As continued from the April post "Tasmania"
Day 8
This day was just possibly the most expensive day in Tasmania. After taking a shortcut over the middle of the island (luckily car repairs was not the expensive part!) we were at Bruny Island Cruises.
Even though the same tour in Port Arthur was supposed to be better, the Bruny Island cruises were not bad; in fact, it was well worth the money! Despite the shortcut over a mountain, we came late, but got onto the last of four boats. After safety briefing the boat was off, and in no time, we were under the cliffs at Fluted Cape, the second tallest cliffs in the southern hemisphere -- we were at the tallest three days earlier.
The tour guide showed us caves, reefs, beaches and lots of seals. At the southeastern end of the island, there were some tall rock towers in the sea, with lots of seals and seabirds. On the way back a little further away from shore, there was a pod of dolphins following the boat.
Back on dry land, we visited a small museum. I did not expect much, but found maps, 300 year old globes, old newspaper articles, a tree explorer James Cook moored at, and much more.
The day was finished with a short walk and a sighting of the rare Bruny Island albino wallaby.
Day 9
March the ninth was my little brother's birthday. Not much could be done to celebrate, but he got some presents and a visit to a cafe.
We departed from Bruny Island by ferry. Next stop was the Tahune Airwalk. I liked the treetop platform itself, but was disappointed with the swinging bridges walk. So, if you want to visit the airwalk and have time for a walk, don't go to the swinging bridges and go see the much more impressive Huon Pines, some of the oldest trees in Australia (the oldest one was born with the Roman Empire!)
Mount Wellington was great. It had an amazing view and few mountains on the eastern side of Tasmania can match its height. We continued to the north, skipping the MONA art museum (some people say it's kind of creepy and some say it's awesome, and surprisingly there is absolutely NO middle ground. I guess nobody wanted to take the risk at the time, because nobody mentioned the museum as we were planning the rest of the trip at Port Arthur. We felt guilty afterward). The sun slowly turned from bright yellow to orange as the road led into the hills and into the forest. And as light darkened, we pulled into the campground in Mount Field National Park, a good campground by a river with friendly neighbors.
Day 10
Mount Field is unique mainly because of the great variety of habitats. At the lower end of the park, where the campground was, it was rainforest with the tallest flowering plants in the world, swamp gums, dominating much of the dry ridges. In the valleys were some spectacular waterfalls. A little higher, between 600 and 800 meters above, is much drier rainforest, the canopy lower.
Above 800 meters you enter the realm of Tasmanian snow gums, very low, densely packed trees that always grow on slopes and never rot after dying. I hope some authority claims that Tasmania has the lowest tree line in temperate regions, at just 1000 meters, where the trees cut off entirely and a variety of alpine shrubs has a higher biodiversity even than the rainforest below.
On that day, our first destination was Pandani Grove (pandani is the highest heath in the world) and Lake Seal lookout. After walking around the lake past many Pandani plants, we walked up the steep road to the ski lifts, now abandoned in the summertime. Seal Lookout, an outcropping of rocks just above the tree line, was very nice, with views of several lakes and "tarns", complexes of small ponds that freeze over easily -- keep to the path!
We walked back through Pandani Grove. The contrast of shapes and colors of the pencil pine, pandani, and several other plants, I thought was to an alpine forest as Wineglass Bay is to a beach; not exceptional, but perfect.
The next destination was Russell Falls, which we walked to from the campsite. Russell Falls is truly spectacular, apparently the most beautiful falls in Tasmania. A long walk up steps led us to Horseshoe Falls, a somewhat less spectacular waterfall. A long walk through rainforest led us to a grove of swamp gums.
The walk led me to the base of a swamp gum so tall I had to crane my neck and stand back to see the top. The trunk was so wide it would take a classroom of children to make a circle around it. Apparently, it was 89 meters tall. A respectable tree in a redwood forest. There were swamp gums down south one or two house's height away from being the tallest trees in the world! The walk passed by Lady Baron Falls and climbed a staircase with at least a hundred steps back to the campsite.
The day was finished with a walk to see glow worms, which I had never seen before, which looked like little stars twinkling under the rocks.
Day 11
Another driving day. Much of the driving was from Mount Field to Lake St. Clair. We did not stay long, as it was cold and rainy. But we got to see the lake. It must be special to people because it is like a fjord, and the valley was formed by glaciers. But Iceland has more fjords, ones that look nicer, and so does the rest of Scandinavia and Canada, so if you have seen a real fjord, Lake St. Clair is nothing special. I imagine it must still be nice walking by the lake...in nice weather.
The next stop was Zeehan. As we entered the valley we saw ruined mountains, mounds of dirt and piles of rubble. There were mountains chopped in half and left to grow back again. Zeehan was spookily quiet, all the shops had long closed.
In a museum, I learned that there once was a gigantic mining industry here. People had drilled holes in every mountain from the Tasmanian west coast to the mountains. But mining was increasingly taken over by machines, and in this area, plants, so everything shut down, and everyone moved to the western coast to fish. The museum is a good reminder of those mining days.
I was very interested in the museum's collection of minerals. It had practically every named mineral on earth, and featured crocoite, a mineral only found in abundance in Tasmania. Kind of like opals in Coober Pedy, except crocoite is less valuable than gold. After that the day was mostly over. We camped in the Cradle Mountain area that night, a beautiful campground. It was raining.
Day 12
It was still cold and misty as I woke up, but the rain had cleared up a little. There was a leech on the roof of the tent. How it got up there, I am not sure. It was the only leech I ever saw on the whole vacation, despite walking a lot in bad weather and rainforests; were there less leeches in Tasmania and why? Was the climate too cold for them?
Anyway, the campground was the best campground we ever stayed at on the trip. There were no friendly "gray nomads" but this was a busy tourist destination. The visitors center was within walking distance of the campground, but we went by car anyway.
It is worth mentioning that the shuttle buses leave every half-hour from the visitors center. The people managing the shuttle buses said there was car access to the parking lots at Ronny Creek and Dove Lake, but the rangers wanted to keep down road traffic and space used for parking, so they made a boom gate just past the interpretation center that only let a certain amount of cars in, and then closed. At the same time the shuttle buses were used, also to keep down traffic and let people past the closed boom gates.
The first stop was the interpretation center, which was the trackhead for numerous waterfalls and a rainforest. The next stop was Snake Hill, where a boardwalk by the river came into view.
The next stop was Ronny Creek, the official beginning of the Overland Track, the most famous (and the easiest) of Australia's popular long-distance tracks. I cannot find any such equal in America. The Overland Track is one of five other very popular long-distance tracks; the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia, which takes months to complete, the Heysen Trail in South Australia, which was built for short walks, the Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory, which is hard to access, and the Great North Walk and the Thorsborne Trail in New South Wales and Queensland respectively, which are both impressive but not so much as the Overland Track.
