From staying on the Derwent River in Hobart for four nights today we drove up the Derwent Valley to the west coast to Strahan for the next two nights.
Long trip, we left at 8.15am and we didn't arrive until 3.00pm with only about an hour stopping on the way. It was overcast most of the day with light rain and cold in the hills. We had a real mixture today following the Derwent River, over the rolling hills of the farms, through the state forests, passing a few lakes, over a lot of twisty steep climbs over the high hills. But finally arrived to our destination.
First of all we checked in to our accommodation then went down to the very small town of Strahan to book our seats for the Gordon River cruise tomorrow. Hoping that the weather will be O.K. Just can't tell from one day to the next what it is going to do.
Again I are having trouble getting my photos taken from my phone to transfer to my iPad so I will continue at this point without photos.
We drove up the A10 past New Norfolk, as we saw that village yesterday, we then continue a 100km to a place called Tarraleah situated 1km off the A10 highway which could easily be missed but well worth a stop to see. It is now a resort in the central highlands was once a hydro village settling in the early 1930s. It was a thriving town up until its closure in 1996. The hydro station still operates, however are mostly automated. The town once housed 2000 people but today there are only four people living there. The town was originally build for the hydro workers and families. In 1996 most of the houses were sold and relocated around Tasmania. The village is now privately owned which was brought by a Tasmanian family and has been restored over approximately seven years. The few houses that were left have been beautifully restored and are used for holiday let's. A really lovely open grassed area with a cafe, pub with accommodation.
The hydro system today is amazing with big pipes overland from the river dropping down very steeply to the hydro station. Easier to see when my photos come through.
This is what the long wall looks like if you can imagine each panel is one metre wide and three metres high....each wall would have been about 40 metres long x 2
All done by hand by one man.
Another 45km on we reached the WALL, which is an amazing structure of 100 hand sculpted timber panels, each one metre wide and three metres high. The scale of the work is staggering and must be seen to be believed. All of this has been developed over the last ten years by an Australian Grey Duncan. He is still working on his wall. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos so all I have is photos taken from a book but of cause looks nothing like the real thing.
A little further on we stopped at Lake St Clair in the Cradle Mountain -- Lake St Clair National Park which is situated at the bottom of the Cradle Mt National Park where we will be passing through on Saturday which is further North.
We then continued over very winding steep hill country through the mining town of Queenstown. (A complete contrast to our Queenstown in NZ) The steep hills seemed to take for ages to cross over but we finally reached out destination.
As we arrived into Strahan we were greeted by this sculpture which looked like old driftwood.
Our stay at Aloft Boutique Accommodation, 15 Reid Street Strahan. It is a private home with two holiday lets on their back section. Has everything we need.
Studio room but very spacious.
I am now going to post this without my photos. Now the next morning and nothing has transferred over dam... we are off for our six hour River cruise so will see what happens when we get back watch this space for photos.
No comments:
Post a Comment