Winterbrook Falls and Black Bluff

A perfect blue-sky autumn day (Tassie perfect - as in not cloudy or raining but still freezing cold...) inspired us to take a trip back to Winterbrook Falls and complete the hike we never quite started a couple of weeks ago (after driving most of the way, finding the last bit of road closed, walking a kilometre into the trailhead and then discovering that we didn't have enough daylight to walk the track itself...)

The walk-in to the falls is along an old tramway through proper Tasmanian rainforest (giant trees. lush green and everything covered with a million different kinds of moss). There were remnants of the tramway still to be seen (with a bit of imagination in some places) as well as a profusion of colourful toadstools and fungi necessitating lots of camera stops.

The track eventually left the tramway and climbed steeply beside a (very audible but pretty much invisible) rushing creek until finally breaking out of the rainforest to a vista of the falls themselves plummeting down off the bluff.

Ten minutes more of walking had us back in the forest and to the foot of the falls. 

I'm pretty sure this look means "I want to go that way" ie back to the car...

This was where I realized that after lugging my tripod the whole way, I had neglected to bring the bit that actually attaches it to the camera. So much for those long-exposure rainforest creek shots…

So Ryan saves the day by proving that a rock can do just as good a job as any fancy-pants tripod.

Having seen how tantalizingly close the bluff appeared to be, we decided to take the optional side-track to the top of Black Bluff. This was steeeep (I am sensing a theme with Tassie walks...). The trail took us up through the “Eye of the Needle” – a narrow gap between a couple of massive boulders (marked by a helpful sign reading “Behold – the Eye of the Needle), and onto the plateau itself. 

Once up on the bluff, we started to see patches of snow and then actually managed to be briefly snowed on by a passing cloud that left blue skies in its wake. 

This is Ryan being snowed on (or snowed at to be more precise). Let the record show that he actually appears to be enjoying himself.

This is the snow on its way off the other side of the bluff

We battled up the final climb in howling wind to briefly stop at the ice-covered trig and snap a couple of shots of the amazing view before hurrying back down again.

We headed back on the slightly longer Maxwell’s track, which was a lot more well-defined and a lot less steep than the tramway track (eventually becoming something that was almost recognizable as a fire trail). This ended in a couple of km’s of actual firetrail and a bit of a slog back to the car.

All up, almost 16km of walking and 1300m of climbing. 

Tassie take two

Well – so much for chronicling our Tassie adventures…

We have managed to travel around a bit and see some stuff, just lacking the motivation/time/feeling in my fingers (cold joke) to update the blog. So let me rectify that by giving you a brief(ish) summary of some of the places we've been.

Ben Lomond

Our number one tip for Ben Lomond is not to waste the $24 park entry fee driving to the top on a day when the peak is in cloud. Not only will you completely fail to see any of the spectacular scenery, you may also be woefully unprepared for the miserable conditions and will have to listen to your husband bitterly complain about his frostbitten ears after you make him go walking anyway so as to not totally waste your money. Just saying…  

Same goes for Cradle Mountain. I'm pretty sure it's in this photo??

Quamby Bluff

So blue-sky days mean visiting high places - and we took advantage of the nice weather on this day by finding a random peak to climb close to home. 

Quamby Bluff turned out to be a pretty cool (albeit steep) walk with lots of varied terrain from open forest and farmland to dense rainforest to boulder-hopping up scree slopes to the low scrub of the bluff itself.

(Ryan is actually on the track in both these shots...)

The views from the top more than made up for the effort. 

And then, to top it off, we encountered this little fella on the way back down who was quite content to snuffle for ants just a metre or so away from where we were standing.

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Gunn’s Plains Cave and Leven Canyon

This trip was built on a vague plan to string together visits to a couple of interesting-sounding places picked at random off the map. Gunn's Plains Cave is a bit further afield than the more popular Mole Creek Caves and was surprisingly good (once we overcame our initial doubt about finding the place apparently deserted)(the guide was down in the cave with a group at the time). We got our own personal tour (complete with an hour's worth of Dad jokes)(although I do approve of comparing the shawl formations to streaky bacon)(mmmm...bacon). The formations were abundant and spectacular and we would definitely recommend this tour.

We followed the cave tour by a visit to nearby Leven Canyon. A short walk out to a couple of viewing platforms yielded some good views up and down the canyon. 

We also did another walk into the canyon floor which culminated at “Devil’s Elbow” which (we think) marked the junction of couple of rivers into the canyon. This walk took in a short section of the 5-day “Penguin to Cradle” hiking trail and was pretty steep and rough.

(I know this doesn't look that bad, but everything AFTER the bridge was steep and rough...)

Woolmer’s Estate

The forecast for the day was cloud and rain, so we settled on an indoor-ish visit to a historic property near Longford. Although the weather forecast didn't prove entirely accurate (see the blue skies in the pictures below) the tour was actually pretty interesting. There were an abundance of outbuildings to look through, complete with a lot of their original equipment (including an impressive double-storey shearing shed). We forked out a bit extra for a guided tour of the homestead itself, and I would definitely recommend it. The house was crammed full of its original furniture and was a fascinating (albeit slightly creepy) look at how (wealthy) people lived in the early 1900’s.

Greetings from Tassie

So I thought I better start chronicling some of the places I've visited in Tassie (if you're not up to speed - I've moved to Launceston, I'm temporarily husband-less and I've got a whole lot more free time on my hands). Anyone want to buy a nice house in West Pennant Hills???

One of my bosses today told me that Tassie has two seasons - February and the rest of the year. This does not bode well for the sun-loving Ryan, who missed a cracker of a weekend (and what may well have been one of the last days for the year where the temperature actually exceeds 30 degrees). 

