Day 2 in Tasmania

I finished my last blog post with us just getting into Queenstown. People don't seem to like Queenstown. We were warned multiple times about what a terrible place it was. My guide book states "In certain lights, multicoloured boulders - on the hillsides, denuded through a combination of felling, wildfire, erosion and poisonous fumes from the smelter - reflect the Sun's rays and turn to amazing shades of pink and gold ... many Tasmanians view the place as a haunting reminder of the devastating impact humans can have on their environment". However, it was great. It had a wonderful old-town charm with many "historic" buildings. Unfortunately, we didn't see any shades of pink and gold because it was dark when we arrived and raining when we left. Instead, I had the best steak of my life in an old hotel restaurant while Alice tried out the various Tasmanian ciders (she was getting homesick for Devon). We had the option of "home-maid pie [sic]", but turned that down. In the evening we played scrabble until we were too tired to think.

I woke early in the morning to go for a walk and have a large breakfast. During breakfast I chatted to a copper miner who increased my knowledge of copper mining from "nothing" to "not a lot". I now know that there is something that you can't do in the rain which is a bit of a problem in Tasmania. However, I never did work out what it was. He recommended that we spent the rest of our holiday seeing a wind farm on the North Coast. He said that it was the most interesting thing in Tasmania.

Finally :) the ladies woke up and came in for breakfast. We then drove across some amazing scenery (with clouds in the valleys below us) towards Strahan (pronounced something like Strawn). We had high hopes for Strahan. Everyone had told us that this was a wonderful place to visit. Strahan is a lovely port on the Macquarie Harbour, "on Tasmania's forbidding west coast". It is "the last stop before a long stretch of ocean to Patagonia. Sometimes considered the loneliest place on earth ..." We parked the car and found the visitor centre which had a sign saying "Wherever you've been, whatever you've seen - this is a totally new experience. Hailed as the world's first magical realist building, the Strahan Wharf Centre is described as an ark with a novel inside. Telling the stories of southwest Tasmania, it has met with an enthusiastic response from visitors. Miss this Centre and you will miss the best Strahan has to offer." I'm sad to report that we did decide to miss the best that Strahan had to offer. However, we did find a rock! It was an exciting rock! The rock also had a sign on it which told us that the rock was discovered by Jonathon Withers who found that "after a three hour study of the rock's surface, a trance like state would evolve". Anna and I left Alice staring at the rock, but she seemed to get into a strange state after only a few minutes (see photo) and therefore we thought that Strahan was a bit too exciting for us and we'd better move on.

We went to the coast. It was stunning (the first time that I've been in the Roaring Forties - it was windy!). The rain had stopped for a while, the beach was deserted (except for a big dog that suddenly turned up and took a fancy to Anna). We ambled down the beach, walking up the sand dunes looking for rare mutton birds that nest in the area (we didn't see any) and trying to understand why the sea (for a small stretch) was completely black (our current theory is a strange type of sea-weed).

Back into the car and we now drove North through "buttongrass moorland" keeping an eye out for wombats (which, we learnt, have cube-shaped droppings). We didn't see any wombats, but did see heaps of wallabies and pademelons (and dead Tasmanian devils). We stopped in small towns and villages before ending up in Roseberry where the "Creative Anachronism" festival was going on! Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stop and take part in the festival. Instead we stocked up on food and then set off on a four hour hike through the rainforest. It was beautiful (and eerie when Alice and Anna decided to sing chromatic scales a semitone out from each other). I'm running out of energy at the moment to continue this posting so I'll leave us in the rainforest and continue the adventure tomorrow ...