Tasmania, Australia

A little over a year ago I was captivated by the beauty and history of the quaint city of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. The three days I spent there, exploring Australia’s convict past, gave me a small taster for the Island State, which left me hungry to fully explore Van Deimen’s Land. An unexpected additional holiday from work presented itself and I welcomed such an opportunity with open arms, and planned a three day trip of intense sightseeing beginning in Launceston, finishing in Hobart, taking in some of Tasmania’s best known sights on both the West and East Coasts, through the market leading tour operator, Under Down Under.

The adventure began in Launceston, the second largest city in the state, a short one hour plane hop from Melbourne. Settled in 1806, it is the third oldest city in Australia, after Sydney and its Tasmanian brother, Hobart. However, despite its age, the city is surprisingly unattractive. Old Victorian architecture is certainly visible throughout this urban area, and in some cases is quite eye-pleasing. However, such buildings are sinfully separated at regular intervals by numerous mid-20^th century generic atrocities. It is quite hard to feel any sense of genuine history walking around Launceston, with its perfectly efficient grid-like block system doing little to make the city feel in any way unique. It may only be a couple of years older, but its sibling, Hobart, is light years ahead in terms of attractiveness and detectable history.

A characteristic of Launceston which I found particularly bizarre was its nightlife, or lack of, to be fully precise. I spent both Friday and Saturday evenings in the city, walked the length and breadth of it, and there was quite literally nothing happening. There were almost no cars on the roads, pedestrians were in short supply, restaurants were half full, and there were almost more staff than customers in the neglected bars. Granted Tasmania is not the most populated land in the world, containing approximately half a million residents in an area roughly the size of Ireland, but one would expect a little more from its second largest metropolis, with a population of a little over 100,000.

One aspect which Launceston sells itself on is its setting, and the natural beauty which surrounds it, and to be fair, there is an element of truth to it. How many cities in the world have a gorge within three kilometres of the city centre? Cataract Gorge provides a pleasant stroll for locals on a Sunday morning, to walk off the hangover from an evening of boozing in half empty pubs. However, when one has visited every gorge known to man in the isolated Kimberley region of Western Australia, standards inevitably rise tenfold. Frankly, I couldn’t get excited about walking along a perfectly smooth paved path. The views were nice, but the walk was not in the slightest bit challenging or rewarding. To make matters worse, the river basin, which should have been the climax of the short journey into the gorge, is littered with all sorts of mod-cons to make humans feel just that little more comfortable; a swimming pool, a chair lift, and two cafes, as if one wasn’t enough. What an unfortunate way to treat an area of natural beauty!

The main purpose of the trip, however, was to explore the more rural parts of Tasmania. My first day took me over to the west side of the state, to Cradle Mountain, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listed, Tasmanian Wilderness. Owing to its stunning untouched natural beauty, which resembles New Zealand’s South Island, but on a smaller scale, Cradle Mountain is one of Tasmania’s best known tourist attractions. Numerous mountains surround the area’s many bright blue lakes, with the iconic and distinctive Cradle Mountain itself, towering above the pristine, glacially formed, Dove Lake. Given that weather conditions are extremely volatile in this region, and that the mountain is not visible for over half the days of the year, I could not have been luckier with what I was presented with; bright blue skies, with some intermittent cloud cover. The weather was chilly but fresh, which was a godsend given the amount of quad-aching hiking I did over the course of three hours. The views of the vast area of wilderness were quite spectacular, with it becoming more and more rugged as the elevation increased. Numerous tarns, many of which were frozen over, decorated the wild rocky landscape. The only disappointment was, with just 30 minutes of trekking remaining until we reached the summit of the 1,545 metre high Cradle Mountain, our tour guide instructed us to turn around and swiftly make our way back to the bus, for fear of delaying the majority at the bottom who opted against hiking the challenging, but very manageable terrain. Overall though, Cradle Mountain is genuinely one of the most beautiful places I have explored in all of Australia, and given how much extensive travelling I have undertaken in this country, that is not a compliment which should be taken for granted. The area is so vast with countless hidden gems and I left feeling that my stay was far too short and that I could have spent a week there.

Next up was a brief trip to Sheffield, known as the Town of Murals. With the town’s population in dramatic decline in the 1970s, some dedicated residents rescued it from the brink of extinction by borrowing an idea implemented by the small Canadian town of Chemainus, reinvigorating the area, developing a truly unique identity when compared to other Australian towns of similar size, and boosting tourism numbers one hundredfold. Sheffield was reinvented through the painting of numerous murals on walls and buildings scattered throughout the town, each one depicting the area’s rich history and stunning natural beauty, providing a remarkably colourful sight. The town, with a population of less than 1500, now sees over 200,000 visitors a year and hosts the International Mural Fest. Sheffield’s residents deserve massive respect for taking pride in the future and identity of their town and for having the initiative and drive to do something about it. It’s a shame other places, particularly the soulless townships which I frequented recently in North-Western Victoria, don’t have the same interest in following suit.

