…Well, Australia anyway!

It’s easy to get seduced by the unspoilt nature and pristine waters of Tasmania’s north east coast but as I travel south from St. Helens and pass through Beaumaris I’m reminded that for all its beauty from time to time Tasmania has a dark and malignant past. A young life taken, a guilty man walking free, the law is an ass and we can only hope he will be judged in a higher court. Not just this crime but from its earliest colonial days when this place was a living hell for those sent here to be punished and forgotten, to the appalling treatment of the first Tasmanians and not so long ago the senselessness of the Port Arthur massacre. It’s hard to reconcile these atrocities with the calm and gentle pace of life here, but I guess this contradiction is evident in the natural world here too, from rolling green hills to rugged mountains, and pristine clear waters to monstrous raging seas, this does seem to be a land of opposites. But I digress…

As much as I enjoyed Binalong Bay and the Bay of Fires it was time to get moving and my next port of call was one of my favourite places which I remembered fondly from a family visit we made about 12 years ago.

Bicheno is only about an hour south so I had time to soak in the scenery and enjoy driving on an empty road that ran between the mountains and the sea, but even at a leisurely pace still I arrived before lunch! First impressions were like everywhere else on the Australian coast it seemed Bicheno had caught a dose of the “creeping brick venereal disease,” with subdivisions and project homes popping up like mushrooms on the outskirts of town. I was also shocked to see what looked like a half built lego model on the point at the end of the beach, it seemed completely out of character with the rest of the town. On closer inspection it proved to be a cluster of two-story tardus looking apartments forming part of what will be some sort of eco-resort development being built by Jan Cameron the founder of Kathmandu. After my initial repulsion I have to admit the architecture grew on me and I’m now prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. It seems like cubist architecture is in vogue down here as it any building built in the last decade seems to consists of straight lines and right angles.

A case in point was a small beach house that was also a new addition since we were there and I love it. I think living in Max has taught me that less is better, and this house exemplified everything that is simple, stylish, and functional!

On a slightly more disappointing note, I went in search of the place we stayed at 12 years ago and of which I have very happy memories, more so than my son who is still mentally scarred by “The Kraken Incident” when a large octopus he’d been tormenting with a stick clambered out of the rock pool and chased him across the point. Back when we stayed there this was the homeliest AirBnB I’ve ever stayed in, tastefully appointed in a nautical theme with wild peacocks wandering around the grounds. We got to meet the owner, a lady who’s name I can’t remember, who’d written a book on the Batavia which according to her, Peter FitzSimons had shamelessly plagiarised in his book of the same title. I’m not sure what’s happened to her or the property but it was very sad to find it apparently deserted and in obvious decline!

It was still only early afternoon and the weather was great so I decided to make the most of it and head to my next lighthouse at Cape Tourville in the Freycinet National Park which was only 40 minutes away.

We visited this lighthouse when we were last here last time and my recollection wasn’t that favourable, but I was pleasantly surprised this time. While it’s a modern utilitarian structure lacking in style it’s more substantial than I’d remembered and the location was truly breathtaking. I’d forgotten how so stunning the Freycinet peninsular is and decided I’d also revisit the nearby Wineglass Bay which I have to admit seemed an easier hike twelve years ago.

As much as I try and avoid them, every week or two I need to check into a caravan park to have a shower and shave (whether I need it or not), and as the full moon was looming I had a pressing need to de-wisker myself so I checked into the Coles Bay Big4. It felt great to be clean, warm and smooth-faced after being feral for the past week or so and I celebrated with a meal of octopus at the local pub (apologies to all who’ve seen “My Octopus Teacher”)!

With the weather forecast looking unusually good for the next few days I decided to head back up to Bicheno the following day, most of which was spent in the local library updating my website, and at the end of which I felt justified in heading down to the dock to sample a bit of the local Waubs Harbour single malt whisky and indulge in some of the local marine life at the Lobster Shack next door.

After an early dinner and noting the clear night sky I decided to head back to Cape Tourville to await sunrise. Parking Max in the deserted lighthouse car park I felt overwhelmed by the solitude, the silence and the stars above! It felt amazing to know that I was the only human for miles around, immersed in this great natural masterpiece with just the gentle sounds of the bush to send my to sleep. I awoke pre-dawn to be greeted by an extraordinary sunrise which seemed even more special as I got to witness it totally alone.

Once the morning show was over and the day was in full bloom I pointed Max toward Hobart for what I expected to be the only boring drive in Tasmania. I wasn’t disappointed. Apart from a weird periscope lookout at the Devil’s Corner winery I had to amuse myself by looking at al the weird signs and strange roadside attractions that seem to proliferate in these parts.

In what seemed like no time at all I was dropping down into Hobart, crossing the Tasman Bridge and being surprised at the scale of Mt. Wellington which seems to overlook the city wherever you go.

Friday was MONA day. Rarely has one man been able to impose his personality on a city like David Walsh has done with Hobart. Historically regarded as a cultural deadend MONA has rewritten the book and now positioned Hobart as the avant garde art capital of Australia. Walsh’s vision to create a gallery / museum to display his private collection of Old and New art is as much an architectural masterpiece and it is a cultural phenomenon. Everything has been thought through, from the camouflaged catamaran that ferrys you there, to the art and experiential installations it’s all very cool and the best part is that he made his money playing the game, literally beating the house at gambling! I’m sure he’s a very interesting guy and as a professional gambler I assume he’d have to have a digital brain and big brass balls! The current theme is SEX & DEATH and as you’d expect the works on display challenge the senses and stereotypes!