We rode straight to the end of the line, a car park by Dove Lake. From there, we walked around Dove Lake. Most walks above the lake are better than the Dove Lake walk, but Dove Lake is nice in cold, rainy weather when all the rest of the walks are cold and dangerous. On that day, I could see no Cradle Mountain reflected in the waters of Dove Lake, because everything above 1200 meters was shrouded in mist. I could only see "Little Horn", the northernmost summit of Cradle Mountain. It looked intimidating, for it was mostly bare rock and 70+ degree slopes.
The next stop was the interpretation center. There is a model inside the building which models the terrain around Cradle Mountain. It looks way out of proportion, with crazily steep mountains and very deep lakes. But climbers beware: that model has been exaggerated just twice, if at all. Anybody with weak legs should look at the model before considering climbing Cradle Mountain; more people succeed climbing Mount Everest than succeed Cradle Mountain. My mother was one of about fifty percent of walkers who turned back before reaching the top.
We did the Enchanted walk, but that did not meet our expectations, so we walked the King Billy Pine track as well. It is a magical walk, with bright green moss covering everything, and ancient, gnarled trees by the path. The bright green moss grew on the bark of all the trees, and covered the ground so thickly there was no real undergrowth. I imagine the walk would be amazing in snow.
Day 13
We woke up early for the push to the summit. Everything was completely frozen over, even the car windows. But it was a totally clear day, with no clouds. I really hoped it was going to stay that way for the whole day.
We took the shuttle to Ronny Creek. The walk through the low-lying Cradle Valley reminded me we had 700 meters to climb.
The walk continued up steps past a waterfall and to Crater Lake. By the lake there was some native fagus, the only Australian plant to shed its leaves in winter. In Autumn, the fagus was full of beautiful colors and was somehow more impressive than the deciduous trees in other parts of the world.
There was a very steep climb up the side of Crater Lake. The climb was easy because it was on dolomite, possibly the roughest rock in the world. Marions Lookout was a treat. The next stretch of the walk covered the lonely Cradle Plateau. I cannot describe the feeling that came when I walked in the Tasmania wilderness. It was not put on the World Heritage List for nothing.
After three hours of walking, we arrived at Kitchen Hut, an emergency shelter at the base of Cradle Mountain. We spent a time resting up for the summit. As the summit climb began, the climb degraded from a boardwalk to a gravel path to a dirt path traversing rocks and streams. It degraded even further as it drew closer to the summit. There was a sudden sharp right turn, and we were climbing on boulders with sightings of dirt and grass underneath. Finally, the path disappeared completely and followed metal snow poles.
The climb was very long, but not particularly hard for me. My mother had knee problems below the summit ridge. Hiking poles were useless in this terrain. Grass disappeared entirely and we were left climbing on a boulder pile. At what had seemed to be the summit ridge, the track went down and then back up again. That was where my mother, and many younger climbers, gave up.
The climbing into the gulch was hard because everything was covered with slippery ice, even at ten in the morning. It was an easy climb to the real main ridge, but the path climbed down into another gulch. There was a beautiful view of the land up north. The track had finished with the boulder pile and was climbing up grassy rocks on a near vertical slope. After that the walk was finished. Cradle Mountain was only the fifth highest peak in Tasmania, but I could spot the other four. The views extended to the entire length of the Overland track, a walk I had not done, but had just completed the first and hardest day of.
The walk back via Lake Wilks, a beautiful alpine tarn, was just as nice as the route to the mountain. But the entire day will stick in my mind as one of the best climbs of my life.
Day 14
We drove to the Quamby Corner campground the next day. We visited some attractions like the wildlife park, Woolmers Estate, and a gorge. We were back on the ferry at Day 15. As I watched Tasmania vanish over the horizon, I reflected on how much we had not seen, Maria Island, the southern half of the Western Wilderness, the west and north coastlines. I also reflected on how much I had seen, Wineglass Bay, Cradle Mountain up close. It was a great experience to me, seeing Australia's largest island.
THE END
Wednesday 29 April 2015
Tuesday 21 April 2015
The recent NSW storm
Recently, on Monday morning, it started raining. In the afternoon and night there was a heavy downpour with extremely high wind. It has rained for 48 hours.
At Tuesday morning, the power went out(I should have written the article then, but the computer had been left on overnight, and was out of batteries). As soon as the power came back, I went to the computer to see the news of the storm. It was no surprise that we had a blackout, because the wind was so strong and gusty that the bay was full of white foam and 4-meter waves. Some of them were crashing halfway up Box Head.
It turned out that Umina by far didn't take the worst of the storm. It had affected all of Sydney, Newcastle, the Central Coast(in between Sydney and Newcastle) and the Hunter region(slightly inland, north of Newcastle).
One town, Dungog, has suffered the worst. 3 people were killed and 4 houses were swept away by floods. Buses and cars have been lost when driving into flood waters. The whole town has been evacuated during the flood.
The effect on other places is also significant. The Paterson River reached a record height on Tuesday and burst its banks. Yachts have been observed being pounded against the breakwater in Brisbane Water at Gosford by the waves, and a cruise ship could not enter Sydney harbour because of the bad weather.
200,000 homes and businesses lost power for at least two hours on Tuesday because of trees falling on power lines. A power outage happened at the local wastewater plant, which caused tons of half-treated wastewater to enter the ocean. The beaches at the Central Coast will not open for a few days because of this.
There have also been problems with the local transport services. Many train lines were closed during power shortages, and highways have been blocked by fallen trees.
The winds of most of the storm are classified as 10-12 on the Beaufort scale.
The impact on my neighborhood includes fallen trees and damaged wires. Unfortunately, most of the trash has washed off the streets and into the creeks and wetlands. I hope someone cleans it up, because it is Earth day.
At Tuesday morning, the power went out(I should have written the article then, but the computer had been left on overnight, and was out of batteries). As soon as the power came back, I went to the computer to see the news of the storm. It was no surprise that we had a blackout, because the wind was so strong and gusty that the bay was full of white foam and 4-meter waves. Some of them were crashing halfway up Box Head.
 |
| A tree fallen over parked cars |
It turned out that Umina by far didn't take the worst of the storm. It had affected all of Sydney, Newcastle, the Central Coast(in between Sydney and Newcastle) and the Hunter region(slightly inland, north of Newcastle).
One town, Dungog, has suffered the worst. 3 people were killed and 4 houses were swept away by floods. Buses and cars have been lost when driving into flood waters. The whole town has been evacuated during the flood.
 | |
| The powerful wind of the storm blew the sand of Bondi Beach into the streets. |
The effect on other places is also significant. The Paterson River reached a record height on Tuesday and burst its banks. Yachts have been observed being pounded against the breakwater in Brisbane Water at Gosford by the waves, and a cruise ship could not enter Sydney harbour because of the bad weather.
