For more than 20 years we have wanted to visit Chris’s family “down under” in Tasmania, and finally here we are. After 10 days we can only say, we wish we had come sooner…this is a beautiful place.

We spent the first 5 days with Chris’s uncle and aunt, Clive and Ruth, and their 2 wonderful dogs, Belle and Toby. During those days we visited several places around Launceston where they live. We can certainly understand their decision to up sticks from the U.K. and move here more then 30 years ago.

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One thing we come across over and over again, is the place names, almost all of them originate from the U.K., and particularly the South West… many convicts or settlers must have originated from that area.

We have not seen too much wildlife, but fortunately we did get to see some platypus and echidna at Beauty Point, a wombat, wallaby and tiger snake at Cradle Mountain, and Deb saw another echidna today.

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We started our trip around Tasmania last Thursday, travelling via Sheffield to Cradle Mountain N.P. Sheffield was a fascinating place, to encourage people to visit they have painted more than 50 murals around the “town”.

Cradle Mountain is probably the most iconic image of Tasmania. We walked 12km via Crater Lake, Wombat Pool and Dove Lake, with Cradle Mountain always in the background.

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The following day we drove to Strahan, via Zeehan. On the way visiting the West Coast Heritage Centre In Zeehan, a Museum given over to the history of settlement and mining on the west coast of Tasmania. From the 1800’s they have mined for copper, zinc, silver and gold, and at one point Strahan was the wealthiest place in Tasmania, because its port was shipping the output from these mines. Strahan, self labelled the “edge of the world”, is a lovely little town, sitting on Macquarie Harbour, the 2nd largest natural harbour in Australia. We took 2 trips during our time there. The first a boat ride across the harbour to Hells Gates, the entrance to the harbour from the Southern Ocean, a place of extreme weather and waves, the highest wave recorded there was over 18 metres. From there we travelled down the harbour, past the fish farms to the Gordon River, a place of pure natural beauty, with rain forest of Huon pine, Myrtle, Sassafras and Eucalyptus trees spreading as far as the eye can see. On our return to Strahan we stopped at Sarah Island, reputed to be the toughest penal settlement in the British colonies, reserved for repeat offenders. It was so bad, the convicts motto was “Liberty, or death”. One fact which sticks in the mind, the governor of the island insisted all trees be cut down, so he could see everything going on. But this exposed the island to the Roaring 40 winds, to protect themselves the convicts then had to build a wall of pine 10 metres high the whole length of the island. All this in 1822, so it was all done by hand, using the plentiful convict labour.

Our 2nd trip was on the Wilderness railway, an original steam train running on the line built to connect the mines in Queenstown, to the harbour at Strahan. It was said this line could never be built, as the conditions were so dreadful, but with the words of the mine owner “find a way, or make a way” ringing in their ears, 100’s of men hacked their way through the rainforest to build the railway.

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There is a fascinating story related to the convicts on Sarah Island, too long to cover in this blog, but if you have the time you should Google it, it is called “the ship that never was”. We went to the play, absolutely hilarious, only three actors, but massive audience participation… Chris found himself onstage… so funny.

So, from the edge of the world, today we have driven across Tasmania to Hobart, the State capital. 300km of bends, they never stopped from beginning to end. On route we stopped at the amazing Wall. One sculptur, Greg Duncan, has carved a series of Huon Pine panels, 100 metres long, and 2.5 metres high, capturing much of Tasmania’s history, this link will tell you much more than we can cover here…http://thewalltasmania.com.au

Unfortunately, one downside of the glorious weather has been an increase of bush fires across the island. A dry storm moved across the island about a week ago, and the lightning strikes have set light to the peat. There are now more than 70 fires burning, one very large one we saw from the car as we drove toward Hobart.

So now we sit in Hobart, State capital of Tasmania. Not a large place, but very pleasant, with the waters of the Derwent River running down to the sea. A pretty harbour surrounded by old Victorian buildings, and quite a few modern hotels and offices, with the backdrop of Mount Wellington looming over the city.

Sorry for the delay in writing this blog, we blame a lack of reliable internet, and time. Our next entry will be in a few days, when we will share our experiences of Bathurst Harbour, and the penal settlement of Port Arthur.

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