Cross Country

We rose at lark o’clock to make an early start. Today’s mission was to cross the island from east to west – fortunately not at its widest point – and reach our second destination, the village of Strahan on the west coast of Tasmania. We’d investigated some places to stop along the way.

 We managed to get away despite the Hobart rush hour traffic (yes, that’s a thing), and drove uphill to the central highlands, to our first stop at Russell Falls at Mount Field National Park. The falls are on a 20 minute loop track, so we wandered along that looking out for wildlife along the way. We could hear birds in the trees but nothing came very close to us – certainly not close enough to positively identify. After a break and a beverage, we drove off on a longer leg of the journey, which would take us to Derwent Bridge.

Russell Falls

 

A big tree

As we approached Derwent Bridge we spotted The Hungry Wombat café, and decided that looked as good a place as any to stop for lunch. Toasted sammies and chips! We’re living the high life! A minute away from the café is an art installation called The Wall In The Wilderness, which is a Thing To Do, so we went in and had a look. This is a carved wooden frieze work in progress by sculptor Greg Duncan. It’s housed in a long building, and is a depiction of his interpretation of the history of Australia. Parts of it are unfinished – he says, sometimes deliberately so, sometimes bit that he plans to come back to later…or not, depending on how the whim takes him, I guess. At the beginning there’s an entreaty from the artist to not take pictures, invoking copyright law, and saying to disrespect this is “UnAustralian”. Got bad news for you, mate. I’m not Australian, and harbour no ambition to become one, so your plea falls on deaf ears.

It was a good job we stopped at the café, as our onward journey revealed the size of the Derwent Bridge CBD…basically, that was it. Our next stop was at the Franklin River Nature Trail, another loop walk of around 20 minutes, and again we tried to spot some of the wildlife, but to no avail.

Our final call was at Nelson Falls. This location is home to the pink robin, apparently – a close relative of the New Zealand toutouwai, or North Island robin. Again, we could hear some twittering in the trees, but clearly they haven’t adopted the behaviour of their New Zealand cousins, who will come right up to and even hop onto your boots on occasion. So no birds, but the waterfall was cool.

 After that, it was straight to Strahan. I say “straight”, but it was along twisty, winding roads. Fortunately we didn’t encounter any traffic on the road apart from at the beginning, when the car that pulled out in front of us had spotted a sign that said “55kmh”, but failed to register the “From Dusk Till Dawn” part of the sign, in an attempt to protect wildlife at night. Judging by the carnage we’d seen at the side of the roads for the last few days, this isn’t particularly effective. Anyway, we zoomed past them at the earliest opportunity.

Strahan is a small village, originally built for cargo and as a passenger port, then a fishing port. Nowadays it is a tourist place, for the West Coast Wilderness Railway and river tours. We’re staying a t Franklin Manor, a house built in 1896 for the harbourmaster, now converted to a hotel. It doesn’t provide evening dining so we walked along the waterfront In the evening to View 42°, one of a handful of restaurants serving the other accommodation sites in town, and had a seafood buffet where we dined on oysters, smoked salmon and prawns to start, calamari and Portuguese fish, salads and noodles.   

 

Cascades Female Factory

Today was a more relaxed day. Our first appointment was a mere six minutes’ drive away, so we took our time in the morning before driving to Cascades Female Factory.

This is not, as you might think, a factory where women are made. No, it’s just a polite world for prison. Women and girls as young as 10 were deported to Van Diemen’s Land, as Tasmania was then known, in their thousands, and nearly half of them arrived at Cascades.

Our guide, Matthew, gave us the history of the place, the reasons why it was built there (cost, unsurprisingly), and the conditions under which the women lived, which were atrocious. It was not a happy tale. He detailed the class system that operated in the prison, the gang that ran the show inside, called the “flash mob”, and the ways in which women could escape. There were two: serve your time (a minimum of 7 years if you were deported), or get married. Some of the First Class prisoners were allowed to leave the prison daily, and work for an outside employer, often as servants (except they weren’t paid…what’s the word for that?). These were known as “assignments” and were meant to rehabilitate the women and enable them to learn a “trade” – servanting. It was also an opportunity to find a husband. Once married, however, the original sentence still had to be served – the husband effectively became the gaoler.