The final two days of my time in Tasmania were spent on the East Coast. While not nearly as magnificent as its western counterpart, the journey still provided some memorable sights, in spite of the grim overcast skies and relentless rainfall. Firstly, there was a short stop at the Bay of Fires, named as such by Captain Tobias Furneaux in 1773 upon witnessing the fires of Aboriginal people at this very location. The beach is quite picturesque, with hundreds of orange granite rocks comforting the long stretches of bright white sand. Excluding our small tour group, the beach was completely void of human activity, and with the waves crashing furiously against the rocks, outstanding photo opportunities were not in short supply. However, this joy was short lived, with a freak wave catching us all completely off guard, resulting in an undesired soaking from the knees down. The relief felt as I managed to stay on my feet during this surprising outburst of geographical emotion cannot be understated, given that my newly purchased Sony camera, among other things, was residing in my fortunate pockets!

Another highlight of my time on the East of Tasmania was a visit to Freycinet National Park, where I hiked to the secluded beach, Wineglass Bay, its name deriving from its shape, which can be seen clearly from the lookout. Rated as one of the top ten beaches in the world, Wineglass Bay ought to have blown me away, but unfortunately the persistent precipitation and poor visibility meant that I didn’t get to witness this beaut in her prime. Nonetheless, I still found the beach quite stunning, with its remoteness winning me over as much as anything. To get to this beautiful piece of coastline, one is required to hike up a decent sized hill for approximately thirty minutes, followed by a similar length decent to the destination. This expedition was all too overwhelming for two members of my tour group, who instead opted to wait on the bus for over two and a half hours! Why somebody would spend all that hard earned cash to engage in such laziness is beyond me!

While the aforementioned beaches were no doubt impressive, it was a brief taste of Tasmania’s heritage which most interested me. I enjoyed one hour wandering through the streets of Ross, a historic cosy town filled with old sandstone buildings and cottages. Much like Richmond, which I visited on my last trip to Tasmania, this gorgeous town has the feel of rural England about it, and provides a rare glimpse of visible history in Australia. The town is littered with cute buildings from the early 1800s, one of the oldest bridges in Australia still in use, and the centre of the town, the Four Corners of Ross; Temptation (the pub), Recreation (town hall), Salvation (the Catholic Church) and Damnation (the jail, which is now a private residence). Being somebody who adores heritage and culture, I was extremely impressed with the architectural beauty of this town, and in a small way, it made me feel a bit closer to home. I wish more places in Australia, in particular the mainland, preserved its history in such a manner.

The final stop on our tour was at the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, an establishment dedicated primarily to the protection of endangered animals. All the usual suspects made an appearance: kangaroos, emus, koalas, and wombats, among others. These were of course pleasant to look at, but when you have seen such iconic creatures on countless occasions in their natural habitat, it becomes difficult to get truly excited about witnessing them “on show”. What this sanctuary did offer however, was a rare glimpse of the famed Tasmanian Devil, the first time I have observed this fascinating mammal in the flesh. This animal exists only in the state which bears its name and is so called because of its disturbing deafening screech resembled the sound of the Devil, in the opinions of the early settlers. They are now listed as critically endangered due to a widespread facial tumour which has decimated its population over the past two decades. The cause of this rampant disease is not fully understood and if a solution is not found soon, then the Island State’s beloved Devil will be consigned to history, following the same cruel fate which the Tasmanian Tiger endured, extinct since the 1920s.

While I enjoyed my short time in Tasmania, I found the tour company, Under Down Under, to be quite second rate, lagging far behind the level of service I have received on my countless trips around Australia with Adventure Tours. A lot of my negative views can be put firmly at the blame of the tour guide, whose name I will refrain from mentioning. I have been involved in many group tours over the past few years and never have I come across a guide with such an evident lack of enthusiasm for her job. She brought with her a level of arrogance, sarcasm and negativity which has no place on a backpacker tour. It really is a pre-requisite to a job in this industry to have a fondness for being around people, but she seemed to get irritated easily by the actions of others and her attitude came across as moody and disinterested. She provided very little factual information on the sites we were visiting, with the exception of the occasional piece of trivia, and made very little effort to help the group engage with each other. To make matters worse, on one particular morning, two hours after leaving Launceston, a Chinese girl made the startling discovery that she was supposed to actually be leaving the tour and boarding a bus to Hobart that morning and should never have boarded the bus to begin with.. While the remarkable stupidity that my fellow tourist displayed cannot be overlooked, the tour guide should have realised that there was one sleepy tourist too many sitting on the automobile. Upon realising her error, she proceeded to turn swiftly around to drop her back to Launceston, thus consigning the rest of the group to 3 hours of precious daylight wasted on the bus. Not even a hint of an apology was uttered by our disorganised group leader afterwards.

Notwithstanding the above disappointment, and a pretty boring group of fellow travellers to accompany me, I enjoyed my time in Tasmania immensely, simply because of the picturesque places I had the great pleasure of witnessing. The landscape is quite stunning in areas and I would highly recommend a traveller to take a short detour to Tasmania, a place small in size, but big in character, and too often overlooked.