The many faces of Tasmania

Per our last blog, we've been touring through Tasmania for the past few weeks.  It is an island state of Australia about the same size as West Virginia.  Filled with rolling hills, forests and to our surprise, lots of mountains, it is surrounded by the Tasman Sea and the Southern Ocean with Antarctica sitting a mere 1,600 miles to the south.  Originally known as Van Diemen's land (anyone remember U2?), Tasmania has a dark history.  I'll share more about that in a later post.

We began our Tasmania adventure in Lanceston, a beautiful small city which sits on a river with mountains in the background. The houses are built up into the hill sides in a way that reminded us of Sicily, but the architecture is distinctly Aussie.  Most of the homes and store fronts in Lanceston are listed as heritage structures so the face of the community has remained essentially unchanged since the 1800's.

Living on the Tamar River

One of the old mansions overlooking the river and valley

A local council (government) building

Besides lovely history and gardens, Launceston also has a beautiful nature feature called Cataract Gorge. Offering excellent vistas along miles of walking trails, it is our sort of fun. A bonus for us was the spotting of an Echidna wandering through the woods!   Also known as a spiny anteater, these small marsupials are one of only two types of mammals to lay eggs.  Platypus, another resident of Tasmania, also lay eggs, but live in the water similar to beavers.   They are much more secretive but we remain hopeful to spot one yet!
 

Cataract Gorge consists of dolerite, a rock dating back to the Jurassic period

Check out the climber in the middle of the rock.  We watched a dad teaching his son......I couldn't look!

A drive north of the city took us through rolling hills to the ocean.  There are many open fields where the land has been cleared for pasture primarily for sheep.  Tasmania is definitely a state filled with sheep, think 77+ million of them. (Tassie's population is 566k)  During our drive, we stopped in a small hamlet called Beaconsfield to pick up something cool to drink after a long hike.  I had to snap a picture of this little bank which was robbed in 1884 during the gold rush.  Robbers stole $2M in today's dollars of gold from the vault.

The bank manager at the time of the robbery was 21 years old!

On our second day, we headed east to a mountain range in the Ben Lomond National Park.  It's famous for it's high alpine hairpin road called Jacobs Ladder as you ascend to 5,000 feet. A ski resort in winter, it's relatively little used in the summer.  Weather moved in as we reached the summit so we didn't get any views from the very top, but it was an exhilarating drive!

Heading down with clouds rolling in

Impressive spires of dolerite

Topography of Tasmania

Our next road trip takes us to the western coast of Tasmania.  On google maps, it lists about a 3 hour trip, but we've learned that Google maps doesn't really take into consideration the road conditions of this state.  Two lane highways (which would be a stretch of a description) dominate.  Similar to the Western Territory, we have found ourselves on a gravel road after the sealed road just ended even though it is the only major "highway" on the map.  

Life is always an adventure here in Aussie!  

Stay Curious

Cheryl & Dan