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.