Issue six of Camping With Your 4WD  has been out for a few weeks, but with our trip to Lizard Island and then time in Bedourie we haven’t been near too many newsagents.  This article details our trip through Northeastern Tasmania with Lisa’s parents during February.  A few cameo shots of Carol and Greg should be a good souvenir of their trip for them…

Street View: S43°17.495’ E147°19.716’

We finished up our tour of Tasmania with a few days on Bruny Island, just south of Hobart.  To access Bruny a ferry departs the small harbour town of Kettering every hour or so for the 25-minute ride across the D’Entrecasteaux Channel to North Bruny Island.  Bruny is split into two portions – north and south – separated by a thin stretch of soil known as The Neck.  Similar to Tasman National Park, Bruny National Park is one of Tasmania’s newer National Parks and covers most of the coastal area of South Bruny Island.  After disembarking the ferry we took some time to explore Adventure Bay, the main settlement on the island, where I threw in a line for a few mullet and some Australian Herring while Lisa took a jog along the beautiful white sand of the bay’s beach.  The bloke next to whom Carol was sitting at the Twenty20 in Hobart recommended we stay at Cloudy Bay at the very southern end of the island, so we ventured down through the towering Eucalypt forests to Cloudy Bay during our first afternoon.  The Cloudy Bay campsite (S43°27.859’ E147°15.215’) is accessed by traversing a few kilometers of beach, after which it’s a short but steep jump-up into the beautiful campground.  We shared the spot with another family or two, the large area in the Eucalypt forest was a beautiful spot with a fabulous beach a short walk through the scrub and a couple of lauded hiking trails beginning next to the campground.  I even ran into a few Echidnas whilst searching for firewood.  We unfortunately weathered quite a fierce storm, with hail and some crazy winds, during our night at Cloudy Bay so didn’t really get to appreciate the area as much as we could have in nice weather, but it’s definitely a spot not to miss. 

For Lisa’s birthday present my grandmother shouted Lisa (and me) to a trip on a Bruny Island Cruises tour of South Bruny Island.  We were due to take the tour on our second day on the island, but in the face of the horrendous storm the night before the skipper of the cruise company detailed that the cruise would likely only cover a small portion of its regular route and those with flexibility should return the next day.  Flexibility, that’s us!  So I went and found a campsite on The Neck while Carol, Greg and Lisa explored some of the Fluted Cape hiking trail to the top of the striking dolerite cliffs that stretch along South Bruny’s east coast.

We were very thankful for the honesty of the Bruny Island Cruises owner when we woke for our third day on the island: no wind and glassy seas.  Now if you think of a honking steamship with a casino and bars when you hear the word ‘cruise’ that’s not how Bruny Island Cruises operates.  Forty-nine passengers are loaded in a military-inspired, aluminium-hulled speedboat, which has almost 800 horsepower of propellers jetting it through the water.  Passengers in the front half of the boat are required to be strapped down (tight) to their seats while the boat’s in motion and everyone’s provided with waterproof slickers for the hair-raising ride.  Lisa and I managed to secure the two seats at the very front of the boat, and while this did mean we felt the worst of the bumps and rolls of the ocean we were afforded the best views throughout the tour.  The three-hour trip took in no shortage of the striking dolerite cliffs of South Bruny’s eastern shores, beautiful rock formations and some extremely powerful blowholes.  The wildlife was brilliant, with a range of seabirds including albatross and petrels up from Antarctica for summer as well as a colony of Australian Fur Seals amongst The Friars at the very southern tip of Bruny Island.   The crew on our boat were fantastic, they were a wealth of knowledge on the surrounding environment and always made sure every one of their passengers was enjoying the trip (the Tim Tams they fed us sure kept us all Happy!).  Everyone had some serious adrenaline pumping as the boats are piloted through gaps in the cliffs and into caves, one gap we shot through at full speed would have only been a metre-or-so wider then the boat!  It was awesome, just awesome!  Lisa said it was better than any theme park ride she’d ever been on.  If you find yourself in Tasmania, make a point of trying to get on a tour with Bruny Island Cruises.

