Today we headed towards Cradle Mountain. The big excitement of the journey was when we ran over a black Tiger Snake. I'd aimed Frankie so he would go straight over the top without hurting him. Unfortunately he reared up, flaring his head outwards so as to look threatening and struck at us as we passed over. Hopefully he missed!
8th March 2011
We got off to an early start today climbing aboard the 8:20am shuttle bus into Cradle Mountain. The area has become very tourist oriented. When I was last here about 24 years ago I felt like we were the only ones in the park and that we were entering into a wild and rugged wilderness area. This time with tourist signposts, boardwalks and people of all ages tromping about the park it no longer has that wilderness feel to it.
Walking the boards is definitely better for the environment and I could
see the old tracks that we'd sloshed through ankle deep in mud still trying to repair themselves. Crater Lake was our first destination. Reaching the iconic wooden shelter you'll recognize from any photos you've seen of the Cradle Mountain area we donned our raincoats as the weather began to turn nasty.
Onto Marion's Lookout we marched as the drizzle turned to rain and the wind picked up and cut through our clothing. From Marion's Lookout we had a good view of the peaks of Cradle Mountain. As much as I would have liked to scale the heights the path is not an easy one, marked only with an occasional pole defining the track through a boulder strewn cliff side.
Reluctantly we headed back down to Dove Lake to complete the circuit around the lake and through the Ballroom Forest, a moss and lichen decorated corner of the forest perpetually shaded by the mountains ringing that side of the lake. Jay took a bit of a slip down some narrow stairs bruising and grazing his back pretty badly. The rain had really set in by now and we'd lost sight of Cradle Mountain completely, justifying my decision not to go up there. Certainly not the place to be in a whiteout with a nine year old. After fueling up on some lunch we took the shuttle bus back to the visitors centre. The weather was much improved so we embarked upon another walk through The Enchanted Forest. This was a beautiful walk through the type of forest that was used as the basis for the Elves home in The Lord of the Rings. It didn't take much imagination to believe that fairies and pixies might dwell amid the mossy vegetation.
On returning to the carpark Frankie had a tantrum about being left alone all day and refused to start. The weather had caught up with us again and so I was feeling rather miserable and sorry for myself as I attempted to jump start him with a battery pack from the rangers station. Wanting to be close to help should I need it next morning we stayed the night at a caravan park in Zeehan. I'd hoped for a special birthday dinner at a nice restaurant but the best Zeehan could manage was a pub up the far end of town which I declined. I didn't even manage to find a bakery for a celebratory cupcake!
9th March 2011
Frankie kicked up a fuss again this morning and I had to clutch start him. Fortunately I'd parked on an ever so slight decline but it was just enough to get rolling and turn the battery over. First stop was the mechanic in Zeehan who checked the charge in the batteries and declared everything to be working fine. He suggested it may be the starter motor or perhaps a short circuit somewhere and advised I take Frankie to an auto electrician. Mind you there isn't one on the whole West Coast and the mobile service only comes to the West Coast once a week and had been in yesterday. With him up and running for the day I decided to head to Strahan anyway and take evasive action that night by disconnecting the dual batteries to ensure they couldn't be flattened overnight. It would also allow me to work out whether the start motor was really an issue or not.
Strahan is a charming little fishing village on the banks of Macquarie Harbour with beautifully restored late 19th and early 20th century architecture giving the place a Victorian era feel.
After lunch we went for an amble to Hogarth Falls from People's Park which was a popular gathering place for locals in the late 1800's. Delightfully we spotted a platypus playing in the creek along the walk. This is a rare treat especially during the day and with so many people wandering up the path. We felt very privileged. We were dismayed to find the caravan parks all full, as was every other type of accommodation, and so we headed onto the free campsite only to find it was closed. A quick chat with the nearby golf club owner secured us a spot in the golf club carpark for the night.
From there it was a flat and pleasant ride into Strahan village for a pantomime "The Boat That Never Was". This interactive reenactment of an escape attempt by some Sarah Island convicts to Chile was hilariously entertaining and interesting. An unfortunate delay caused us to be a few minutes late and we were duly picked on by the two-man cast.
Jayden found himself playing the 95 year old hero Bill and I starred as the parrot. Jayden enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame immensely and did a sterling job in his character acting. He has found it somewhat bothersome ever since though when people approach him randomly in the street and congratulate him on his fine performance.
As if that wasn't enough excitement for one night we were booked onto "Sophia" for an excursion out to Bonnet Island. This took us through Hell's Gate a narrow and shallow channel, the only entrance into the massive Macquarie Harbour which is four times the size of Sydney Harbour. The passage into the harbour is guided by three lighthouses as the channel does a dog leg halfway requiring vessels to line up very carefully with the coloured strips on the lights to safely navigate the journey. It was to one of these lighthouses on Bonnet Island that our boat journeyed. Onto the island we trekked after the late Tasmanian dusk finally turned to night for a glimpse of the residents, a colony of Little Penguins. We weren't disappointed and had numerous encounters with the penguins from close proximity. Jay got to within a few centimeters of these sweet seabirds.
