The Montezuma Falls and the "Place you come to die"

We had parked our car at the top of a steep hill because I was too cowardly to drive our little 2-wheel drive car over wet boulders to the car park at the bottom and had set off walking along an old tram line with deep gorges on one side and steep mountain sides on the other. The tram line was apparently opened in 1896 to carry ore from the mines to Zeehan. It was stunning. The main purpose was to see the Montezuma Falls. Depending upon which website you find, the Montezuma Falls are either Tasmania's highest waterfall or "one of the highest". Anyway, the falls are spectacular - over 100m from the top the bottom. To get the best view you have to walk across a swing bridge that spans the gorge.

On return we all got covered in mud and soaked (it wasn't actually raining, but, in places, it felt as if we were walking through a river). The conversation was slightly unusual as the ladies had refused to use a perfectly respectable dunny when setting out - although apparently it was okay on return :)

I was relieved to discover that the car hadn't disappeared down the mountain side, we tried (and failed) to dry our socks and then continued our drive North. Anna and Alice continued perfecting their two part renditions of the Samuel Webbe's "Ave Verum" and Franck's "Panis Angelicus" whilst we drove through some beautiful mountainous scenery.

We decided to spend the night in a pub/hotel in "Wynyard' - a town on the North coast. We arrived, checked in and then went down to the pub restaurant for dinner. We shared our section of the restaurant with a large number of Harley-Davidson bikers and enjoyed some good ales (and, of course, cider, for Alice) and food. Later the ladies decided that they were really going to embarrass me and ask the "live music" guitarist and singer whether they could sing Panis Angelicus (or something similar) to the bikers and miners.

In the end, Alice decided that she'd try and teach me how to dance (she really wanted to dance with a guy with a HUGE beard, but although he did keep smiling at her they didn't get a dance). Anna was more "fortunate"! Whilst Alice was trying not to laugh at my dancing, "Neil" came up to tell Anna how beautiful she was, asked whether she took drugs and was explaining about his time in gaol. He seemed rather shocked that we'd come to Wynyard on holiday. We'd asked him what there was to do in the area and he told us that this was where "people came to die".