Street View: S42°46.459’ E147°16.570’

William Frost and his Staffordshire Terrier, Blue, welcomed the four of us into their fantastic house in Old Beach for our time in Hobart.  William grew up in Burnie in Tasmania’s north and is a friend of mine from when we were both youngsters, he now lives in Hobart and runs a gourmet food and wine website called Field Blend.  On Friday afternoon while I caught up on the plethora of photos we’d taken over the pervious couple of weeks, Lisa, Carol and Greg spent the afternoon exploring the Hobart waterfront and city centre.  At William’s suggestion they lunched at Fish Frenzy on the Elizabeth Street Pier, as well as taking in some of the beautiful boats moored in Sullivans Cove.  William has a background in hospitality and guided us to the best of Hobart cuisine whilst we were in Tasmania’s capital: our Friday night BBQ at William’s comprised some fabulous wines as well as a selection of brilliant sausages from a gourmet butcher in Hobart called Wursthaus. 

It was Lisa’s birthday on Saturday so before taking her out for a brilliant Italian dinner at Ciuccio we spent the morning and early afternoon at one of Hobart’s absolute must-dos: Salamanca Markets.  Salamanca Markets are the southern hemisphere’s largest open-air street markets, a fantastic place to find anything and everything Tasmanian as well as a dizzying array of great food.  There was also a brilliant assortment of street performers, from hacky-sack buskers raising money to get to the world championships to the fantastic Celtic trio of two brothers and sister pictured to the right.  A bit of an eye-opener at the markets was the Moon Pad stall: an elderly woman who makes and sells recyclable feminine hygiene products (below left)!

Between the markets and dinner we had time for a scenic drive up to the peak of towering Mount Wellington, the striking monolith that overlooks the city of Hobart.  It was a beautifully clear day and we were rewarded with brilliant views from the lookout, from Old Beach all the way south to Bruny Island.  We also stopped off for a beer (or two) at the Cascade Brewery just west of Hobart’s city centre.  Our dinner at Ciuccio was divine and another reminder of just how small a world it is: our waitress and waiter for the evening were a French couple whom we camped next to in the Tarangau Caravan Park in Broome way back in August, 2009!

On Sunday we had tickets to the Twenty20 cricket at Bellerive Oval, but before the game we decided to breakfast at Hobart’s lauded Jackman and McRoss bakery in historic Battery Point.  Recommended by both William and my mum (thanks Mum), the offerings were very unique but oh so tasty!  Lisa and I shared a ‘spiced goat and lentil pie’ and ‘lamb shank and rosemary pie’ between us, both put Jackman and McRoss firmly on my list of Australia’s Best Bakeries (so much so that we had breakfast at Jackman again the next morning on our way to Bruny Island!).  Our tickets to the cricket indicated a start time of 1:00PM, but upon arriving at Bellerive we realized that the women’s cricket was due to start at 2:15PM with the men’s Australia versus West Indies game not starting until 6:15PM!  Not to worry, it gave us time to explore the nearby historic town of Richmond as well as picturesque Seven Mile Beach before returning to catch the bulk of the women’s game and secure a spot on The Hill for the men’s game.  For those of you without some form of Commonwealth upbringing, The Hill at a cricket ground is a general admission area to which the Australian Cricket Association usually sells enough tickets to make any health and safety inspector shudder.  By the time the Australia versus West Indies game started The Hill at Bellerive was absolutely jam packed, we luckily secured ourselves a patch of grass on which to lay our blanket in the seating area, but plenty of latecomers were left to stand amongst the drunken mobs at the rear of The Hill.  The men’s game started with some of the most entertaining batting I’ve ever seen, Warner and Watson tag-teaming for six after six (a six in cricket is like a home run in baseball) and sending the crowd into a frenzy.  The West Indies didn’t even come close to matching the Australians’ score, but The Hill crowd kept things interesting with everything from beach balls bouncing through the crowd to stadium-wide Mexican waves.  The sunset over the stadium was one of the most electric I’ve ever seen, striking red skies with a beautiful view of Mount Wellington in the distance.  An awesome day and what a way for Greg and Carol to be baptized into the world of cricket!

Anyway, Mount Field National Park was great.  Russell Falls were just as beautiful as they’re cracked-up to be, although there wasn’t much water flowing when we visited (I think winter’s a better time to see them in full flow).  More fresh blackberries at our campsite on the side of the river near the National Park, under Greg’s direction we cooked them down into a compote for breakfast, Lisa having hers over yoghurt and me drowning a crumpet. 