Unlike other harbours Macquarie has a layer of fresh water sitting atop the heavier salt water for a large portion of it's capacity. This allows for very healthy fish apparently as they are able to move between the salt and fresh water to rid themselves of many of the bacterial diseases that are a problem in other waterways. Another anomaly concerns the tides. The harbour isn't affected by lunar tides as you'd expect. The tides are a result of the air pressure. A high pressure system allows water into the Harbour and a low pushes it back out to sea. Even on a calm night like the one we had you've got to admire the gumption of the convicts who thought they could escape the colony by heading into the Southern Ocean and making a bee-line for South America.
It was two very weary but satisfied travelers who eventually cycled back to the golf club around 10pm that night.
10th March 2011
Arising early in case Frankie decided to be difficult I was delighted when he started first time after reconnecting the battery. At least it ruled out the starter motor as being an issue. Consequently we arrived nice and early at the station for the Western Wilderness Railway trip into Queenstown.
It was a pleasant and informative trip with an interpretive guide keeping up a commentary about the landscape and local history the whole time. It was rather disconcerting to see the King River which had all the dirt from mining in Queenstown dumped into it over many years. Millions of tonnes of debris have silted up the King and poisoned the banks so that for a long distance very little is growing on the banks, not even the weeds that would usually flourish in the vacant space. The faster flowing sections are healthier and there was a profusion of Huon pines on the banks. These come in male and female varieties. Notably the males have an erect habit whereas the females have droopy branches. Huon pines are very slow growing. Estimates of the age of some of the large specimens that were cut down in Tasmania's early pioneer days put them at as much as 3800 years old. If I thought that the King River was bad however, it was nothing in comparison to the Queen which flows directly form Queenstown into the King. Even now that the discharge from the mines has stopped flowing into the rivers it is stained orange and looks disgusting. Our guide could remember as a child playing a game where instead of skimming rocks across the water he and his mates would have competitions to see whose stone would take the longest to sink into the sluggish waters of the Queen. Eight seconds was not unusual. He informed us that the Queen used to glug along more like porridge than water. At least the water is now flowing again, but estimates of between 100 and 1000 years have been put forward for the Queen to make a full recovery. Pulling into Queenstown I got my first glimpse of the town I've heard described as a moonscape. I had always assumed that it was purely the mining activities that had desecrated the place and whilst that is partly true a lot of the desolation is due to the fact that to keep the mines running and also provide both heating and fuel for cooking for the residents it used to be necessary to provide 2000 tonne of wood per day. 1000 men were employed just to cut timber to keep the fires burning, resulting in them needing to gradually spread over ever increasing distances to obtain this precious resource, and culminating in the denuded landscape that bears witness to the poor environmental practices of the past. I was embarrassed by the state of Queenstown and hope that if nothing else it will stand as reminder to Australia to take better care of our natural resources. A coach returned us to Strahan where we then had to wait over an hour for the jump start pack I'd ordered in to arrive on the afternoon truck from Burnie to provide me with a little extra insurance and peace of mind. We then drove back to Queenstown where I believe God taught me a lesson about how, with His touch, even the most ugly and desolate things can be made beautiful. The afternoon sun was setting over the distant mountains throwing a golden glow over the barren landscape. The colours that those naked hills shone as we drove out of Queenstown were phenomenal. It was getting dark as we drove into the Lake Burbury campground that evening to make our camp.
11th March 2011
Our last day in the Western Wilderness took us through the middle of the Gordon-Franklin National Park. We did a short walk through the rainforest around the Franklin River. I had never realized how close we came to losing this wilderness area. The vote in the High Court of Australia regarding the construction of the Franklin Dam was 4 votes to 3. If just one of those four men had voted differently our nation would have lost this last untamed area in Tasmania.
We bid the wild west a reluctant farewell as we continued east towards Hobart. A quick hike in the Lake St. Clair National Park which I found fairly uninteresting was followed by a visit to "The Wall in the Wilderness". Artist Greg Duncan (no relation to Ken) is working on creating a one hundred panel wood sculpture depicting the mining and timber history of the local area. The panels are amazingly detailed and allow you to see the progression of the work from a two dimensional rough sketch on the wood through the initial chiseling to the meticulously sanded finish. For Jayden and I however the individual pieces were by far the best. Akubra's, dry-as-a-bone coats, work gloves and satchels all carved out of single pieces of timber and so lifelike you'd swear they were made of leather rather than timber.
It was a long drive into Hobart where we stopped at Treasure Island caravan park Claremont so I could get some laundry done. Connecting onto the mains water pressure blew one of Frankie's hot water pipe connections inside the kitchen cupboard. I was just finishing cleaning up the mess after addressing the maintenance issue when a second one underneath the bus blew. Despondently I crawled under the bus to make the necessary repairs.
To cap off my stay in Claremont, when I got up the following morning and went to collect my washing several items had been stolen off the line leaving me with very few warm items of clothing. At first I was angry and miserable at this turn of events but again God used this opportunity to teach me some valuable lessons. With Luke 6:27-31 in mind I wrote a note to leave on the wall near the clothes lines to let the offender know that I was praying for them and that I hoped the clothes would keep them warm in the chilly Tasmanian climate. Our main reason for staying in Claremont was to visit the Cadbury factory, only to find when we got there Saturday morning that they aren't open weekends. Oh well, moving on.
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