Strahan, Zeehan and the Gordon River

Being stuck in Queenstown meant that we could spend some time doing day trips around the local area. The incredibly hot weather and oh-so-picturesque sports ground meant we really didn’t want to stay with Bertha for the day either! So we had one day driving to Strahan and Zeehan to check road conditions and another taking a cruise up the Gordon River.

Strahan is beautiful. Such a gorgeous town and wonderfully set up for tourists. We wandered the waterfront and spent some time in the Visitors Centre and the old saw mill, looking at the preparation of the huon pine wood. It smells soooo nice! I was tempted to buy a bag of sawdust shavings just so we could keep smelling it, but I didn’t.

The drive to Zeehan was frustratingly fabulously flat and we spent HOURS wandering through the most incredible museum. It encompasses the enormous Gaiety Theatre and 2 other local buildings and is crammed with the most interesting and intriguing displays. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. Angus was a little reluctant to enter the underground mining exhibit after seeing the displays on the Beaconsfield disaster too recently, but aside from that we all loved it.

The following day we set the alarm to be up early for the 1 hour drive back to Strahan. We had to be there at 8.30am for our Gordon River cruise. It was amazing! We went out into the Southern Ocean (which is really officially the Indian Ocean according to latitude) and saw the work of one man who was able to predict the tides and water flow and make a breakwater without the use of computer modeling and only using rocks and steam engines. Incredible stuff. His work still stands and works today – 150 years later with very little need for upkeep. No designed obsolescence there!

We also went through “Hell’s Gates” to “Sarah Island”. I assumed that Hell’s Gates were named due to the hellish water/weather conditions that ships had to face, but it was actually the entrance to the hellish prison for repeat offenders. Duncan and I both commented on how fortunate we are to have been born in these times and not those. The cruelty and brutal conditions faced by convicts and settlers every day is mind blowing. The children have some appreciation but I don’t think they fully grasp how awful it truly was. The boat cruise included some guides and the kids were not interested in tagging along. They wanted to do their own thing with a little friend they met on board. How glad we are that we made them join the tour! Angus is STILL raving about how wonderful our guide was, how theatrical she was, and how she “put so much expression in her voice”. Bless him!

 We also cruised right up the Gordon River to a boardwalk that went through the rainforest of Huon Pines. Another incredibly beautiful sight. The tours were a bit crowded and towards the end I sat on a bench and waited for the crowds to die down. The kids were on the boat already, Dunc was way back with the 2^nd group and I had the chance to sit on a bench in silence and appreciate the smells and the sounds and especially the bird song. I had 3 (crazy) people ask if I was too tired to make it all the way back to the boat 20m away. They looked so confused when I told them I was appreciating the surroundings. Who would do that?! 

Queenstown

Queenstown is the rockiest and weirdest landscape. It's fundamentally a mining town and there's not really a lot there. In the older days the smelting process generated a lot of sulphur which fell as acid rain and killed all the flora. They changed the process in the 1930s and there is starting to be a bit of greenery growing back, but it still looks pretty bleak. The sports ground has been listed on the heritage register because it was gravel instead of grass. They could plant it out in grass these days, but since it's on the register, they can't! According to the locals in Waratah, if you had to play footy in Queenstown, you were happy to be on the bench!

The sports ground, aside from being a tourist site, is also the free camping site! You have to park around the edges, which allows for the locals to still come, and the tourists to cruise by. It's really quite a busy place.

The night we arrived, Angus was pretty keen to play some soccer. Duncan, having just driven possibly the most stressful drive of his life told him he "was a bit tired, buddy". "We can play 'Tired Man Soccer' then". Who could refuse such a request??

We spent 3 nights at the sports ground, with no power or water. It gave us a chance to use up the delicious drinking water from Waratah so we didn't have to drain it away when we left. The lack of external power also did our heads in. The power unit beeps when the battery gets to 20%. It's happy on external AC power. It's happy on bus motor power. It's unhappy on solar power. There's plenty of power there, and we've never actually run out, but the warning beeps constantly and it's enough to send us insane. Apparently you can mute the beep by pressing 2 buttons simultaneously. Duncan and I have tried repeatedly to do so, but failed to stop the noise. 

In the end we borrowed a generator from a lovely caravaner for a few hours. He was the one we covered in smoke when we arrived. Our idea of "buying a generator when we need one" fell down when we were stuck in a generator-less town!! We also wrapped the "bloody beeping machine" in 3 layers of towels so we could get some sleep. That ended up being the most effective mute process of all!

Being stuck in Queenstown because of the extreme heat meant we were also stuck in Queenstown while the bushfire was burning nearby! It was slightly concerning seeing all the smoke billowing over the mountains, but we knew it was a good 20km away and watching the chopper continuously flying around collecting water in a HUGE bucket was entertaining at least!

Cradle Mountain

While we were still in Waratah, we headed off to Cradle Mountain for the day. If we had any idea about the hellish road conditions further along, we would have stayed there and done a lot more day trips - doh!