200,000 homes and businesses lost power for at least two hours on Tuesday because of trees falling on power lines. A power outage happened at the local wastewater plant, which caused tons of half-treated wastewater to enter the ocean. The beaches at the Central Coast will not open for a few days because of this.
 |
| A house being swept away by the floods |
The winds of most of the storm are classified as 10-12 on the Beaufort scale.
"For many students across New South Wales this was the first week of a new term. But children from more than 100 schools woke up on Tuesday to discover that they would be staying home for the day, as wild winds and torrential rain continued to pummel parts of the state...The state emergency services have now responded to over 4,500 calls and completed 47 flood rescues since weather conditions worsened Monday morning...Two hundred and fifty traffic lights are out across the state...a line of storms moves very slowly southwards across the region...As the storm intensifies across parts of New South Wales, we continue to witness the fury being unleashed on towns and suburbs, including pulling down signs, trees and rooftops...With power cuts to 200,000 homes across New South Wales and over 4,500 reports of hazards and wires down across the network due to the wild weather, Ausgrid are reporting it may take 'several days' to repair the damage."(theguardian, Tuesday April 21)
The impact on my neighborhood includes fallen trees and damaged wires. Unfortunately, most of the trash has washed off the streets and into the creeks and wetlands. I hope someone cleans it up, because it is Earth day.
Saturday 18 April 2015
Pathways
Ever since the beginning of life out of the sea, there have always been pathways. There have been animal trails throughout environments, migration paths in the air above, and corridors of life connecting reefs, sea-grass patches, and sheltered bays in the sea. Only a million years ago, people began using the animal paths and turning them into beaten tracks. Just recently, a new type of path has been made, dirt tracks made for horse and cart. This was followed by bitumen and concrete not long after sea routes were established. And another type of pathway has been established so early anybody over the age of sixty can remember it.
Like money, armies, tools, leaders, and advertising, our society is built on pathways, and without them everything would collapse. Unlike all those things, especially the latter, pathways have been needed since the beginning of time. Even planets and stars follow established paths around each other. This article focuses mainly on manmade pathways. The place I live, the Central Coast, is a great example of many pathways.
In the early 1800s Central Coast, settlers such as the Fagan family and Thomas Alison Scott, who founded the town of Tascott, shipped their produce, mainly lemons and other citrus fruit, to the growing colony of Sydney. Meanwhile, another colony was growing in the north at the end of the Hunter River, and became capital of the Hunter Valley, where settlers grew a lot of produce for the colony. As the Hunter Valley became a wine region and the demand for food rose in Sydney, the governor had no choice but to build a road connecting the two towns. It was finished in 1836 after eleven years of convict labor, and was such a good road that restorers with modern equipment have had trouble keeping up.
The road fell quickly into disuse. In order to avoid the notorious Hawkesbury River, the road had to go very far inland. The road was too curvy, the grades were too steep, there was lack of water and horse feed, and boats were much faster and efficient anyway. Put simply, the road was too close to the Blue Mountains.
Around that same time, the Main North Railway line was being put together between Newcastle and Armidale, a town in the plains up north. As demand for a railway between Sydney and Newcastle increased, a ferry lost control in a gale in Broken Bay and smashed into a rock with the loss of lives. The sea was not going to be a safe place for passengers between the cities in a while.
In 1887, a railway line was opened from the Sydney suburb Hornsby to the River Wharf station on an island off the southern shore of the Hawkesbury River. The project included two tunnels and a bridge. At the same year, a line was opened from Newcastle to the Central Coast town of Gosford. Passengers had to get off the train at River Wharf and take a long boat ride to Gosford in order to arrive at Newcastle.
In 1888, a tunnel was made to connect the Central Coast town of Woy Woy to the banks of the Mullet Creek River. The tunnel was, at the time, the longest in Australia. After the construction of Mullet Creek Station, the boat from River Wharf was not nearly so long. By this time, the railway lines connecting Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane were finished, except for the Hawkesbury River. After the railway bridge from Mullet Creek to River Wharf was finally constructed, the stations were moved and called Wondabyne and Brooklyn respectively. Since most of the builders were from New York, the town at the southern end of the bridge was called Brooklyn. Wondabyne is the only train station in Australia which does not have road access.
In 1930, the Pacific Highway was finished between Sydney and Brisbane, replacing a small horse track known as Peats Ferry Road, built in 1850 between Hornsby and settler George Peat's property near what is now Somersby. The road crossed the Hawkesbury River via a bridge to the tiny community of Mooney Mooney, and continued via Gosford and Wyong to the stretch of land between Lake Maquarie and the Pacific, and on to Newcastle. This road still remains. The Sydney-Newcastle Freeway was built more recently, in the 1960s, and crosses the highest road bridge in Australia at Mooney Mooney Creek.
The last route that connects Sydney to Newcastle was made in the 1980s. It is called the Great North Walk, and is a very popular long-distance walking track. I might make a post about that later. The Central Coast is just one example of man-made pathways. There are millions in the world, and some of you may live in one.
Like money, armies, tools, leaders, and advertising, our society is built on pathways, and without them everything would collapse. Unlike all those things, especially the latter, pathways have been needed since the beginning of time. Even planets and stars follow established paths around each other. This article focuses mainly on manmade pathways. The place I live, the Central Coast, is a great example of many pathways.
In the early 1800s Central Coast, settlers such as the Fagan family and Thomas Alison Scott, who founded the town of Tascott, shipped their produce, mainly lemons and other citrus fruit, to the growing colony of Sydney. Meanwhile, another colony was growing in the north at the end of the Hunter River, and became capital of the Hunter Valley, where settlers grew a lot of produce for the colony. As the Hunter Valley became a wine region and the demand for food rose in Sydney, the governor had no choice but to build a road connecting the two towns. It was finished in 1836 after eleven years of convict labor, and was such a good road that restorers with modern equipment have had trouble keeping up.
The road fell quickly into disuse. In order to avoid the notorious Hawkesbury River, the road had to go very far inland. The road was too curvy, the grades were too steep, there was lack of water and horse feed, and boats were much faster and efficient anyway. Put simply, the road was too close to the Blue Mountains.
Around that same time, the Main North Railway line was being put together between Newcastle and Armidale, a town in the plains up north. As demand for a railway between Sydney and Newcastle increased, a ferry lost control in a gale in Broken Bay and smashed into a rock with the loss of lives. The sea was not going to be a safe place for passengers between the cities in a while.
In 1887, a railway line was opened from the Sydney suburb Hornsby to the River Wharf station on an island off the southern shore of the Hawkesbury River. The project included two tunnels and a bridge. At the same year, a line was opened from Newcastle to the Central Coast town of Gosford. Passengers had to get off the train at River Wharf and take a long boat ride to Gosford in order to arrive at Newcastle.