Matthew also detailed the building of the blocks – five were built in total, and the reasons for each one. When the prison finally closed, the building were sold off, and the government tried to eradicate all evidence of their existence to remove the “convict stain”. Whilst these days having convict forebears is celebrated by Aussies, at the end of the 19^th and beginning of 20^th centuries it was still considered shameful and no-one wanted to be reminded of the past.

It wasn’t until the end of the last century that anyone started to take an interest in the history of the prisons, and raised money to buy up what was the last remains of Cascades. These are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and focus specifically  on the plight of women in the penal system. 

Well, that was cheery.

We headed round the corner to another thing that Cascade is known for – its brewery, which has been there since 1830. We had lunch at the brew pub of a platter of cheese and meats, washed down with their beer of the month, a hazy XPA.   

Our next mission was to get to the top of Mount Wellington, the peak that overlooks Hobart. We drove up to the top and got out of the car – it was absolutely perishing! Temperatures at the top are typically 10°C lower than in the city, and there was also a freezing wind adding to the chill factor. We looked around, admired the view, read the information plaques, then hurried back down to warmer climes below.

Back at sea level, we took a brief shimmy around the Maritime Museum, which has stories and models of ships and other nautical paraphernalia which are relevant to Hobart, including a model of the SS Lake Illawarra, which crashed into the Tasman Bridge over the Derwent River that bisects the city, bringing down a section and cutting the city in half. All very interesting.

We decided to go for Greek for dinner, heading up Murray Street to Urban Greek, where we had their signature banquet with all the favourites, all very tasty.

 

Port Arthur

Our first full day in Tasmania, and we had entry to Port Arthur Historic Site booked. It’s a 90 minute drive south, almost to the very tip of the bottom of the island – in fact, as we discovered, the bottom of the island is a peninsula joined to the mainland by a causeway and bridge at Eaglehawk Neck. We got away early and made good time – better than Sattie’s original prediction – largely because it was a Sunday morning, I suspect.

We arrived in time to join the 11:00 harbour cruise, and boarded the boat. The pilot took us out to Point Puer, and gave us a running commentary on what we were seeing whilst also filling in the history of the place. Port Arthur was the original penal site in Tasmania established in 1830, and was used as a secondary prison site for convicts from Australia who had reoffended after transportation, either in prison or after release. The prisoners were obliged to work and many learned their trades there – woodworking and shipbuilding being the two main activities. The staff and military at the penal station lived a life of relative luxury, and as we walked around we visited some of the houses and quarters of the senior staff, as well as the buildings that once housed the convicts. The ships built there – mostly whalers and longships – were much in demand as they could be supplied almost at cost, undercutting the other boat builders of their time. It also contained some examples of Australian wildlife – notably herons, egrets, fairy wrens and green rosellas. After looking around the first part of the estate we went back to the café for lunch…but what they had to offer looked fairly unappetising, with a bland sandwich selection or meat pies. We decided to forgo lunch and instead, after a quick rest and a beverage, continued on through the grounds to complete all the major buildings, including the church, insane asylum and Separate Prison.

Artistic rendition of a boat

Flour mill, converted to convict cells

The guard tower. 

Study at the Commandant's house

Commandant's kitchen

Commandant's house

(what's left of) the church

Wildlife. I have no egrets

As we drove down we’d spotted a few things that looked interesting to stop off at on the drive back. The first of these was the Tasmanian Devil “Unzoo”, a wildlife park where animals and birds can roam free instead of being in cages. What a novel concept! We’d missed the beginning of the tour but soon caught up with the guide, at the point where she tried to entice a white-bellied sea eagle to join us by putting fish out on a perch. Unfortunately, the area is also frequented by herons and black-backed gulls, and they came in and swiped the lot before the eagle could show up.

We then backtracked to the kangaroo area, where they had native Tasmanian forester kangaroos – a subspecies of the grey kangaroo found on the mainland, but smaller. We also spotted what we think was a pademelon, a relative of the wallaby, but I don’t think my pictures came out. We were given some food to offer the roos and told that we’d have to approach and offer the food, they wouldn’t come and get it themselves. Lazy buggers! Even then, they seemed happier eating spilled food off the ground rather than that being proffered in the hand.

