Launceston, Take Two

My last day in Tasmania was spent back in Launceston.

I went to the local museum, looked at some art and explored the old blacksmith workshop, which was still in use until the 1990s. There was also a theater showing old government videos. One of the videos was to record the beauty of a small lake in the middle of the mountains before it was to be flooded and destroyed for the creation of another dam. The government recognized the area was unique and paid for this film to be made, but for some reason it didn't seem worth saving the actual lake.

There really wasn't anything left that seemed necessary to see so I spent the day wandering around town and drawing at a cafe.

Hobart

I was relieved to be in Hobart and see people walking about. With 210,000 it's about twice the population of Launceston, and 300 times that of Strahan.

I started off at the museum/art gallery. There was a large variety of things all packed into the building. It's not that it was small or had little to tell about each subject, it was just a very good use of space. Areas of the museum included exhibits about local Aboriginal cultures, civil rights, ships, Antarctic exploration, prison colonies such as Port Arthur, woodcraft, modern art, Chinese art and calligraphy. It was a bit overwhelming.

Though plenty of things in the museum were intriguing, my favorite was probably learning that Aboriginal Tasmanians have a style of basket unique to their culture. They craft water carriers out of large pieces of kelp.

Next up was a walk through the domains and along Soldiers Walk where men are remembered by plaques and trees planted in their names. In 1917 the walk was established. Queen's Domain has since gone through renovations and replanting upon realizing that it would be better to have native trees in the domain.

In the evening I went to a comedy show at the Brisbane Hotel. Some of the comedians were a bit less than funny, but others were hilarious. And the host of the show was spectacular with short bits and banter. There were contests involving Nerf guns and stuffed ducks, a video satire of Frasier, and a few talks with a vampire off stage.

Headlining the evening was Tom Ballard, who won best newcomer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year and works for youth radio station Triple J. We made plans during his show to go out afterward (it's slightly awkward to converse with someone while they are on stage) but the place we intended to go was closed. Instead, I just talk to him and a few other people after the show.

In the morning I headed off to the botanic gardens. Most people have places they tend to visit when traveling; I always like to visit parks and gardens. There was an enclosed area with sub-Antarctic plants. Since the 1950s, Australia's Antarctic territory, Macquarie Island, has been a place for scientists to study the climate down under the down under. The cold house in the botanic gardens mimics the Antarctic climate and exhibits native plants.

After the gardens I went to visit the Penitentiary Chapel. In the early 1800s more and more convicts were being shipped to Tasmania and the current prison wasn't large enough to accommodate them all. Plans were created to build a new, larger prison. So the convicts labored to build the sandstone bricks and make their future cells. After the new penitentiary had been established, it was decided to add on a chapel to aid in the convicts' reform. It was believed that they would never overcome their evil habits without Christianity. The chapel was built with sloping pews to accommodate for cells underneath the floorboards. Luckier convicts got the tall cells in the back, others were forced to crouch into the tiny cells near the front.

Eventually, fewer convicts were being sent to Hobart because the government decided perhaps not every rumored thief should automatically be imprisoned. Because the prison needed less space, two sections of it were closed and turned into courts.

The day was an eclectic mix of activities. After the penitentiary, I went to Town Hall for a flower show with gorgeous irises and mixed arrangements. I was amid a group mostly composed of old women and families.

And after the flower show I stopped off at the Lark Distillery for a tasting of their whiskeys and spirits. The staff was incredibly friendly and the small number of customers allowed for a quite personalized experience.

To the East

I woke early to the sun peeking through the clouds. Our bus departed the station and drove around the area to pick up all of the kids in town. There's no school in Strahan, so apparently the service doubles as a school bus to Queenstown where the nearest school is located. The 45 minute ride with young teenagers was rather annoying. The braces boy next to me talked to his friend across the aisle in horribly constructed code about girls at school and the tourists on the bus. At one point he offered me an earphone to listen to his iPod. I opted to read my book while a boy in the back sang loudly to Avril Lavigne and Blink 182.

We had a brief stop in Queenstown for breakfast. The tiny town was cute, but appeared both proud of and stuck in its mining heritage. In the 1890s there were 42 companies in the western mountain area mining for nine different minerals. Queenstown was plentiful in copper, ore and silver. Nearby areas also had tin, iron, lead, zinc, nickle and gold.

There were paintings around the main drag, mostly in mural form, all of which related to mining. Several sculptures were around as well. Through the town's pride of its heritage, there are plenty of old buildings still standing, though many had fallen apart to the point where I would be scared to step foot inside.

Back on the road we passed through the mineral-rich mountains. Even underneath the clouds you could see the earth's glorious shades of orange, red, brown, white and occasionally teal. The road was also quite fun to ride along as it essed around the cliffs.