In 1888, a tunnel was made to connect the Central Coast town of Woy Woy to the banks of the Mullet Creek River. The tunnel was, at the time, the longest in Australia. After the construction of Mullet Creek Station, the boat from River Wharf was not nearly so long. By this time, the railway lines connecting Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane were finished, except for the Hawkesbury River. After the railway bridge from Mullet Creek to River Wharf was finally constructed, the stations were moved and called Wondabyne and Brooklyn respectively. Since most of the builders were from New York, the town at the southern end of the bridge was called Brooklyn. Wondabyne is the only train station in Australia which does not have road access.
In 1930, the Pacific Highway was finished between Sydney and Brisbane, replacing a small horse track known as Peats Ferry Road, built in 1850 between Hornsby and settler George Peat's property near what is now Somersby. The road crossed the Hawkesbury River via a bridge to the tiny community of Mooney Mooney, and continued via Gosford and Wyong to the stretch of land between Lake Maquarie and the Pacific, and on to Newcastle. This road still remains. The Sydney-Newcastle Freeway was built more recently, in the 1960s, and crosses the highest road bridge in Australia at Mooney Mooney Creek.
The last route that connects Sydney to Newcastle was made in the 1980s. It is called the Great North Walk, and is a very popular long-distance walking track. I might make a post about that later. The Central Coast is just one example of man-made pathways. There are millions in the world, and some of you may live in one.
Monday 13 April 2015
Tasmania
The first sight of Tasmania to many people who travel there by car is the front of the Spirit of Tasmania.
Day 1
The Spirit is a government ferry that operates between Melbourne and Devonport, the largest town on the northern coast of Tasmania. It crosses the dangerous Bass Strait. The Spirit was simply the latest in a line of smaller, slower car ferries, such as the Abel Tasman, Empress of Australia, and Princess of Tasmania. It is special because there are two ferries, crossing at both day and night.
Early in the morning, from a caravan park in Melbourne, we drove to the ferry wharf. In the car, we waited in line for half an hour before a ferryman turned us back to the beginning of the line. After another half hour, we were on the wharf. The line passed through a quarantine station, we had our tickets checked, and were on the ferry by eight-thirty.
The Spirit of Tasmania is a big ferry. While passengers are on the upper four decks, locked away from their cars which are on the lower six decks, they have the choice of going to one of four seventh level cafes and restaurants, sleeping in the eighth level cabins if it's nighttime, standing on the open decks, watching movies, or enjoying the view from the tenth level seats. But none of these things can be entertaining for nine hours straight, so I spent all my time exploring the ship.
Another way I spent my time was looking at the land shrink away, over the horizon. Port Phillip Bay, which the ship spent an hour in, was nice because of the Melbourne skyline and the beaches at the bay's shores. Then the boat passed through the Heads and into the open sea. A few hours later, at 1:45, we passed the other Spirit of Tasmania on its voyage north. I watched the boat shrink into a speck, and disappear. There was no land in sight, so I entertained myself by standing on the bottom deck and have the ice-cold waves splash me.
Around 5:00, I spotted some misty peaks, rising out of the ocean. A minute later, I saw large tracts of the coast. I soon spotted a town in the hills by the water. Then I could see the individual houses. As the boat neared the entrance of a river, all the passengers were called down to their cars. And then we were in Devonport.
Thank goodness getting out of the ferry was not as long as getting into it, or the sun would have set before we were out of the dock. We drove for a time east, through pastures and plains and forests, dodging wallabies. The sun had set when we got to the campsite, near a gigantic meadow. We pitched camp and slept.
Day 2
It turns out that the gigantic meadow is called "Springlawn Moor" and is a very rare and special community for kangaroos, wallabies, and pademelons. We had decided to walk to the top of Archers Knob, a hill on the other side of the gigantic meadow.
The walk started off through a forest of banksias and other shrubs. A few times, the trail dipped into a mossy wetland with trees growing out of the water. From a bird hide on the side of a lake in the middle of the meadow, we saw a group of black swans. A short walk through a forest full of crickets and up a scrubby hill, there was a view of the whole Narawntapu National Park, the beach, scrub, meadow, and a samphire-choked inlet. (samphire is a salt marsh plant. Its red hue was dominant on the plains by the inlet.)
The walk back down was great, because we walked on the other side of the lake, on the meadow. The meadow was sometimes disturbed by lines of trees, fence lines (the national park was only created a little while ago), and shrubs. And kangaroos. There was a kangaroo for each tree. We also saw a wombat, but it was very far away. It was the most kangaroos I have ever seen in one place.
By the time we returned to the campsite, it was full of wallabies. (I kind of felt guilty eating smoked wallaby for dinner!) As the day wore on, and it got darker and darker, the wallabies moved out of the forest and into the line of trees between the meadow and the campsite. I went out to watch the sunset which was spectacular. The wallabies moved under the bushes at the very edge of the meadow. And one by one, they began hopping out of the bushes to nibble at the grass on the now dark plain.
Day 3
This was the first day that was spent driving. We drove over the hills to the Tamar Valley, a wine growing region. It had everything a wine growing region would have, a river with wetlands, quiet country towns, rolling hills. I did not, however, see a single vineyard. The wetland interpretation center was nice, and there were lots of waterbirds in the river.
The next stop was Launceston, which goes to the Tamar Valley as Newcastle goes to the Hunter Valley. It is also the second largest town in the state. We had lunch and drove into the mountains, where we saw plenty of echidnas and St. Columbia Falls, the tallest waterfall in Tasmania. On the other side of the mountains was the Bay of Fires, which is famous for its red granite rocks. The campsite was free, but many sites were taken and it was a long walk to the bathroom.
There are two main groups of tourists who visit Tasmania, and those are germans and gray nomads. My mother always liked talking to them. Unlike most parts of Australia, in Tasmania there are always beautiful places that are not full of tourists, and are right next to campsites or parking lots. And the northeastern corner of Tasmania is great for that.
Day 4
Because of the sea-borne breezes, it was hard to take down the tent on the next morning. The next destination was Wineglass Bay, one of the two biggest tourist attractions in the state. It was around noon when we got to the campsite. Like always, I was eager to do the hardest hike around, which was the climb up Mount Amos.
The Hazards are four very steep granite mountains that loom over Wineglass Bay. I had seen the bay in pictures, but I did not know what was special about it. Mount Amos is the highest of the Hazards. The track took us to the base of the mountain. After that, the track veered up a steep and totally bare windswept granite slope. Three slopes, much climbing, and some bouldering later, we were crawling up a fracture in a very high cliff. But soon, we were at the top. Wineglass bay does not have a special quality about it, just is a perfect crescent of pure white sand; the most perfect bay in the world. I did not want to think about climbing back down that cliff.
After skipping oyster shells on the beach by the campsite, the sun set and I went to bed.