Tasmanian devils

Reluctant feeders

We then went to the farm area where a somewhat tame Tasmanian devil was hanging out, as it was his feeding time. Our guide talked about devils and their habits, including face tumour disease, a cancer that is unfortunately contagious, and as TDs bite each other about the face a lot, it has had serious implications for their survival. A new treatment has been developed, however, and is currently being trialled – off the back of the research done for the Covid-19 vaccine. The TDs at Unzoo and the rest of the Tasman peninsula are the only population that are uninfected, and the bridge that crosses to the peninsula at Eaglehawk Neck incorporates a grid, similar to a cattle grid, that the TDs won’t cross. There’s also a fence that extends out to sea, even though TDs don’t swim. So the population should remain safe whilst the rest of Tasmania finds ways to cure the disease.

Our next stop was bird feeding time – first, some honey water for the nectar-feeding birds: a yellow wattlebird was first to arrive, and hogged the feeder, chasing away smaller birds such as New Holland honeyeaters, which tried to get in on the action; much like tūī, korimako and hihi behaviour in New Zealand. Our guide then invited us to hold out some seeds for the green rosellas, which had already made their presence known, and they had no shame in hopping onto arms, feet, heads and hands to feed off the seeds. They’re clearly well-fed, as they have their favourite seeds and pick these out from the handful proffered and ignore the healthy seeds, moving on to the next source to cherry-pick the best.

Time was getting away from us. There wasn’t a café at Unzoo, and as we’d skipped lunch we picked up a couple of biscuits to stave off the pangs until dinnertime, then headed back up Arthur Highway to our next destination.

Another thing we’d spotted on our way down was a sign pointing to Blowhole, Tasman Arch and Devil’s Kitchen. We turned off the highway and drove to each of these locations. The Blowhole was a bit disappointing as it only really works in rough seas when the wind is in the right direction, neither of which applied today. We watched waves crashing against the cliffs at Fossil Bay, then went to Tasman Arch, which is splendid. We declined the walk to Devil’s Kitchen as it was 20 minutes walk each way, which would have delayed us too much getting home.

Sattie, who’d been very upset with us for deviating from her course, took us back to Hobart without incident, and we rested awhile before venturing out to dinner, this time at Suzie Luck’s, a Pan-Asian eatery offering all the usual suspects. We had kingfish sashimi, chicken and coriander dumplings, and pork pad thai, followed by coconut cream with forest fruit sorbet. Very nice it was too.

Today was action-packed. Tomorrow, we have it slightly easier, as our tour is only six minutes from the hotel. We’ll explore further at our leisure.

 

What A Palaver

“Go to Tasmania!” They said. You’ll love it!” So we booked a trip, and set out.

Our first flight was to Sydney, at 6.05 in the morning. We rose well before the lark, and a pre-booked Uber took us to the airport for 3:00, the suggested time for international flights. Wellington Airport is open at 3:00am, but there’s no-one there. Once we’d checked in, we couldn’t drop our bags at the bag drop, nor could we get a hot beverage. At 4:00am, things started to move and we could finally begin getting under way. We made our way through Security and tried our luck at the Air New Zealand lounge, but because we were flying Qantas (for reasons), we couldn’t get in, even though we had vouchers on our phones. Bah! Unfortunately, there’s not much in Wellington’s International departure lounge, just a Subway and a Mojo, so we made do with tea and coffee and crosswords. We could’ve had an extra hour in bed, though.

Our flight had already been delayed, but at around 6:00 a security guard informed us that there’d been a “security incident” and everyone would need to go through security again. What? Yes, two planeloads of people, who’d all gone through security at a leisurely pace because there weren’t any other people around, suddenly had to do a rush hour scenario. What the “event” was, was never divulged, but I suspect one of the security staff fell asleep when they were meant to be watching the x-ray machine, or something daft like that.

By the time all this had gone through, we were over an hour late getting into the air. This, of course, meant that we hit Sydney at peak time, and were circling over the sea for another 40 minutes before we could land. We’d missed our connecting flight to Hobart. The captain had advised people on our flight (and others) to check the Qantas app, and, yes, once we were reconnected to airport wi-fi we confirmed that our flight was rearranged. But what’s that feint writing at the bottom? “This flight is operated by JetStar”. Yes, they’d booked us onto another flight, but they’d downgraded us to ShitStar in the process. Fortunately that flight managed to take off and land on time (unusual for them), and we picked up our hire car, and found our way to Hadley’s Orient Hotel in the heart of Hobart.

