah Island, another convict penal settlement. At the time of the settlement, the island was completely cleared, but most of the vegetation has now grown back with a few ruins spread over the island.

From Strahan, we headed up into the Tarkine region, staying a couple of nights at the Corinna wilderness settlement. To get there we had another ferry crossing, on the “Fatman” barge over the Pieman River. It’s actually a big pontoon on cables, and really wallows around quite a bit as you drive on and off!

Given the reflections on the river as we crossed on the barge, it wasn’t long before we dropped the kayaks in the water and went for a paddle down the river. We turned up the Savage River and paddled up to a shipwreck we had been told about. The wreck is of an old steamer that used to haul huon pine logs from the Pieman and surrounding rivers. It went down in suspicious circumstances, with some people suggesting it was scuttled for the insurance money!

I spent the next day out paddling the Pieman and Whyte Rivers, lucklessly trying to catch a trout while Michelle spent the day relaxing in the camper (it was another pretty wet day!).

Leaving Corrina, we took the back roads through the Arthur Pieman Conservation Reserve, which is a huge spectacular wilderness. We originally were planning to stop at Arthur River, but arriving there we found it is a popular spot for off road vehicles, with almost every shack having a few quad bikes parked out the front! Preferring slightly more peaceful surrounds, we decided to head through to the north coast for a couple of nights. The countryside is really beautiful, as are the little towns and coastline. We climbed the Nut in Stanley, which is the remains of a volcanic plug that towers above the town.

A forecast for a couple of days of sunny weather, we decided to head inland to Cradle Mountain National Park a couple of days early to see if we could jag fine weather to climb Cradle Mountain.

On the first day, we walked around Dove Lake in the afternoon. The walk had beautiful views of Cradle Mountain and the lake. We later drove back into the park to watch the sun set over the peaks, and see if we could spot some animals on the way back out. We didn’t see any Tassie devils, but we saw a couple of wombats. We stopped on the side of the road to watch one, who couldn’t have cared less about us – he wandered up to the car, using the mudflap as a back scratcher as he wandered under the ute! The engine was even still running!

Although we woke up in mist, the next day was even more beautiful, and we spent 8 hours hiking up to the top of the mountain and back down. The views were absolutely amazing in every direction. We had our lunch up on top of the mountain taking in the views, whilst it also gave us a breather, as the climb up was pretty full on, scrabbling up and over boulders. Not really a hike, as you needed to hang on tightly in several spots. I ended up having to help two older ladies back down, as they were really struggling to get down and getting more than a little bit worried. We all got back down, but they each took a tumble on the way down! We certainly jagged a couple of beautiful days!

Atop Cradle Mountain

As we left Cradle Mountain, we stopped in at the Chateaux to have a look at a wilderness photograph exhibition, and a special exhibition on the Tassie Tiger, including a rug that was made out of 8 pelts. It was really interesting and there are still a lot of people who believe they might still be surviving in the wilderness somewhere!

We spent my birthday visiting another cheese factory just out of Deloraine. Tasted quite a few different cheeses, including a Wasabi cheese! Given some of the stinking hot wasabi we have been eating with our sushi recently, it wasn’t hot at all, but still retained all of the flavour! So we bought a bit of that, along with some blue cheese! Following the cheese was a salmon farm, where we also stocked up on a small whole smoked salmon!

Given we hadn’t seen a Tassie Devil in the wild, we decided to visit one of the wildlife parks to have a look (although we did heard one from our camped up at Cradle Mountain one night!) Michelle reckons they are pretty cute – until they start growling and snarling at each other, or start chomping down on dinner! Their dinning is all very social and we were told they the snapping and snarling is just establishing the pecking order!

Unfortunately, it is the contact at dinnertime that is passing on the facial cancer through the population. We were told that they suspect that up to 85% of the wild populations have been wiped out by the cancer. The poor little devils (pardon the pun!) are really vulnerable and could be extinct if the research doesn’t come up with something soon!

The wildlife park also had several wombats - the Mack truck of Australia wildlife! As one of the wombats was reared from a really young age and used to humans, we were able to have a hold of a solid 10kg of wombat! They are really solid little things!

Our last couple of days were spent staying with our friends Paul and Carol at their house on the Tamar River just north of Launceston. We missed out on seeing the penny farthing races at Evandale as the rain was bucketing down and the races were cancelled. The cyclists we still riding around the streets, but as one of the riders said to us, barrelling down the road as fast as you can and then trying to take a 90 degree bend on a penny farthing is not a comfortable situation!!!

Anyway, we are now back in Melbourne , with the car booked in for it’s 100,00km service and the camper back with Cub getting a new door zip stitched in (we’ve worn the other one out! Thankfully it’s still under warranty!)

Hope everyone is cruising along! Catch you later!

Stuart & Michelle