Day 5
Another driving day. This time, we were bound for the Tasman Peninsula. Soon we were standing by the Tasman Blowhole on the northern part of the peninsula, resting from all those hours spent driving down country roads. The Tasman Blowhole was created when a sea cave collapsed. The tunnel leading out to sea
could be seen from the side of the blowhole, and every wave, funneled into the blowhole, burst on the rocks.
I do not think I have seen a nicer two kilometers of sea coast than I saw on the trail to Waterfall Bay. It began by a deep crack in the rock going all the way down to sea level that was called "Devil's Kitchen." It led past arches and towers and a view of a waterfall. All these rock formations were made of dolomite, a rock much harder and rougher than granite. These were the tallest sea cliffs of the southern hemisphere.
We stayed at a caravan park near Port Arthur.
Day 6
The next day was convict day. The first stop was the Port Arthur Historic Site, the head of the Australian convict world heritage property (which includes the Old Great North Road, on the Central Coast). I wandered through the museum, and then we walked to a wharf for a tour of the water. We wandered around the ruins, and walked back.
The British began the colonization of the continent by landing two hundred settlers, but a thousand convicts, on the shores of Port Jackson, to take not real lawbreakers but an entire "convict class" from England. After the colony began to prosper, which was not after a decade or so, the British began to land convicts in other parts of Australia, beginning with Van Diemen's Land, the place which reminded them most of home. The British sent boats to Cascade and to Port Arthur.
The convicts lived in the Penitentiary, a kind of prison. Many people misjudged how badly the convicts were treated. The convicts were not starving, and the well-behaved ones had three meals a day. The boys, who were kept across the river at Point Puer, were taught math and writing. The bad ones were kept on Norfolk Island. The very bad ones were kept in silent isolation, and then, usually, the lunatic asylum. There was also a guard tower.
The settlement was unusual for its lack of any walls to keep the convicts in. There was a guard tower, but any escapees could avoid it by staying in the shadows. However, the place had natural defenses as well. Because this was a peninsula, it was completely surrounded by sea except one point. The soldiers strung a line of dogs, chained together, across the isthmus separating the peninsula from mainland. Escaped convicts were always caught by the soldiers of the dog line, and sent to Norfolk Island so that the convicts at Port Arthur had no way of knowing.
The system worked like a machine; anybody who resisted got crushed. But the machine did not last forever. When gold was found in Victoria up north, a rush of people moved to the land to look for gold. With increasing numbers of free settlers, the British stopped the transportation of convicts to Tasmania in 1870. Transportation lasted for another decade to Western Australia. In another twenty years, the country was independent. The system was over. Our next stop was the Coal Mines historic site, one of the many places people employed the bad convicts. It took half an hour to visit the main shaft, semaphore station, barracks, and settler's houses.
Day 7
On the next day, we drove to Hobart. The Tasmanian Museum was nice, and I liked the Salamanca Place markets. We only spent a few hours in Hobart and I wish I could have stayed longer to see the botanic gardens and some more museums.
We took the ferry to Bruny Island and camped on the spit between North Bruny Island and South Bruny Island. It was a great campground, and the beach was not all that far away.
Day 8
We drove along the bumpy roads to a lighthouse from which we could see the southernmost point in Australia, South East Cape. The black waters of the Southern Ocean broke on the rocks below after traveling from Antarctica.
We were almost too late for the Bruny Island cruise. It was one of my best experiences in Tasmania. The guide showed us many arches and towers and sea caves. And an impressive blowhole. All made of dolomite.
Day 1
The Spirit is a government ferry that operates between Melbourne and Devonport, the largest town on the northern coast of Tasmania. It crosses the dangerous Bass Strait. The Spirit was simply the latest in a line of smaller, slower car ferries, such as the Abel Tasman, Empress of Australia, and Princess of Tasmania. It is special because there are two ferries, crossing at both day and night.
Early in the morning, from a caravan park in Melbourne, we drove to the ferry wharf. In the car, we waited in line for half an hour before a ferryman turned us back to the beginning of the line. After another half hour, we were on the wharf. The line passed through a quarantine station, we had our tickets checked, and were on the ferry by eight-thirty.
The Spirit of Tasmania is a big ferry. While passengers are on the upper four decks, locked away from their cars which are on the lower six decks, they have the choice of going to one of four seventh level cafes and restaurants, sleeping in the eighth level cabins if it's nighttime, standing on the open decks, watching movies, or enjoying the view from the tenth level seats. But none of these things can be entertaining for nine hours straight, so I spent all my time exploring the ship.
Another way I spent my time was looking at the land shrink away, over the horizon. Port Phillip Bay, which the ship spent an hour in, was nice because of the Melbourne skyline and the beaches at the bay's shores. Then the boat passed through the Heads and into the open sea. A few hours later, at 1:45, we passed the other Spirit of Tasmania on its voyage north. I watched the boat shrink into a speck, and disappear. There was no land in sight, so I entertained myself by standing on the bottom deck and have the ice-cold waves splash me.
Around 5:00, I spotted some misty peaks, rising out of the ocean. A minute later, I saw large tracts of the coast. I soon spotted a town in the hills by the water. Then I could see the individual houses. As the boat neared the entrance of a river, all the passengers were called down to their cars. And then we were in Devonport.
Thank goodness getting out of the ferry was not as long as getting into it, or the sun would have set before we were out of the dock. We drove for a time east, through pastures and plains and forests, dodging wallabies. The sun had set when we got to the campsite, near a gigantic meadow. We pitched camp and slept.
Day 2
It turns out that the gigantic meadow is called "Springlawn Moor" and is a very rare and special community for kangaroos, wallabies, and pademelons. We had decided to walk to the top of Archers Knob, a hill on the other side of the gigantic meadow.
The walk started off through a forest of banksias and other shrubs. A few times, the trail dipped into a mossy wetland with trees growing out of the water. From a bird hide on the side of a lake in the middle of the meadow, we saw a group of black swans. A short walk through a forest full of crickets and up a scrubby hill, there was a view of the whole Narawntapu National Park, the beach, scrub, meadow, and a samphire-choked inlet. (samphire is a salt marsh plant. Its red hue was dominant on the plains by the inlet.)
The walk back down was great, because we walked on the other side of the lake, on the meadow. The meadow was sometimes disturbed by lines of trees, fence lines (the national park was only created a little while ago), and shrubs. And kangaroos. There was a kangaroo for each tree. We also saw a wombat, but it was very far away. It was the most kangaroos I have ever seen in one place.
By the time we returned to the campsite, it was full of wallabies. (I kind of felt guilty eating smoked wallaby for dinner!) As the day wore on, and it got darker and darker, the wallabies moved out of the forest and into the line of trees between the meadow and the campsite. I went out to watch the sunset which was spectacular. The wallabies moved under the bushes at the very edge of the meadow. And one by one, they began hopping out of the bushes to nibble at the grass on the now dark plain.