Hadley’s is a Victorian era hotel that’s been around since, like forever. The décor reflects this and it has a lot of period features. The restaurant menu looks good as well, but unfortunately I’d already booked Rockwall for tonight, and the hotel restaurant is closed on Sunday and Monday, i.e. the remainder of our stay here. We’ll just have to find somewhere else to amuse us for the next two nights.

Rockwall is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel, although we took longer as we checked out the area around the waterside. There are a lot of bars and restaurants there so we'll explore further. Rockwall seems to be among the better of them, and we had calamari, Bruny Bay oysters, stuffed chicken and a filet mignon, by which time we were too stuffed to go for puddings. As our internal clocks were still two hours ahead of local time we headed back for an early night. 

 

 

 

And The Lochburns

Nicola was on ushering duty at Circa Theatre again last night, so I bought a ticket to go and see the show as well. It was an early start at 6:30pm, as it’s a two hour show, and Wellingtonians of our vintage (who frankly make up most of the audience) like to be tucked up in bed by 9 o’clock.

Dinner first, naturally. Mr Go’s and their sister restaurants Kisa and Ombra have been running a promotion throughout the winter whereby if you dine at one and spend over a certain amount, you get a $25 voucher for your next visit. We had one of these that needed to be used up, so along we went to Mr. Go’s. To be honest, we’d probably have gone there anyway.

They’ve changed their regional menu to Shanghai (it was Hong Kong last time we went) but the Typhoon Prawns have now made it onto the main menu so we had some of those, along with Korean wings, dumplings and a Shanghainese mushroom and bok choi dish. All very tasty as ever.

And The Lochburns is a play by William Duignan, Wellingtonian and all-round theatre guy. The cast includes Circa stalwarts such as Simon Leary, Peter Hambleton, Hannah Kelly, and Jthan Morgan. It’s set in the home of Gus, or Sir Angus Lochburn, celebrated musician, and now losing his mind to Alzheimer’s. His son Jason has been taking care of him with his partner, but the time has now come for Gus to be moved to residential care, and Jason’s two sisters arrive to help clear the house. And that’s where the trouble starts, as old rivalries, perceived slights and behaviours resurface between the three siblings and Jason’s partner, Sam.

Interspersed between the present-day sniping, the story of their parents also gradually unfolds – often being played out at the same time as the children are arguing, and music plays a strong part of the proceedings. At one point there’s a full-on song and dance routine of Tom Dick or Harry, and we learn about the older Lochburns’ musical career and partnership. Margaret, Gus’ wife, has died several years earlier, but appears sometimes as a ghost to the demented Gus, and in flashbacks as herself whilst alive. Go and see this whilst you can.

 

Romesh Ranganathan

British comedian Romesh Ranganathan’s “Hustle” currently touring New Zealand. He’s familiar to us from various games shows on the telly, Taskmaster, hosting The Weakest Link, as well as his own specials on Netflix. Why not go along?

The show didn’t start until 8:00pm, so we had time for a leisurely dinner beforehand. We decided to try the current hot spot for dining in Wellington, the newly-opened Bouillon Bel Air. From the name, you can probably deduce that there’s a French theme to this place, and you’d not be wrong. A bouillon is a type of French restaurant that became popular in the late 19^th – early 20^th century in Paris, selling inexpensive but hearty meals for the workers in the city. In modern Wellington, this means no mains over $30.

We’d booked early, and it was a good job we did so as the place was absolutely heaving by 7:00pm. Possibly as a result of people dining before going to the same show as us? Anyway, the service was leisurely, probably due to this, but even so it wasn’t glacial, and allowed us to eat at a reasonable pace. I had snails and bouillabaisse, Nicola had the terrine and fish du jour (made with real du jours). Classic French food. It’s not haute cuisine, but then, it’s not trying to be. And what with the cozzie livs, reasonably priced.

We walked along Tory Street to the Opera House, and waited for Romesh. Normally there’s nothing going on before the show, but he’s brought along a mate, who enlivened the crowd by testing their knowledge of old-school hip-hop, practising cheers etc.

Then Romesh came on. I’m not going to repeat all his jokes, but tell you that he is extremely funny, and comes up with such gems as telling an employee at Disneyland about Chessington World of Adventures. “Gee that sounds amazing!” replied the employee. “Wait until they find out it’s Chessington Village of Disappointment”. He discusses the difficulties of modern life, with anecdotes from his days at KFC and his teaching career – where he locked a kid in a cupboard once – and how to communicate using animal noises. It was all great fun, and I’d recommend his show to everyone.