It took about an hour to get to Cradle Mountain, so we packed morning tea and a picnic lunch and headed off. Having purchased a National Parks pass on the Spirit of Tasmania, we were able to cruise right past the information centre and shuttle buses and drive all the way to Dove Lake. Its so wonderful not having to 'buy stuff'. By-passing the gift shops and food stalls feels so free! We really have no need to get anything else. Living on a bus limits the 'stuff' we can have and it's now easy to convince the rest of the family that we don't need to shop. 

Although poor Angus is  struggling with his soft toys. When we packed to move into Bertha I gave him a 5 soft toy limit. I generously did not include bear or his beloved Scrappy dog (gift from Nana when he had his tonsils out at 3yo) in the count. It took him a good half hour of haggling to get him to make his choice. It was utterly adorable. He even negotiated an extra one by taking 2 very small toys "which really equal one, Mum". Of course, since starting our trip, he has bought MULTIPLE soft toys. He has all his gift spending money, which is very much HIS money to spend on his own choices. We have a new tassie devil, a platypus, a kookaburra, a wombat and I think there may be another. He's running out of sleeping room!

Anyway, we were able to cruise past the gift shop and avoid purchasing another soft toy. We got to the car park at Dove Lake and took our good old picnic rug and our lunch on the short hike to the boat shed. It was only 20 minutes or so, and it was a stinking hot day so it was perfect. We stood appreciating the view while another family packed up their stuff and then we were able to move into the perfect spot in the shade under the one and only tree - though there was plenty of other shade for other hikers.

We lounged around for a good hour or so, eating our lunch and playing in the water. I cannot believe how FREEZING it was! Being such a hot day, it was lovely when you first walked in. After 60 seconds it got cold and after 2 mins it was utterly unbearable. It seeped into your bones and felt completely glacial.

After playing and photographing to our heart's content, we hiked back to the car park and around the lake the other way to 'Glacier Rock' which all the locals called 'Suicide Rock'. What a view! I was a bit concerned that all the people we had seen on the rock had climbed over the fence and 'broken the rules' but it was clearly marked as permitted and signposted as dangerous.

I left the family up there and returned to get the perfect photo of them up on the rock. It was so nice to have the time to just do what we wanted and wait a while for the people to get out of our shots. No rushing. No zooming here or there or getting back to the bus in time. We did see some 'interesting' clothing choices during the day. Who wears thongs on a hike?! (flip flops... Though the other thong might not be comfortable on a hike either...) or pretty little dresses and skirts and nice little shoes. At least I didn't see anyone in high heels - that would have done my head in!

In the end we had some gentle strolls/small hikes and a wonderful day. Perfect!

Bertha has a fever… :(

Our dear Bertha isn’t well. We’ve had a significant and unwanted change-of-plans in the last couple of days. I shall catch up with entries on our day at Cradle Mountain and our time in Queenstown and Strahan later, but now I have to write about our poor dear darling Bertha’s illness. Duncan and I have really gotten to feel quite close to Bertha. She responds well to our compliments and whistles at us when we drive. The driver’s window has a most musical and conversational tune when it is open and she’s starting to develop a personality as we get to know her. And just as we began to truly bond, she got sick!

We took her from Waratah to the West Coast and Dunc and I had many discussions as to whether to go to Queenstown or Strahan. In the end, we chose (wrongly) to go to Queenstown as it was an A road, as opposed to the B road leading to Strahan. What a mistake that was!! The B road has been recently upgraded and the hills are significantly lower and more spread out. The hills leading to Queenstown were extreme and insane. It was also the hottest day – the one that was 47˚ in Melbourne and was 34˚ in the hills of Tasmania. We hadn’t had ANY issues with Bertha so didn’t really give the temperature any thought – another mistake!

We had a long and difficult drive through the hills. I did not enjoy it at all and Dunc was sick to death of 1^st and 2^nd gear. He had to constantly change up or down gears as there was either an extreme corner (including faaaar too many hairpin bends) or an uphill stretch or a steep downhill stretch. After a good 2.5 hours or so we came to the last uphill stretch into Queenstown. Dunc was watching the temperature gauge and he had just mentioned that it was starting to go up when it suddenly skyrocketed and Bertha stopped. We weren’t going anywhere! L Dunc got out the safety triangles and warned all the truckies over the UHF CB and we waited for her to cool down. We didn’t realize it was the final stretch until we eventually started up again after 40 minutes. It was a bit uncomfortable as there was nowhere to pull out and we were basically stopped with half the bus in the traffic lane.

Once the temp dropped well into the green zone, Dunc felt comfortable starting her up again. We drove down into Queenstown blowing blue smoke the whole way which was a MASSIVE concern. We cruised into the free-camp Sportsground and covered the one caravan there in smoke before we were able to turn off – how embarrassing!

We spent 3 days in Queenstown, during which Dunc spoke to or rang every mechanic and diesel mechanic he could find for advice. We finally had one guy come out on Saturday morning to look her over. Dunc had put a heck of a lot of water and 7lt of oil in the engine, and some of both had leaked out – which we didn’t like at all! The car mechanic recommended a mining diesel mechanic who didn’t know busses and the diesel mechanic in Strahan recommended a local guy called ‘Speed’ who came out on his Saturday morning to look her over! He could find any reason for the leaks and thought the issue was just the extreme heat affecting the engine – the exact advice our own Melbourne mechanic had been giving via phone.