Day 3
This was the first day that was spent driving. We drove over the hills to the Tamar Valley, a wine growing region. It had everything a wine growing region would have, a river with wetlands, quiet country towns, rolling hills. I did not, however, see a single vineyard. The wetland interpretation center was nice, and there were lots of waterbirds in the river.
The next stop was Launceston, which goes to the Tamar Valley as Newcastle goes to the Hunter Valley. It is also the second largest town in the state. We had lunch and drove into the mountains, where we saw plenty of echidnas and St. Columbia Falls, the tallest waterfall in Tasmania. On the other side of the mountains was the Bay of Fires, which is famous for its red granite rocks. The campsite was free, but many sites were taken and it was a long walk to the bathroom.
There are two main groups of tourists who visit Tasmania, and those are germans and gray nomads. My mother always liked talking to them. Unlike most parts of Australia, in Tasmania there are always beautiful places that are not full of tourists, and are right next to campsites or parking lots. And the northeastern corner of Tasmania is great for that.
Day 4
Because of the sea-borne breezes, it was hard to take down the tent on the next morning. The next destination was Wineglass Bay, one of the two biggest tourist attractions in the state. It was around noon when we got to the campsite. Like always, I was eager to do the hardest hike around, which was the climb up Mount Amos.
The Hazards are four very steep granite mountains that loom over Wineglass Bay. I had seen the bay in pictures, but I did not know what was special about it. Mount Amos is the highest of the Hazards. The track took us to the base of the mountain. After that, the track veered up a steep and totally bare windswept granite slope. Three slopes, much climbing, and some bouldering later, we were crawling up a fracture in a very high cliff. But soon, we were at the top. Wineglass bay does not have a special quality about it, just is a perfect crescent of pure white sand; the most perfect bay in the world. I did not want to think about climbing back down that cliff.
After skipping oyster shells on the beach by the campsite, the sun set and I went to bed.
Day 5
Another driving day. This time, we were bound for the Tasman Peninsula. Soon we were standing by the Tasman Blowhole on the northern part of the peninsula, resting from all those hours spent driving down country roads. The Tasman Blowhole was created when a sea cave collapsed. The tunnel leading out to sea
could be seen from the side of the blowhole, and every wave, funneled into the blowhole, burst on the rocks.
I do not think I have seen a nicer two kilometers of sea coast than I saw on the trail to Waterfall Bay. It began by a deep crack in the rock going all the way down to sea level that was called "Devil's Kitchen." It led past arches and towers and a view of a waterfall. All these rock formations were made of dolomite, a rock much harder and rougher than granite. These were the tallest sea cliffs of the southern hemisphere.
We stayed at a caravan park near Port Arthur.
Day 6
The next day was convict day. The first stop was the Port Arthur Historic Site, the head of the Australian convict world heritage property (which includes the Old Great North Road, on the Central Coast). I wandered through the museum, and then we walked to a wharf for a tour of the water. We wandered around the ruins, and walked back.
The British began the colonization of the continent by landing two hundred settlers, but a thousand convicts, on the shores of Port Jackson, to take not real lawbreakers but an entire "convict class" from England. After the colony began to prosper, which was not after a decade or so, the British began to land convicts in other parts of Australia, beginning with Van Diemen's Land, the place which reminded them most of home. The British sent boats to Cascade and to Port Arthur.
The convicts lived in the Penitentiary, a kind of prison. Many people misjudged how badly the convicts were treated. The convicts were not starving, and the well-behaved ones had three meals a day. The boys, who were kept across the river at Point Puer, were taught math and writing. The bad ones were kept on Norfolk Island. The very bad ones were kept in silent isolation, and then, usually, the lunatic asylum. There was also a guard tower.
The settlement was unusual for its lack of any walls to keep the convicts in. There was a guard tower, but any escapees could avoid it by staying in the shadows. However, the place had natural defenses as well. Because this was a peninsula, it was completely surrounded by sea except one point. The soldiers strung a line of dogs, chained together, across the isthmus separating the peninsula from mainland. Escaped convicts were always caught by the soldiers of the dog line, and sent to Norfolk Island so that the convicts at Port Arthur had no way of knowing.
The system worked like a machine; anybody who resisted got crushed. But the machine did not last forever. When gold was found in Victoria up north, a rush of people moved to the land to look for gold. With increasing numbers of free settlers, the British stopped the transportation of convicts to Tasmania in 1870. Transportation lasted for another decade to Western Australia. In another twenty years, the country was independent. The system was over. Our next stop was the Coal Mines historic site, one of the many places people employed the bad convicts. It took half an hour to visit the main shaft, semaphore station, barracks, and settler's houses.
Day 7
On the next day, we drove to Hobart. The Tasmanian Museum was nice, and I liked the Salamanca Place markets. We only spent a few hours in Hobart and I wish I could have stayed longer to see the botanic gardens and some more museums.
We took the ferry to Bruny Island and camped on the spit between North Bruny Island and South Bruny Island. It was a great campground, and the beach was not all that far away.
Day 8
We drove along the bumpy roads to a lighthouse from which we could see the southernmost point in Australia, South East Cape. The black waters of the Southern Ocean broke on the rocks below after traveling from Antarctica.
We were almost too late for the Bruny Island cruise. It was one of my best experiences in Tasmania. The guide showed us many arches and towers and sea caves. And an impressive blowhole. All made of dolomite.
Thursday 2 April 2015
My vacation in the Australian outback -- Alice Springs to the Flinders Ranges.
The only Outback city
The drive to Alice Springs was long and boring. Mountain ranges sometimes appeared to the left, but the terrain was mostly flat. Halfway there, the road crossed the Finke River. The Finke river is a kind of anomaly. Its tributaries come from Watarrka to the south and the Tanami Desert to the north. From these two points, the rivers meet in the middle of the West Macdonnell Ranges, cutting deep gorges on the way, such as Simpsons Gap, Stanley Chasm, Ellery Creek, Serpentine Gorge, Ormiston Gorge, Redbank Gorge, Finke Gorge, and Glen Helen Gorge. Then the now mighty river flows southeast, for five hundred kilometers, only to vanish entirely in the Simpson Desert. It does not even have the chance to be full for more than a couple times a decade. When we passed, it was bone dry, and plants were growing in the riverbed.
Hills and mountains
Lunch was in the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, in Alice Springs. The Olive Pink botanic garden was an assortment of acacias, wattles, and malees, the only bushes which can grow in the botanic gardens. But up the hill, a view of Alice Springs.
Outback mountains are all made of quartzite, a strong, sparkly rock made of compressed sandstone, mica crystals, and, of course, quartz. The rock is very strong, can make for very steep slopes and cliffs on the sides of mountains. I had a good view of them on top of the hill, for Alice Springs is entirely surrounded by steep, tall, glittery quartzite mountains, many for the most part bare in vegetation, and some, like the one I was standing on, solitary peaks in a sea of houses and parks. To the north I saw the shopping area, followed by a pass in the mountains which the highway takes to Tennant Creek and beyond. Somewhere in the pass is a historic telegraph station by a pond the town was named for. To the east, Alice Springs Desert Park, its main tourist attraction, backed up by the East Macdonnell Ranges. To the south, the rest of the botanic garden, and the pass the Stuart Highway comes through. To the west, the mighty West Macdonnell Ranges.
