8-day Tasmania Tour - Strahan

Day 3

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Animals of Mt Field National Park

The tourist guide cum driver for our trip outside Hobart in our next five days was a young Local Tasmanian from Hobart. He would take us from Hobart along the west coast to Launceston, second largest city in Tasmania and then along the east coast back to Hobart. All the 24-seats in the bus was fully occupied but most of them were doing the 5-day or 6-day tour while few will end their trip at Launceston. They are from many different countries like France, New Zealand, Britain, China , Japan just to name a few but all of them can speak English and no problem for us to communicate with each other. Our trip for the day was visiting Russell Falls and Mount Field National Park , Lake St Clair and few towns on our route to Strahan, the west coastal town where we would stay for two nights. The distance from Hobart to Mount Field National Park is 64 km passing through New Norfolk, a town previously bigger than Hobart and had since been eclipsed by the state capital city. We stopped at New Norfolk's Woolworth supermarket to grab some food for our lunch later. Mount Field National park is one of Tasmania's most loved national park maybe in winter for snow formations and skiing. We came at the wrong season and only managed to see almost dried up forest frequently devastated by bush fire. Russell Falls was just a 20-minute walk from the car park. It is a cascading waterfall but not too magnificent due to the dry season. The tall gum trees we were asked to see were not impressive too but we were quite excited to had spotted a wallaby in the bush. We were quite disappointed that another inhabitant of the park, wombat was not seen. 

Russell Falls,  It would be a magnificent waterfall in the raining season

We did not measure the height of the tree

We left Mount Field National Park an hour later to embark on our journey along the countryside road toward Derwent Valley to visit lake St Clair, the deepest fresh water lake of Tasmania. It has an area of 45 square kilometer and a maximum depth of 160 m. It is quite scenic with its massive expand of water and the distant Cradle Mountain under the grey white sky. We just walked a short distance along the bank of the lake before we retired to the bench outside the restaurant a short distance away to have our packed lunch. Our lunch was the AUD 8 whole roasted chicken we bought at the New Norfolk supermarket as recommended by Adrian Foo, our fellow traveller from Singapore but has since been staying at Perth for 31 years. There were not too many visitors and some of them were serious hikers with their heavy haversacks and hiking gears getting ready for their six days hike from lake St Clair to Cradle Mountain.

Lake St Clair  

From Lake St Clair, we proceeded to Queenstown, a mining town via Lyell highway. We stopped on the way to visit Nelson Falls which is very much powerful and magnificent than Russell Falls. It is a cascading waterfall 30 m high with water shaped like an inverted wine glass. The road going into Queenstown is very winding and steep. It meandered its way through barren hills on both side due to mining activities in the past. The hills only spring into life with its green vegetation near to the town. It is now almost like a ghost town with very few residents and we could just stood confidently in the middle of the road to snap photo of the town. If we had time we could take the leisure train ride from Queenstown to Strahan to experience the route used by train to transport minerals to the harbour town of Strahan for export in the past. There was nothing much to see in Queenstown except to had a feel of  the eerie atmosphere of a once bustling town turned into a creepy town.   

Nelson Falls which resembled an inverted wine glass

 From Queenstown we proceeded all the way to Strahan where we would stay for two nights at Strahan YHA backpackers. The man in-charge of the hostel is a big guy with funny character by the nickname of Bumpy. The hostel
 consists of fully single storey wooden linked rooms where each room is small with one double decker beds for twin sharing. Bumpy is staying in a small house in the same compound with her teenager daughter who flew in from Brisbane to help out during her summer holiday. The kitchen is very clean and well equipped and there is even a paid laundry room with washing and drying machines. We were really deceived by the initial serious tone of bumpy who in fact is very warmhearted who considered all of us as his family members in our duration of stay. He drank with us, joked with us and the beauty of it he stood by the sink in the morning to collect our plates and cups to wash himself to avoid shoddy cleaning up. 