Again, I was enamoured with the rapid change of scenery. After the orange mountains we passed a lake where the fog had settled.

Our driver tended to speed so it was difficult to snap pictures. I was surprised how well some turned out.

The next stop was at Lake St. Clair, the end of the Overland Track. We had an hour break there with access to several small tracks near the visitor center. I went for a brief walk over to the lake and a bit into the bush. It was still cloudy out and quite cold so it wasn't incredibly beautiful. In fact, parts of it were rather bleak with baring trees and little greenery.

Birds were still out, however, and I managed to see a pademelon not far from the visitor center. The species used to be referred to as small wallabies but have since been renamed, leaving the former "large wallaby" to simply take the full name.

After the brief walk I stopped into the visitor center to take a look around. The building was interesting in that it not only had souvenirs and maps, but half of the area was a museum about the area. There were old photographs of some of the first bushwalkers on the Overland Track, history of the land, descriptions of native species, and a hologram of the Thylacine.

The Tasmanian tiger, now thought to be extinct, was the largest carnivorous marsupial in Australia. Though it became extinct on the mainland about 2000 years ago, it survived in Tasmania until the early 1900s. The last known Thylacine was a female in the Hobart zoo. She died in 1936.

Strahan

Initially, I’d planned to only be in Strahan for one day. Due to a failure to turn on my cell phone alarm, however, I missed the bus to Hobart. And because it only comes every two days I was stuck in Strahan.

The extra time allowed me to take a hike I’d wanted to do the day before. For some reason the path was closed. It was raining all day, which seemed appropriate for walking through rain forest. Hogarth Falls were beautiful.

On my walk back through town that afternoon, one of the bikers was standing on the footpath by the tavern. He recognized me from the night before and invited me to join the group inside for drinks and watching the Melbourne Cup on TV. Admittedly, none of them seemed to care much about the horse race but had placed bets on it anyway. It was miserable outside so we stayed at the tavern talking sports, art, politics and so on.

The next day I created several sand sculptures. It began with a suggestion of two platypuses. Those two weren't enough to occupy much time--and by this point I'd done everything I wanted to do in town--so I made a turtle and a snail. There were a couple little girls playing with their dads on the playground nearby, so I asked them for advice on what to make next. The girls got fairly excited about a dinosaur and wanted to help. One of them promptly stepped on all of the animals I'd made thus far while the other piled some wet sand into a mound with me. They stuck around for a good fifteen minutes before getting bored and moving on. I finished the dinosaur and think it ended up pretty good.

After creating some art, I went to look at the two galleries. They both had some amazing woodwork as well as paintings, photographs and glass. Most of the wood pieces were crafted from Huon pine. The native tree has an incredibly fine grain, growing miniscule amounts per year, and has thus been highly prized by craftsmen since settlement. Most pine forests were hard to access and high in the mountain bush, which is one of the reasons why the railroads were built to the west from cities like Hobart and Launceston. Had the pines not been so difficult to log and transport there would probably be none left. After a while they realized how slowly the trees grew and that some in the forests were over 3000 years old. Now the piners only use trees after they have fallen naturally. It limits high production of Huon goods but still allows for their use.

The rest of the day was mostly spent birdwatching and drawing. Minimally exciting. Incredibly restful.

Devonport

On the bus to Devonport, I was quite pleased to find the driver was willing to take me directly to my hostel. When booking a room that morning I had been told it was about 2km from the CBD, so this seemed like a big favor. Though, there was only one other person on the bus and he got dropped off at his destination as well.

After getting into town and finding the hostel, I unloaded my belongings and headed out. In a small town there are significant differences between methods of tourism depending on the time of day.

Opium is one of the major industries in the state, with the Tasmanian poppy industry supplies about 50% of the world’s medicinal opiates. To honor this achievement and claim to fame Devonport has a large sculpture of poppies along the waterfront, halfway beteen the war memorial and busts of the Lyons.

Joseph Lyons was a former premier of Tasmania and a former prime minister of Australia. His wife, Enid Lyons, got into office after his death in 1939 and was the first woman elected to the house of representatives in 1943. She was also the first woman appointed to the federal cabinet several years later. They both resided in Devonport from 1915 until death.

As I continued to wander, the streets felt far emptier than they had in Launceston—and it was only about 8pm. No restaurants appeared to be open anymore and there was only one pub I passed on roughly three streets of the CBD. With the intention of getting to know the town a bit better, I stopped in for a drink. After half an hour the place had cleared out. I kept wandering through the night but it mostly resulted in walking in the dark through residential areas.

In the morning I had a bus to catch over to Strahan. One of the hostel workers offered to drive me into the CBD on her way to a craft fair with her daughter one town over; so I spent the morning being offered food from some very sweet girls from Taiwan and playing Chinese checkers.

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.