The Alice Springs Desert Park
After lunch, the next stop was the Alice Springs School of the Air, the oldest School of the Air in Australia. The school was first operated through the radios everybody used to have in the outback to communicate with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which serves as a "hospital of the air"(We visited their biggest base in Broken Hill). But the flying doctor service is literally on the air, in airplanes. The School of the Air has to do with computers and radios.
Despite it being a school, the students can graduate at year 7 after doing an hour or two of work a day, less than I do. And the whole school is only about twenty or thirty students spread out across the Northern Territory.
The Alice Springs Desert Park is a good model of three desert environments; one a place where it rains a little, a place where it barely rains at all, and a place half way in between. There is a large nocturnal house, some enclosures, lots of information boards and plenty of walk-in aviaries. There was a bird show that I thought was better than the one at Taronga Zoo, Australia's biggest zoo. It is a great place for tourists, especially if they have not had the time to drive to Lake Eyre on the Oonandatta Track. (that accounts for just about everybody!) The rest of the day was spent exploring the desert park.
The campground did not meet expectations. It was small and crowded. It did not have many facilities. So, on the next morning, we packed up the tent and turned our focus to the West Macdonnell Ranges.
Glen Helen Gorge
Not long out of Alice Springs, it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere again. But there was no feel this was a barren plain that looked just like the surface of Mars, except much hotter and flatter (look at pictures of the Coober Pedy Moon Plain). It felt like Uluru, close up, at sunrise. Golden beams of sunlight struck low, jagged peaks and then the plants in the valley. The variation of light and color, the vaguely dark orange color of the peaks mixed with the much brighter orange of the sun's beams in early morning. Few people were on the road with us. It felt empty.
At long last we arrived in the campsite at Glen Helen Gorge Resort, a block of apartments surrounded by grassy campgrounds. The camp was in easy view of fluted cliffs. We pitched camp, and set off for Ormiston Gorge, which was supposed to be the most impressive gorge in the mountains. On the road to the gorge, we watched a dingo dragged a dead kangaroo across the road. Dingoes are now very rare in Australia, so it was very lucky we saw it.
The Pound walk was the longest walk in the gorge, so we took it. The walk began in grassy hills, dipping up and down, passing cliffs, crossing dry stream-beds. And then the walk went over a saddle, and below us was a large, flat valley ringed with jagged mountain ranges. There was not a single opening or gap in the whole circle. This is what Australians call a pound. The walk followed a riverbed out of the valley, toward the gorge.
The gorge was very narrow and long, and choked by boulders. And when you have noticed the track has disappeared into a boulder field, you see the waterhole. The waterhole takes up two thirds of the gorge if you are lucky, and at one point, the whole gorge (a deep wade is required.) But that did not stop me from admiring the gorge.
Once back, we walked into Glen Helen Gorge. Or we could have if a gigantic waterhole in the neck of the gorge was not there. Yes, there is lots of water in the desert, but not a drop that seems to be in the right place.
The Flinders Ranges
The night was spent in a cabin in Coober Pedy. Around lunchtime, we stopped in Woomera, which was founded as the head of a massive bombing range, but is now the creepiest town in the Outback.
I have no idea what makes Woomera creepy. It could be all the little metal shelters or the fact there is no house here which is made of wood. It could be the absence of people. Whatever it was, the dark, gloomy sky made it look even weirder.
Outside of the museum was a plaque commemorating Len Beadell, the last explorer in the world. In the 1950s, he surveyed land for several outback highways, and visited many places for the first time. There remain some completely unsurveyed parts of Australia.
Close to Port Augusta, there was a great view of jagged mountains to the east. These are the Flinders Ranges, a group of semi-outback mountains. After a very long and windy drive through foot hills and little villages and ruins, we arrived in the resort. Wilpena is a very large campground, and it takes fifteen minutes to walk from the visitor center, where the trails officially begin, to where the trails actually begin, on the edge of the campground. We had a fire, and cooked damper on the coals.
Wilpena Pound
The next morning was a walk to a lookout. After walking out of the campground, we walked through a narrow pass between two mountains to a homestead. In the 1870s, some prospectors found a valley, and called it Wilpena Pound because it would be be hard for any animal to escape from the valley. A whole bunch of farmers set up homes released sheep into the lush looking valley. Within two years, the sheep had overgrazed the whole valley and all but a small group of farmers moved out. A repeated pattern of drought, flood and fire convinced most of the rest to move out as well.
Now there was just one homestead left, which survived the onslaught of the elements for thirty more years before their luck ran out in 1920. The house is still standing.
We climbed to the lookout, which offered a great view of the pound. The pound was formed after the rock, deep under the ground, was tilted forty-five degrees, meaning one side of every mountain in the Flinders Ranges is craggier and steeper than the other, and gave mountain ranges the appearance of a saw or a row of teeth. Time made one mountain range wrinkle and bend, and now forms an almost complete circle that looks like, as the Aboriginal myth suggests, the backs of two serpents.
Mount Ohlssen-Bagge
What a weird name! It was given to the mountain closest to the Wilpena Campsite. We climbed it on the third day.
On the second day, we took a joyride in the national park. We drove down a gorge, forded a stream, and saw kangaroos and emus hopping everywhere we looked. I tried to count the ones we saw, but I gave up around number thirty. We stopped in the dusty outback town of Blinman for lunch and wrapped up the day with a view of Wilpena Pound, indeed the entire national park, at sunset.
The climb up the mountain was long and hard. It combined scrambles up rocky slopes with walks through scrub. At the top, a great view of the park.
We stopped at an abandoned homestead and a sacred canyon, stayed another night, drove to Mildura on the banks of the muddiest river in at least two continents. Drove to Cowra. And finished the whole vacation in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. It was the first three-week vacation I ever had in Australia.
THE END
The drive to Alice Springs was long and boring. Mountain ranges sometimes appeared to the left, but the terrain was mostly flat. Halfway there, the road crossed the Finke River. The Finke river is a kind of anomaly. Its tributaries come from Watarrka to the south and the Tanami Desert to the north. From these two points, the rivers meet in the middle of the West Macdonnell Ranges, cutting deep gorges on the way, such as Simpsons Gap, Stanley Chasm, Ellery Creek, Serpentine Gorge, Ormiston Gorge, Redbank Gorge, Finke Gorge, and Glen Helen Gorge. Then the now mighty river flows southeast, for five hundred kilometers, only to vanish entirely in the Simpson Desert. It does not even have the chance to be full for more than a couple times a decade. When we passed, it was bone dry, and plants were growing in the riverbed.
