Monday, 9 April 2018                                 Hobart  -  Derwent Bridge

Robyn writes: It’s 8pm and outside is getting cold, cold, cold, but inside our comfy room at the Derwent Bridge Wilderness Hotel, all is warm and cosy with the heater gently warming us. So too is the post-alcoholic glow of having several drinks with Nigel and Heather, inhabitants of the Adelaide Hills who are currently also holidaying here….Ahh, the joys of travelling and meeting people!

Lex set the alarm for 7 am this morning which seemed horribly early after several days of sleeping in a bit – but we soon dragged ourselves out to a cold and rainy outlook, and made ourselves caffeine and breakfast before the dreaded task of packing began in earnest. Some of yesterday’s washing – thick socks especially – STILL wasn’t dry so it just had to go in a bag on its own. Finally, by just before nine, we were ready to say a sad farewell to our Battery Point unit and begin the task of navigating out of the city. This didn’t get off to a good start when we turned right instead of left as the GPS had obviously intended; it just wasn’t saying so! Anyway, after about twenty minutes of tortured navigation and worrying which lane to be in, we were finally on the A1 and heading out of Hobart towards the west.

 

Goodbye for now, Portsea Place

We followed the Derwent Valley along for a good deal of the way for the first hour or so through changing scenery. It was obvious that early settlement had followed the river as we saw very old buildings along the way. As it’s early autumn, a lot of the leaves are starting to change colour so some of the trees were just lovely, especially the poplars which are very popular (no pun intended!) as wind breaks in rural areas. A bit after ten, we stopped in the little town of Hamilton at a wonderful little café in an old building dating back to 1840, Glen Clyde House, which is now a gallery and tea rooms. For many years (nearly a century) it was a coaching inn and the rooms are still small and very old. We had a lovely morning tea – I had a scone with jam and cream (they say they’re the best in Tassie and I see no need to dispute that) and Lex had a slice of homemade orange and almond cake. A lovely place to stop and break the trip.

 A lovely place to stop and break the trip! Lex with hawthorn bushes in the background.

Then we were back on the road again heading west up through some stunning forests in the mountains of the Central Highlands (their Central Highlands appears to be MUCH higher than ours!) Of course, hydro-electricity is big here, and we stopped to have a quick look at the Tarraleah Power Station along the way. Impressive engineering. Then we drove through the highland lakes district to finally reach Derwent Bridge, where we’re staying, just after 12.

 

Hydro is big in Tassie!

We easily found our hotel here and went in – couldn’t get into our room at that stage, but we both had a lovely lunch of potato and leek soup (delicious), checked in and got our room key, then headed off to explore the area a bit.

Going into 'The Wall' - sorry, no photos allowed so we can't show you what it looked like...

The first place we went was ‘The Wall’. We hadn’t heard of this before coming to Tassie, but word-of-mouth along the way had told us about it. It’s a fairly new attraction and photos aren’t allowed, so there’s not much on the internet about it. It’s a big building holding two walls (50 metres each) of wonderful Huon pine carvings by local artist Greg Duncan about various aspects of the history of the Central Highlands. Some of the panels are intentionally left unfinished and you can see how he plots and carries out his carving. The man is a genius with faces and hands especially. A lot of it is very sad (settlement history of any area often has that effect, I find.) Anyway, it was wonderful to see. As seems to be usual in Tassie, you run into people you know – I came around a corner to find Lex deep in conversation with John Buller, who used to be in Telstra in Rocky, and his wife Sandy. We had a good chat to them and compared travel notes (as you do!)

Then we drove the 5km to Lake St Claire National Park. Today we had the whole afternoon, so we decided to pay the $24 car fee to have a look around the lake. (We thought that there was the $12 hiker fee on top of that, but apparently not. We just paid the money and got out of there!) It’s a 24-hour (National Park) parking pass, so we can also use it tomorrow morning on the way west as there are a few little walks we’d like to do along the way to Strahan. By this stage, the weather had cleared to a glorious day of about 16 degrees and quite sunny. We had a lovely walk which took a few hours around the lake to Watersmeet (where two rivers come together before going into the lake) then up and around the Platypus Bay circuit. Here there are allegedly platypus to be seen frolicking in the shallows…..all I can say is that they stayed well-hidden. We now put platypus spotting right up there with otters in England and the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland – haven’t spotted a single one! Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon for a walk, and the scenery was beautiful. The tall trees are so impressive, and there was the biggest variety of colourful fungi and lichens we’ve ever seen. By half past four we were fairly weary and ready for a rest, so we came back to our hotel and moved into our room. Our landlord warned us to put the heater on early, as apparently it will be about 6 degrees in the morning!

Platypus? Where are you, platypus???

 

 

At about 5.30 we wandered into the bar to have a drink before tea. It’s a huge, chalet/lodge type building with huge, high ceilings and two massive log fireplaces, so it was toasty warm. There are heaps of motorhomes parked out in front, and we got talking to Nigel and Heather, from the Adelaide Hills, while having a few drinks. Finally, at about 7, they headed back to their van to cook tea while we reeled to the bar to quickly order food! After a delicious and filling meal (lamb shank for me; pasta ragu for Lex) we are feeling much better. Our room is lovely and warm and so very comfortable! Tomorrow morning, we are off to Strahan to explore the wilderness there. Fingers crossed the weather continues to be kind to us….