Launceston

The vacation to Tasmania started off in Launceston. I'd managed to get a $28 flight there and was excited not to have specific plans. Admittedly, many of the things I decided to do were on a whim. The Art House hostel I chose to stay at was across the river from the CBD, but it had a gorgeous building from 1888 and a cute name. And given the size of the city it really wasn't far from the main part of town.

I spent the evening wandering around. Roses were blooming in the rose garden and there were a few kids skateboarding in the park. Other than a few people on the street, however, everything felt relatively empty. I walked up and down several blocks listening for noise. After a while I heard some people and made my way into a bar where there was one woman playing guitar and a few dozen folks in costumes drinking and chatting. Everyone was acting cliquey and the music was sub-par, so I didn't stay long.

The next day I went on a hike in Cataract Gorge. In the 1830s a couple men created a channel for directing the gorge water to their flour mill. The mill was powered by the water and still stands in place at the gorge. Later, in 1889, tons of rocks were removed to create a path through the gorge and more trees were planted along the edges.

At the base of the gorge is King’s Bridge, which was assembled in 1863 after being crafted in Manchester and shipped to Launceston in 500 pieces. A second span was added by floating the addition into place in 1904.

It was a beautiful day and the sun highlighted all of the color variations in the stone. Plenty of little skinks were out as well, basking on the warm rocks.

The walk was very easy and a quite popular activity for the day, as many other people were doing exactly the same thing. At the first basin there was a bit of grass, a swimming pool, cafe and a restaurant. Apparently the ideal way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

I had lunch at the restaurant and spent a bit of time just looking at the gorge as well as the blooming spring flowers and numerous peacocks.

One thing I found fascinating about the first basin was that there were three ways to cross the water. I decided all of them had to be tried in order to find the best one. I started with the footpath right over the basin, then proceeded to the world's longest single cable chair ride--which went over bushes of blooming rhodedendrons at the end and was quite spectacular--but my favorite was the old suspension bridge.

The Alexandra Bridge, built in 1904, gently bounced up and down with each step closer to the center. It was narrow and really only meant for a single file of pedestrians, but was definitely an incredible amount of fun to walk across.