Hills and mountains
Lunch was in the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, in Alice Springs. The Olive Pink botanic garden was an assortment of acacias, wattles, and malees, the only bushes which can grow in the botanic gardens. But up the hill, a view of Alice Springs.
Outback mountains are all made of quartzite, a strong, sparkly rock made of compressed sandstone, mica crystals, and, of course, quartz. The rock is very strong, can make for very steep slopes and cliffs on the sides of mountains. I had a good view of them on top of the hill, for Alice Springs is entirely surrounded by steep, tall, glittery quartzite mountains, many for the most part bare in vegetation, and some, like the one I was standing on, solitary peaks in a sea of houses and parks. To the north I saw the shopping area, followed by a pass in the mountains which the highway takes to Tennant Creek and beyond. Somewhere in the pass is a historic telegraph station by a pond the town was named for. To the east, Alice Springs Desert Park, its main tourist attraction, backed up by the East Macdonnell Ranges. To the south, the rest of the botanic garden, and the pass the Stuart Highway comes through. To the west, the mighty West Macdonnell Ranges.
The Alice Springs Desert Park
After lunch, the next stop was the Alice Springs School of the Air, the oldest School of the Air in Australia. The school was first operated through the radios everybody used to have in the outback to communicate with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which serves as a "hospital of the air"(We visited their biggest base in Broken Hill). But the flying doctor service is literally on the air, in airplanes. The School of the Air has to do with computers and radios.
Despite it being a school, the students can graduate at year 7 after doing an hour or two of work a day, less than I do. And the whole school is only about twenty or thirty students spread out across the Northern Territory.
The Alice Springs Desert Park is a good model of three desert environments; one a place where it rains a little, a place where it barely rains at all, and a place half way in between. There is a large nocturnal house, some enclosures, lots of information boards and plenty of walk-in aviaries. There was a bird show that I thought was better than the one at Taronga Zoo, Australia's biggest zoo. It is a great place for tourists, especially if they have not had the time to drive to Lake Eyre on the Oonandatta Track. (that accounts for just about everybody!) The rest of the day was spent exploring the desert park.
The campground did not meet expectations. It was small and crowded. It did not have many facilities. So, on the next morning, we packed up the tent and turned our focus to the West Macdonnell Ranges.
Glen Helen Gorge
Not long out of Alice Springs, it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere again. But there was no feel this was a barren plain that looked just like the surface of Mars, except much hotter and flatter (look at pictures of the Coober Pedy Moon Plain). It felt like Uluru, close up, at sunrise. Golden beams of sunlight struck low, jagged peaks and then the plants in the valley. The variation of light and color, the vaguely dark orange color of the peaks mixed with the much brighter orange of the sun's beams in early morning. Few people were on the road with us. It felt empty.
At long last we arrived in the campsite at Glen Helen Gorge Resort, a block of apartments surrounded by grassy campgrounds. The camp was in easy view of fluted cliffs. We pitched camp, and set off for Ormiston Gorge, which was supposed to be the most impressive gorge in the mountains. On the road to the gorge, we watched a dingo dragged a dead kangaroo across the road. Dingoes are now very rare in Australia, so it was very lucky we saw it.
The Pound walk was the longest walk in the gorge, so we took it. The walk began in grassy hills, dipping up and down, passing cliffs, crossing dry stream-beds. And then the walk went over a saddle, and below us was a large, flat valley ringed with jagged mountain ranges. There was not a single opening or gap in the whole circle. This is what Australians call a pound. The walk followed a riverbed out of the valley, toward the gorge.
The gorge was very narrow and long, and choked by boulders. And when you have noticed the track has disappeared into a boulder field, you see the waterhole. The waterhole takes up two thirds of the gorge if you are lucky, and at one point, the whole gorge (a deep wade is required.) But that did not stop me from admiring the gorge.
Once back, we walked into Glen Helen Gorge. Or we could have if a gigantic waterhole in the neck of the gorge was not there. Yes, there is lots of water in the desert, but not a drop that seems to be in the right place.
The Flinders Ranges
The night was spent in a cabin in Coober Pedy. Around lunchtime, we stopped in Woomera, which was founded as the head of a massive bombing range, but is now the creepiest town in the Outback.
I have no idea what makes Woomera creepy. It could be all the little metal shelters or the fact there is no house here which is made of wood. It could be the absence of people. Whatever it was, the dark, gloomy sky made it look even weirder.
Outside of the museum was a plaque commemorating Len Beadell, the last explorer in the world. In the 1950s, he surveyed land for several outback highways, and visited many places for the first time. There remain some completely unsurveyed parts of Australia.
Close to Port Augusta, there was a great view of jagged mountains to the east. These are the Flinders Ranges, a group of semi-outback mountains. After a very long and windy drive through foot hills and little villages and ruins, we arrived in the resort. Wilpena is a very large campground, and it takes fifteen minutes to walk from the visitor center, where the trails officially begin, to where the trails actually begin, on the edge of the campground. We had a fire, and cooked damper on the coals.
Wilpena Pound
The next morning was a walk to a lookout. After walking out of the campground, we walked through a narrow pass between two mountains to a homestead. In the 1870s, some prospectors found a valley, and called it Wilpena Pound because it would be be hard for any animal to escape from the valley. A whole bunch of farmers set up homes released sheep into the lush looking valley. Within two years, the sheep had overgrazed the whole valley and all but a small group of farmers moved out. A repeated pattern of drought, flood and fire convinced most of the rest to move out as well.
Now there was just one homestead left, which survived the onslaught of the elements for thirty more years before their luck ran out in 1920. The house is still standing.
We climbed to the lookout, which offered a great view of the pound. The pound was formed after the rock, deep under the ground, was tilted forty-five degrees, meaning one side of every mountain in the Flinders Ranges is craggier and steeper than the other, and gave mountain ranges the appearance of a saw or a row of teeth. Time made one mountain range wrinkle and bend, and now forms an almost complete circle that looks like, as the Aboriginal myth suggests, the backs of two serpents.
Mount Ohlssen-Bagge
What a weird name! It was given to the mountain closest to the Wilpena Campsite. We climbed it on the third day.
On the second day, we took a joyride in the national park. We drove down a gorge, forded a stream, and saw kangaroos and emus hopping everywhere we looked. I tried to count the ones we saw, but I gave up around number thirty. We stopped in the dusty outback town of Blinman for lunch and wrapped up the day with a view of Wilpena Pound, indeed the entire national park, at sunset.
The climb up the mountain was long and hard. It combined scrambles up rocky slopes with walks through scrub. At the top, a great view of the park.
We stopped at an abandoned homestead and a sacred canyon, stayed another night, drove to Mildura on the banks of the muddiest river in at least two continents. Drove to Cowra. And finished the whole vacation in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. It was the first three-week vacation I ever had in Australia.
THE END
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