On Saturday I caught up with an old flat mate of mine from Whale Beach days, Simon whi is a native Taswegian, his wife Sascha who’s a transplant and their two boys at their place at Clifton Beach about half an hour out of Hobart. This is a brass monkey surf town and home to the most extreme surfers in Australia who regularly test themselves against some the gnarliest waves in the World at places like Shipstern Bluff (aka Shippies) and Pedra Branca (aka Eddystone Rock)! These waves are not for the faint hearted!!!

Simon is neighbours and mates with these crazy buggers and gave me the good oil on how to get to Shippies and other places of interest around the Tasman peninsula and west coast, including Cape Raoul and Cape Hauy on the Tasman Peninsula and the “Road to Nowhere” and some off-piste secret places on the west coast.

Unfortunately Shippies wasn’t working when I visited and frankly was a little underwhelming when viewed from the lookout high above the action and the same could be said of Cape Raoul, although standing on top of a 1,000′ vertical sea cliff with no fencing in a strong wind definitely got the heart pumping and vertigo humming!

That night I stayed at Eaglehawk Neck and went to the bizzarley names Doo Town where all the houses have “Doo” in their names such as “Thistle Doo Me”, “Make Doo” and “Doo Wah Diddy”, oh well whatever floats your boat I guess but I can’t see myself ever wanting to live in such a place.

After fleeing Doo Town I was excited to be heading to Cape Hauy and after turning off the main road it was a 15 km drive on a dirt road through an extraordinary forest with some of the tallest and straightest trees I’ve seem anywhere to Fortescue Bay. From there it’s a 12 km trek there and back including 3,500 vertical steps which my iPhone told me was the equivalent of walking up a 175 story building, and over 18,000 overall, but the pay off when you reach the end is worth it, vertical cliffs and columns of rock hundreds of feet tall plunging into inky blue water, and to top it all off – a clear line of sight to the Tasman Island lighthouse!

With my luck with the weather still holding out I decided to make a run for the southern extremities the next day, catching the car ferry over to Burny Island to visit Cape Burny lighthouse. Apart from the lighthouse the most interesting thing about Burny Island is the who’s who of who’s been there, everyone from Abel Tasman (1642), to Tobias Ferneaux ( (1773), to Captain Cook on his 3rd voyage (1777), to the old devil Captain Bligh who went there twice (1788 & 1792), to Matthew Flinders and his cat Trim (1792) and finally a Frenchman by the name of Bruni D’Entrecasteaux who actually stayed there for a while (from 1792-93) and not surprisingly used his christian name when naming the island, have put in an appearance there in years gone by, but other than that there’s not much to see here.

After arriving back at Kettering I decided to take the long way south so I could pass through Cygnet, which now has some sad memories attached (if you remember my “Shadowland” post you’ll know why), on to Huonville and then down to Southport where I planned to camp the night before discovering it’s seems to have rigor mortis before death and is easily the most boring place I’ve ever been to, let alone had to stay the night in.

I would have kept driving but it was dark and based on the amount of road kill I wasn’t about to chance my arm at driving another 40 kms on a dirt road through a forest with no one around in sub-zero temperatures. This turned out to be a smart move as the drive to Cockle Creek the nest morning was amazing and it would have been a waste to do it at night, even if I’d survived. This was my first taste of the famed south west Tasmanian wilderness and as the last vestiges of civilisation at Ida Bay and Catamaran fell away it felt truly primeval.

After travelling about 20 kms along a deserted dirt road I arrived at Cockle Creek, quite literally the end of the road and commenced a 4 hr hike to South East Cape, the most southerly outpost of Australia. Remarkably I had this magnificent piece of Australia all to myself as I didn’t see another person the whole time I was on this trek. I had hoped I might catch a glimpse of my next lighthouse, the famed Maatsuyker Island from SE Cape but it was not to be, it’s 10km offshore and was hidden behind South West Cape.

As a longshot I spoke with a fisherman I met at Catamaran who had an oversized tinny but he explained that to get to Maatsuyker it would be at least a 10 hour round trip and we’d run out of daylight and suggested I drive back to Dover and speak with the cray boat fishermen there to see if they could help. As a last resort I did this and met Jimmy and Gary who were repairing their cray pots on the jetty, they said I was welcome to join them but but I’d have to be prepared to work for the passage, that they usually go out for 8 to 10 days at a time and wouldn’t be heading out for at least a week due to the forecast wild weather. After considering this option for about 3 seconds I gracefully declined saying that I couldn’t wait around that long and wished them well!

I was out of options but decided to head back down to Cockle Creek and stay a couple of days safe in the knowledge I was the most southerly person in Australia and hoping against hope that some unforeseen miracle might happen and get me out to Maatsuyker. It didn’t but I was enjoying the uniqueness of my location and thought it might be worth calling Macca on “Australia All Over” on Sunday morning and update him on my travels since I last spoke with him from Prince of Wales Island in the Torres Strait. I did, and you can listen to the interview in the “Follow Me” section if you’re interested.

Following the interview I headed for Strahan, six and a half hours away on the wild west coast!.