I decided to spend Sunday checking out Liffey Falls after reading somewhere that they are touted as one of the prettiest waterfalls in Tasmania. I also specifically chose to go on a hot, sunny day after I visited Lilydale Falls the weekend prior when it was wet and raining and got covered in leeches (well, covered might be a slight exaggeration, but I did get four on my boots and spent the whole of the car trip home stressing about whether a undiscovered leech would be content to suck on the first bit of leg it encountered or if bodily orifices would be more attractive). At least I got some nice photos:

Anyway, Liffey Falls. My initial plan was to drive to the picnic area at the bottom and walk the long track back up to the falls, but I don't seem to be having much luck with the roads here and ended up somehow at the top. Still not quite sure how that happened?

The falls themselves were indeed quite pretty. The bright, sunny day probably wasn't the best for taking excellent water photos, but at least I remained leech-less.

From the falls, it was about 4km to the lower picnic area, and this was quite a pleasant walk directly alongside the creek. It did start getting a bit hot for the walk back up again though, and my wildlife concerns shifted from one black, wriggly creature to another after I came awfully close to a black snake sunning itself on one of the sections of boardwalk (no photos of that one 'cos he hightailed it in one direction while I took off in the other).

I revisited the falls on the way back up and managed some better photos without the hoard of other sight-seers who had been there initially.

I also somehow managed to drive home a different way than what I intended. There was nothing for it but to console myself with gelato along the way :-)

Day 14: Hanoi

Last day...

Unfortunately, after spending two weeks in remote villages eating all sorts of local food without any problems, it seemed that a fancy dinner in Hanoi was too much for us and we both woke up a bit unwell. Which was doubly disappointing because we had been looking forward to taking advantage of the extensive buffet breakfast at the hotel.

Our hotel room view by day

We spent the morning walking down to the Old Quarter. The shops lining the streets seemed to follow a common theme - there was a street of toys and stuffed animals, a street of sunglasses and even a street that seemed to predominantly sell stationary. All the shops were tiny, with their displays spilling out onto the footpath (which was also crammed with parked scooters and people eating at food stalls). It was often easier to brave the traffic and walk on the road.

We visited Ngoc Son Temple, perched in the middle of the lake and dedicated to the giant turtles apparently living in the water. Inside were multiple alters, heavily decorated and crammed with offerings.

The weather was still pretty miserable (same constant, misty rain that had been falling for three weeks straight), so we decided to visit the Women's Museum (as suggested by the Brit). This was actually pretty good (partly due to the fact that it had very good English translations) and had displays covering everything from clothing, to women's role in war, to marriage and childbirth. It was interesting to now learn the background behind some of the things we had seen while biking.

I was still feeling the effects of last night's dinner, though, so we decided to make our way back to the hotel and pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon reading and resting. And instead of enjoying one last cultural experience in finding a food stall for dinner, we stayed put and ordered room service.

And that was pretty much the end of our holiday. We shared a shuttle to the airport the next morning with the Brit, then flew back home via Singapore.

Reflecting back on it all now, we both had an amazing experience. Biking is an excellent way to see a place - we really got to immerse ourselves in the landscape, and also interact much more closely with the local people. I think my highlight was the massive limestone mountains around Dong Van. I'm pretty sure Ryan's highlight is still that home-stay orange :-)

Day 13: Quan Lan to Hanoi

So much for sleeping-in - we had to set the alarm for 05:30 to meet our boat, which was scheduled to leave at 07:00. We enjoyed another slippery Tuktuk ride through the mud to get back to the dock and boarded our boat (which happened to have a large, dead stingray tied to the back deck).

Our tuktuk

Not our boat

Our boat - note the stingray hanging off the back

We were reunited with the van back on the mainland (and our luggage - which we had left behind after our guide told us that it was likely to be tied on the roof of the boat if there wasn't much space inside). Then it was a long drive back to Hanoi. The road was quite busy, and lined with houses (no more spectacular mountain scenery). Every road-side stall seemed to be selling pineapples, and we also passed quite a lot of beautiful bonsai trees. We had seen a few of these already - they tended to be quite large (around 1m high), but always beautifully sculptured (bonsais, not pineapples...)

We stopped for lunch at an art centre. The garden outside was filled with sculpted stone statues, and the inside with all sorts of art and crafts. Most of these were embroidered pictures which were made by disabled women - they were copies of paintings, and made of panels of solid silk-thread stitching (hard to describe, but imagine a lot of time and work). The larger ones took almost a year to complete. I chose a small one as a memento of our trip.

I think he's ticklish

Eventually, we made it back to Hanoi (still shrouded by misty rain). We stayed in the same hotel as our very first night, but this time in a much nicer room (which became promptly festooned with all our muddy biking gear which we had washed in the bathtub)(yes - an actual bathtub!).

Then went for a walk, primarily on a mission to satisfy a week-long craving for dairy products. We found a cafe that had menus in English and enjoyed a mango smoothie for Ryan, and an iced coffee with real, actual cream on top for me. It was only after we passed the cafe again walking back to the hotel that we discovered it was called "Tit Coffee"... And then also managed to walk right by the entrance to the hotel without realizing and got temporarily very confused and lost.

Our guide took us out for one last dinner. This time at quite a fancy restaurant in an old French-colonial-looking building. Not only did we enjoy dishes that included soft-shell crab and creme brulee, we also got to satisfy another craving for fresh fruit juice (which we hadn't seen since leaving the Eco Village at Pan Hou).

The view from our hotel room 

Ryan basking in the glow of the internet