Street View: S43°08.571’ E147°57.692’

After our adventures in the northeastern rainforests we high-tailed it down the east coast (with another stop at the brilliant Blue Edge Bakery in Bicheno) to the Tasman Peninsula and Tasman National Park.  Tasman is one of Tasmania’s newest National Parks, it incorporates some beautiful stretches of coastline from Eaglehawk Neck all the way south to Tasman Island and around to one of Tasmania’s most famous historic landmarks: Port Arthur.  We stopped off for lunch with a majestic view over Pirates Bay at Eaglehawk Neck before heading to the south of the Tasman Peninsula to find a campsite at Fortescue Bay (S43°08.571’ E147°57.692’).  Fortescue was one of my favourite campsites in Tasmania, sites located within a few metres of the beautiful beach, hot rainwater showers available for a couple of bucks and some arborists happened to be trimming the Eucalypts when we were there so there was plenty of free firewood on offer.  Lisa and I went for a bit of a snorkel over some of Fortescue Bay’s reef early in the afternoon, unfortunately it was a little choppy so not great visibility for spearing dinner, but a beautiful spot for a swim all the same.  I threw a line in the surf and found some big schools of Australian Salmon in the waves, the ferocity with which they were biting was amazing, some of the bigger fish put some serious bend in my 10-foot surf rod!  We were again inundated by wildlife as the sun retreated over the hills behind Fortescue Bay, one Brushtail Possum found a nice seat by the fire between Lisa and me.  When Lisa realized the critter was only a few inches from her feet she spilled her nightcap of Muscat all over her clothes and hair in fright!  The photo below was Greg’s last wood chopping experience of the trip, the next morning it took him five minutes to get out of bed with a bad back, which unfortunately lasted him the rest of his time in Tasmania!

A trip to Tasmania probably isn’t complete without a visit to Port Arthur.  One of Australia’s most important historic landmarks, Port Arthur showcases the ruins of one of Australia’s most well preserved convict settlements.  Unfortunately the site is also famous for the tragic Port Arthur massacre in 1996, which resulted in Australia’s controversial gun buyback scheme.  The Port Arthur grounds are complete with beautiful gardens, creepy prison ruins and majestic views over the bay of Port Arthur.  It’s a good spot to visit for anyone with even an inkling of interest in Australia’s convict beginnings (please note that South Australia, where I grew up, was Australia’s only state that was not founded as a convict settlement).  The Port Arthur settlement began its life as a timber operation in 1830, it was also a popular ship building yard and later a flour mill before the prison buildings were constructed in 1848.  The main prison building has the majority of its facade still in tact, the prison hospital and guard station are also still standing on the expansive grounds.  Some of the houses of the prison employees were great to see, their interiors have been painstakingly restored to their original condition with furniture and linens to boot.  The prison handled a staggering number of prisoners in its day, I think I recall reading that an in-house tannery was required to keep up with the number of leather shoes required for the inmates, the boot makers turning out in excess of 200 pairs each day in peak times.  Touring the beautiful grounds was like taking a trip back in time…  Our entrance to the Port Arthur grounds included a boat tour around Port Arthur’s waters, which enabled us to get a close-up look at the tiny Isle of the Dead – where all Port Arthur prisoners were buried – as well as the ruins of the boys’ prison at Point Puer.  Port Arthur was abandoned as a prison during the 1880s and renamed Carnarvon in attempt to shed its association with the convict era.  These days the site is vying for World Heritage Listing and remains one of Tasmania’s most popular tourist attractions.

We plucked another trip out of our Australian 4WD Guide for a tour of Tasmania’s northeastern rainforests.  The trip started in Scottsdale on the A3 highway and then teed off along the logging roads through Springfield and some of the forests managed by the huge Gunns timber conglomerate that controls most of the logging in the state.  It was actually a little sad to see some of the forests through Springfield and Diddleum, massive swaths of forest cut clear to the ground as far as the eye can see.  That said, we did pass through some fantastic old growth forest on our way south through the mountains: beautiful undergrowth filled with massive Australian Tree Ferns and towering eucalypts in the canopy.