We had been told that the road to Hobart was worse than what we had driven and that we should go Strahan and then back up to the North coast and then down to Hobart that way. We went for a drive in Baby Bertha to check the conditions and were KICKING ourselves that we had chosen to drive to Queenstown instead of Strahan.

All the mechanics recommended giving it a go and seeing how Bertha went. I drove in Baby Bertha so she wouldn’t have to tow the extra 1.5 tonne and we drained the tanks to take off all the weight we could. Dunc did his best Macguyver-ing and jerry-rigged a bucket scoop to push cool air into the engine to avoid a vortex that can form due to the trailer.

 We made it up the big hill, but as soon as Dunc hit the level straight, the temperature skyrocketed again and Dunc pulled the pin. Driving in front with the radios, I was able to direct him to a lovely large pull-out and we rang the insurance company.

According to our policy, our motorhome insurance covers roadside towing, SOME mechanical repairs and accommodation so we felt reassured with that. Of course this all happened on a weekend and we are yet to actually speak to anyone from the insurance company!!

The roadside assist was wonderful though! We ended up needing a massive tow truck from Hobart, which took 4 hours to arrive. At least we were able to make lunch and hang out ‘at home’ while we waited. I even hung out the washing and cleaned the bathroom! I also packed for a few days, which was the weirdest feeling in the world. Usually I love preparing to stay in a holiday park, but this time I hated it!

Watching them attach Bertha to the tow truck was amazing! She was lifted a good metre off the ground at one stage, but we were too busy watching to get that bit photographed.

So here we are, staying in a cabin park in Hobart. My Mum and Dad arrive tomorrow for 4 days. Hopefully they will get to stay in Bertha, but we may be stuck here for a bit as the mechanic she’s been towed to can’t look at her til Tuesday. Dunc is going to swing past and see them tomorrow.

Sigh… this is one of those “unplanned changes” that is not so good. We fully expected to experience this sort of stuff during our trip. We just didn’t expect it to be within the first few weeks!

Kelso to Waratah

After spending a fortune on our accommodation in Kelso, we thought it was time for another free-camp. We headed along the North coast past Devonport and Burnie to a lovely little campground called ‘Black River’, which was apparently Big Rig compatible. It was a very hairy drive at the start. The GPS took us through the forests on some very minor roads. We have since learnt to cross reference the GPS with good old Google maps on the iPhone. Poor Dunc is wearing out his knees switching gears and gears 1 and 2 are getting quite a work-out here in the mountains of Tassie!

When we got to Black River we discovered half the sites were closed due to flooding. The sites were individually numbered and a few were drive-through which is what we needed. But apparently, even though there were up to 4 fire pits in each site, once one group is in there it is considered ‘taken’. WTH?! No sharing up here apparently. Thankfully “Mr Bus Driver” impressed a little 4yo so much his mother kindly offered to share their site with us for the night – phew! I really wasn’t sure what our other options were.

 Black River was just beautiful and gave the children their first chance to swim in the ocean this trip. We really do have 2 little water babies so it was worth the horrendous drive just to give them a swim! As an added bonus, we got to have our first campfire and see some wildlife. There were pademelons everywhere. Pademelons are a smaller version of a wallaby with fatter bodies and shorter legs and tails. We also saw our first potaroo. At first we thought it was a bilby. It looked just like the chocolate ones and certainly wasn’t a quoll, as we had just seen those at the wildlife parks – we know what quolls look like. At a later museum we saw some sketches of wildlife and identified it as a potaroo. It was remarkably comfortable around us and spent a fair while nibbling on an almond that someone had left behind at the campsite.

After Black River we intended to go to Waratah. We stopped at Burnie to empty the black water tank (the poop tank) and the view was amazing. It was lunch time and the kids wanted a play so we decided to pull up for a bit and then decided to stay the night! Our first spontaneous change-of-plans. The free camp at Burnie was actually free – we just needed a permit from the Information Centre. 

I am so glad we stayed, as it gave us the chance to drive to Penguin and have a bit more of a look around the North Coast. The Burnie Information Centre has a big Makers Market and Arts space, resulting in 2 separate visits and about 3 hours spent there! It was a wonderful place. I spoke to a number of the artists, the children did a quiz, we took the paper-making tour and made our own wombat-poo paper and Dunc was able to shop elsewhere in peace.

Staying at Burnie also gave him the chance to chase the wire which was causing issues with our leveling system. He successfully found and repaired said wire and we are all happy chappies on board. Our only issue now is the hot water service. We hate it. The pilot keeps going out and when its not going out, its burning gas. Dunc has his eye on a replacement one with auto electronic ignition… Considering he had to pay almost $50 for a tank of gas, its possibly worth it.

We walked the boardwalk in Burnie looking at the Little Penguins that night and had our niggly awful day the next day.

And then we got to Waratah.