Photos can't do it justice part 1

The new blogger is giving me trouble. I've lost this post once already, so I'm breaking the rest of Tasmania into two parts. Here's part 1.

We headed out of Launceston on what we expected to be not much more than a day of driving to move us down the East coast. So we were pleasantly surprised by the diversions we found from the Rough Guide, the tourist info office and by following random road signs. How else can you find Chainsaw carvings?


All of the carvings in this fly infested spot were dedicated to local victims of the first world war. It stated that some of them still had rellies in the area. So we had to be sensitive, but rest assured some will be appearing on Stand by Your Statue. This is also where we started to be stalked by one of the bus tours, who kept turning up where we were quietly being odd. From there we moved onto a cheese farm at Pyenga, where we supplemented the already bountiful provisions we’d bought at Coles that morning. A walk around the St Columba Falls



worked up our hunger for a picnic lunch

And then we headed down to St Helens and the Bay of Fires before ending the evening with another bus tour in Bicheno, where we went to see little penguins again. We didn’t stay long as there were very few birds and it was a bit of a circus as people rushed to get a glimpse. I think they were quite scared. The pub clearly didn’t know who was in town, as it was closed for refurbishment, so we had a bit of a read and a pretty early night.

'That's what we need Diggs, Superman.'

Thus spoke Zarathustra; well actually it was an Aussie dad to his son as we walked past (me in the super-t-shirt) in the Freycinet National Park, which is gorgeous and worth the trip alone. It was tough going, as we clambered over rocks and steps to get up to the viewpoint. We even had to calm down a lost Indian lady, who was getting panicky (and had a longer, more difficult way to go than we perhaps led her to believe). It is the kind of place where you commit yourself to finish-there aren’t roads/taxis/buses etc for you to bale out. You walk, or find someone to carry you. John and I walked.

Tough hike up, great view

When you’re surrounded by so much rock, it’s only natural that thoughts turn up to 11 and you wanna rock. For those about to rock, we salute you

For me, this photo sums up philosophy of this whole trip. I’m trying things I don’t normally do (hiking here), enjoying some of the most marvellous sights the world has to offer (famous and tucked away), but I’m still a bloody idiot. Anyway I hadn’t played my air guitar in a while. As we descended to wineglass bay (in the background of the first photo), there was a potent reminder that no activity in Oz is wholly safe as I dangled across Snake Gorge

Not sure if anyone else calls it Snake Gorge, but I thought it sounded rugged and adventurous. Down in Wineglass Bay, there were fewer people and a wonderful combination of natural beauty and tranquillity (and John).

I did my bit for nature and stopped a Wallaby eating plastic (if they want to write ‘enjoy responsibly’ on things, they should write it on plastic and leave my booze alone). I’ll let you into a natural history trick of the trade here-Attenborough only does it off screen. Animals only really respond to being called Dude. So as I inched towards the Wallaby, softly calling ‘Dude, don’t eat that’ (terrifying the nearby couple, who hadn’t spotted it or me), I immediately had Wallie’s attention. A couple more steps, ‘Dude, it’ll kill you’ and he dropped it and hopped off. Still on a community spirit speedball, I placed the Wallaby spit encased cling film in my rucksack. Wallie was so grateful, he even posed for a photo.

We also saw Dolphins at Wineglass Bay, lots of them in fact. However, they are very difficult to capture on photo with a digital camera with no view finder.

We headed back via Hazard beach, which had me thinking of the Dukes. There are some great place names out here, I loved 'Break me neck hill' and am looking forward to Iron Knob in SA. The down side to touring is the terrible toll on the roads, the amount of road kill is unreal-I reckon I saw 5 bodies in 2km yesterday. Fortunately, we haven’t hit anything as yet and are trying to avoid night driving.