Our trail took us through Upper Blessington and onto Ben Lomond National Park, one of two ski resorts in Tasmania.  Ben Lomond was completely shrouded in fog when we ventured up the mountain, the dirt road made its way through some striking craggy peaks and along the perilous Jacob’s Ladder, a series of switchbacks climbing through 4500 feet on the way to the peak of Ben Lomond.  I had the Youngs wait at the bottom in their vehicle and managed to get a few shots of them making their way through the switchbacks.  Jacob’s Ladder is the only way to access the ski resort inside the National Park, I’d hate to be driving it when there’s snow and ice all over the ground!  We could hardly see a vehicle’s length in front of us at the Ben Lomond ski resort so turned around and made our way back down, unfortunate as there are a number of hikes through the high country of the National Park.  We stopped off at one of the Ben Lomond huts for lunch and had the chance to get up close and personal with an Echidna on the side of the road on our way out of the park, great to get one so close, they’re usually too quick to disappear into the undergrowth for good photos…

From Ben Lomond it was northeast to Upper Esk and along the forest roads skirting the South Esk River to a camping spot locally known as Griffin Park (S41°27.935’ E147°51.234’).  Griffin Park is basically a clearing alongside the banks of the South Esk River, a very picturesque, middle-of-nowhere location that we had to ourselves except for another couple of campers a few hundred meters down the river.  The felled pine forests surrounding the river were a good source of wood for a nice campfire and I spent a few hours trying to tempt some of the plethora of trout we saw feeding on insects in the nearby river (no luck again…).  A fantastic spot to finish up a great day of driving through Ben Lomond and some of the surrounding rainforests.  Well, fantastic except for the fact that I got bitten by a leech, the incision from which didn’t stop bleeding for a couple of hours, and then stung in the forehead by a bee whilst fishing in the South Esk River!  We were inundated with wildlife during the evening at Griffin Park, Lisa and Carol went for a late night walk with torches (flashlights) and ran into almost ten Spotted-Tail Quolls surrounding our camp.  There were also a bunch of Pademelons and Brushtail Possums about, who needs zoos?!

Our second day of the tour really was the highlight.  We left Griffin Park and wound our way along the South Esk for a few kilometers to the country settlement of Mathinna, where we veered north toward Evercreech Forest Reserve.  Evercreech was an amazing place, a pocket of untouched, old-growth rainforest with some absolutely beautiful cascades and forests to walk through.  We hiked along the creek winding through the reserve to Evercreech Falls, and then along a trail through the White Knights, a small collection of the tallest Eucalyptus trees on the planet.  There’s only a handful of them left, such gigantic trees…  Such a lush little pocket of forest, we were all checking our legs for leeches throughout our walks, I found a total of three on my legs, the little buggers found their way through my jeans and socks!  If we’re ever in the area again I think we’ll make a point to stay in Evercreech Forest Reserve for the night, awesome campsites alongside the creek and a great little wooden hut with a wood stove for the colder nights. 

From Evercreech we continued through the forest back roads up toward Ringarooma, into some of the picturesque pasture lands around Alberton and onto Mount Victoria Forest Reserve.  We hunted around on the side of the road for an abandoned mine shaft at one point, locating it after a bit of a hunt through the forest, unfortunately it was all barred up so we couldn’t hunt for the glowworms that supposedly inhabit the 60 meter long shaft.  Mount Victoria Forest Reserve is home to the majestic Ralphs Falls, a ribbon of water cascading down sheer cliffs with an amazing panoramic view of the surrounding countryside.  This panoramic below captures roughly 220° of the view from the lookout next to Ralphs Falls.  Amazing!

Saint Columba Falls were the last falls on our route.  They’re Tasmania’s largest waterfalls and are a massively powerful torrent of water.  A short drive from Saint Columba Falls and we were back on the paved roads, our 4WD tour finished up with a stop at the famous Pub In The Paddock and Pyengana Dairy Company (more of our 4WD trips need to finish off with beer and cheese!).  The Pub In The Paddock is quite an eclectic operation, some of the wall hangings (see below) were quite a hoot.  The pub has a resident pig named Priscilla who lives in a paddock just outside the bar, the owner sells a special beer brewed especially for the pig that tourists can buy for $2 a pop.  Andi Biaggi, you would have loved the Pub In The Paddock!  Halls Falls was the last point on our 4WD route, but we actually visited them on our way into Launceston a few days earlier, another beautiful cascade in the rainforest, so green and picturesque.  After the end of our 4WD trip we spent the night on the coast at Lagoon Beach and then headed inland toward Hobart to Mount Field National Park and the famous Russell Falls.

