Hobart and up the middle

View of Hobart from Mt.Wellington

We spent a week in Hobart looking at beautiful early settler homes and historic buildings and also the surrounding area visiting beaches, wild coastlines and tiny villages. The weather was good but it wasn’t until the last day that we got a hot and cloudless day to go up to the top of Mt. Wellington which towers over the city to a height of 1270 metres so even on the best of days it’s cool up there. The views are spectacular!

Oatlands, Tasmania



Carrington Mill, Oatlands 1837



There are so many townships with old sandstone houses, old pubs and buildings you just can’t stop at them all so our next camp spot was at Oatlands, typical of the area and by-passed by the highway so it has kept much of its character. The town is dominated by a stone windmill tower, the mill has been restored and produces flour once again.

The next stop was Ross, another historic town by a river with a beautiful old bridge with intricate stone carving built by convict masons in 1856.

Part of Pearn's traction engine collection, Westbury

On to Westbury to camp behind the bakery this time. As well as the old buildings, this town has an excellent steam museum. The Pearn family owned and used many of the steam engines and collected others from the area as they went out of use by the 1950’s and saved them from becoming useless rusty relics. It is the biggest collection of operational steam traction engines in the southern hemisphere.

Swansea to Port Arthur



Dawn over Freycinet Peninsula (from Swansea)

 
We worked our way down the east coast stopping at Swansea where there is a restored bark mill set up as if it is still operational with the steam power plant running all the belts to drive all the equipment. Black Wattle bark is high in tannin and was crushed and bagged for use in the tanneries.

Triabunna

The next stop was Triabunna, a small sheltered fishing village where you can camp behind the pub for a donation to the local fire or ambulance service and from there it was on to Dunalley where once again it was camping behind the pub.

Convict built bridge with spikey top made of local stone

All these stops and the communities in between are linked by winding coastal or hill country roads – great to drive in the Moke. Of particular interest were two hills called “Break-my-neck” and “Bust-my-gall”, they must have been a real challenge in the early days of horses and wagon transport.

We used Dunalley as a base to visit the historic penal settlement of Port Arthur. The introductory talk was very enlightening as we learned that the reforming ideals were quite advanced and the convicts who accepted the system had the opportunity to learn trades, learn to read and write and get a basic education (the library had 13,000 books!). An attempt was made to keep young prisoners separated from the older men and the old, infirm and insane were provided with care so that in the last few years before Port Arthur closed a large percentage of the inmates fell into this category. Punishments were severe however and flogging or working in heavy leg irons were common punishments, also solitary confinement and periods of sensory deprivation.

Main penetentiary building and hospital ruin behind

The area now looks like parkland with magnificent sandstone ruins but it was once a busy industrial township with brick-making, timber cutting and woodworking, a four mill, smithing, and many other trades. All the timber buildings have now gone, leaving the convict built stone structures. There was so much to see we went back for a second day

A boat trip out into the bay was part of the entry price and to our delight our trip included an impromptu dolphin viewing as we caught up with a large pod of dolphins, including young, who kept pace just under bow of the boat.

EAST COAST, TASMANIA

Swimcart Beach, Bay of Fires

For Christmas and New Year we settled into Swimcart Beach on the east coast in the Bay of Fires area near St Helens. We arrived on the 22^nd to try and beat the holiday rush but we found quite a few camps set up but not occupied and people drifted in to take up residency over the next few days.

Blue Wren (a regular visitor)

Our camp was behind the beach in the ti-tree scrub which offered some shelter from the strong wind off the Tasman Sea. The area is a State Nature Reserve and the birdlife was quite unafraid of the campers with tiny birds invading our camp morning and evening looking for insects. There were Yellow-tail Black Cockatoos hanging round feeding on the banksia seed heads, Kookaburras and Boobook owls to be heard in the evenings.



The coast scenery is beautiful with curved white beaches separated by rocky promontories consisting of rounded pale grey, cream or white boulders worn by the wind and water and split by straight cracks as if sliced by a huge knife. Above high water line some of the boulders are covered in bright orange lichen which contrasts with the bright blue waters. Some beaches are better protected from the ocean swells, but others are open to the wild surf creating spectacular displays as the ocean smashes onto the rocks. Many of the beaches have lagoons behind which make sheltered swimming holes popular with holiday makers. Behind the beaches are towering forest covered hillsides.

Christmas campsite

George was sitting out the front and all the kids stopped by to look him over. When he “talked back” to one of them the kid took off to tell his mum that the skeleton “telled me his name!” (I was sitting just round the corner)