Pier for Gordon River Cruise in Strahan town centre

Our hostel is about 2 km from Strahan town centre where there are shops, restaurants facing the pier for the famous Gordon river cruise.  After checking into our room,  we walked from our hostel to the town centre as it was still bright even though it was almost 8 pm. As it was summer the sky only turned dark after 9 pm.  We walked along the river bank until the pier and then another kilometre ahead before we turned back. The town was quite deserted and quiet like most of the towns in Tasmania. 

As we were the only group staying in the hostel during our first night stay, we had the whole kitchen to ourselves. Some of us gathered at the dinner table after dinner to have our drinks and icebreaking. We really had a lot of fun and good laugh after Bumpy joined us at the table. I would strongly recommend the hostel to any traveller who intend to put up a night or two in strahan.     

Bumpy taught the Chinese girl how to dance ? 

All were totally amused by Bumpy's spontaneous humour

Day 4

We were given a choice either to hike up the highest waterfall in Tasmania or follow the Gordon river cruise. I was very interested at first in the Gordon river cruise even though we had to pay AUD 85 per head because the cruise will sail up the scenic Gordon river and visit Sara Island with its convict past plus a free sumptuous seafood lunch. I changed my mind of following the cruise when most of the group members preferred the hike up Montezuma Falls.  

The hanging bridge lookout point

With Montezuma Falls and James, our tourist guide

After taking our breakfast, the same fresh milk, potato chips and bread with margarine and jam, provided by the tour operator we were driven to the pier to drop off the two French who are mum and daughter for the Gordon river cruise. We frequented the few cafes and bakery nearby to buy our lunch for our picnic at Montezuma Falls. It was raining when we reached the car park at the entrance to Montezuma Falls. We were not deterred and started our two hours walk in the rain along the level earthen track to the base of the 104 m falls. We passed through pleasant-like rainforest of leather wood and giant tree fern. The rain stopped a short while after we started our walk and that really quicken our pace towards our destination. We came to a narrow suspension bridge where we could have a good glimpse of the magnificent waterfall. We did not cross the suspension but had to turn back and made a descent to reach the base of Montezuma Falls. Even though it was dry season the volume of water splashing down from the top was still sizable and thunderous. There is a postcard spot for taking picture with the tallest waterfall and we did not want to miss it though there is risk of misstep and a fall into the stream below.    

We made the descent after eating some bread to supplement our almost depleted energy. The descent was faster and we took almost one hour and the half to reach the car park. There is only one primitive toilet without flush near the car park and we had to use it before and after the climb since the total time taken for the return journey was almost  3 hours and the half. 

After Montezuma Falls we headed to Rosebery, a seaside town just 2 km away for a proper lunch. There are a few seafood restaurants offering lobsters and oysters but we just had fish and chips which turned out to be quite delicious especially the fish. On our way back to Strahan, we stopped at Henty Sand Dunes which was once full of pine trees but now covered with sand blown from the sea by strong wind producing a sandy plateau. All of us walked up to the top of the sand dune almost 30 m high to reach the top which is a vast expanse of sand just like a desert. It was not easy to walk up the sand dune because our legs just sank into the thick sand. Tim, the New Zealander who was like 200 pounds managed to reach the top by crawling all his way up. A thumb up for his determination and bravery. 

My feet just sank into the sand dune

my first run on a sand dune

After the sand dune, our next stop was the Great Ocean Beach which was only 6 km from Strahan town centre. The Great Ocean beach was the longest beach in Tasmania and the wave and wind  were strong. On the fine sand there were many pebbles which were smooth and occured in different colours and shapes. Nobody seemed to be interested in the pebbles but I collected some as souvenir.

We returned to the pier for Gordon river cruise to pick up the two French who would be returning from the cruise. We were given an hour to explore further the town so we took the opportunity to visit the post office to send some post cards home because it is my habit to send post cards home while travelling overseas.

The Great Ocean Beach