Street View: S41°27.471’ E147°08.395’

The Tamar Valley, spread on either side of the Tamar River near Launceston, is home to some of Tasmania’s best wineries, most of which produce only enough wine for the Tasmanian market, so quite a treat to visit.  On advice from Mike Frost and Chris Chen (a winemaker with whom we caught up in the Margaret River) we had a few wineries in mind before making our way to the area.  Our first stops were at Jansz, famous for their sparkling offerings (in fact that’s all they make!), and adjacent Pipers Brook, arguably Tasmania’s most famous winery.  The two wineries are located right next to each other on a beautiful expanse of rolling hills north of Launceston.  Lisa and Greg enjoyed comparing tasting opinions at both spots, after which we headed down the road to the small operation of Dalrymple Winery.  The wines at Dalrymple are made by the same winemaker that heads up Jansz, everyone really enjoyed their offerings and we walked away with a couple of bottles for the road.  From Dalrymple our last stop for the day was at Bay Of Fires, named after the stretch of beaches north of nearby Saint Helens where we spent the afternoon a few days ago.

We stopped off at Lilydale (S41°13.723’ E147°12.548’) for the night after our day of wine tasting, finding an unlocked gate and an absence of ‘No Camping’ signs next to Lilydale Falls for a very nice spot to sleep under some beautiful old oak trees.  Lilydale Falls were a short walk from our campsite, as were a plethora of wild blackberry bushes littering the sides of the creek that ran through the surrounding paddocks.  I braved the thorns and collected a huge container full of the deliciously sweet berries, we all had our fill during the evening and had more than enough left for blackberry pancakes in the morning.  That’s camping in style!  The town of Lilydale was quite a quaint little settlement, the main street lined with a heritage-listed general store, an eatery boasting the best fried chicken in Australia, as well as no shortage of nonagenarians walking to their daily afternoon lawn bowls meet, all dressed up in their purple and white outfits.  Quite a sight!

Our loop around Tasmania took a bit of a skewed turn to take us to Launceston, Lisa and Carol had a hankering to attend Festivale on February 13, an annual food and wine festival showcasing some of Tasmania’s best wineries and cuisine.  It was an awesome day, well worth the side-trip to Launceston, there was so much to choose from it was tough to decide.  Local breweries, fantastic wines, seafood, pizza, German sausage makers, I could go on and on…  There were also a few stages on which different live performers kept us entertained throughout the day, a great event, we all had a ball.

Whilst in Launceston I wasn’t going to miss a tour of J. Boag & Son brewery.  The tours set us back $25 a piece, over an hour-and-a-half we toured the operation from packaging all the way to the actual brewing.  The high-tech packaging line was an amazing conglomeration of machinery able to handle over 800 bottles per minute, the bottles whizzed through almost too fast for our eyes to behold.  The lagering tanks were also a pretty awesome sight, the largest of which can hold over 500,000 bottles of beer!  Back in the old days (J. Boag & Son brewing has been in operation since 1881) full-time employees were allowed to drink as much beer as they liked for breakfast, morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea.  Those days are long gone, operational health and safety isn’t too keen on brewery employees drinking beer for breakfast and lunch these days, unfortunately.  At the end of our tour we sampled four of the Boag beers in conjunction with some local Tasmanian cheeses.  A few of the Boag beers aren’t exported to the mainland, so it was fun to sample brews like Wizard Smith’s Ale and XXX Ale, both of which we’d never even seen before in the bottle shops outside of Tasmania.

We finished up our tour of Launceston with a Sunday morning walk through Cataract Gorge.  Located just minutes from the town centre the gorge has a fantastic walking trail up either side as well as a great little cafe nestled in the forest part way along.  A beautiful spot for a coffee and spot to watch the local peacocks as they walked through the diners enjoying a morning cuppa. 

Note to self: when we’re buying furniture for ourselves some time down the road the Launceston Tasmanian Design Centre showcases some of the most eye-catching and well made wooden furniture either of us had ever seen, all made by local artisans out of unique Tasmanian timbers.