This morning, the four Bocks and the four Ellises flew from Sydney to Hobart, Tasmania on Jetstar, an Australian discount airline. Flight time was about 1.5 hrs and many of us snoozed on the plane since we’d gotten up very early.
As we approached Hobart Airport, we got an excellent view of the River Derwent that connects Hobart to the Southern Ocean about 6 miles downstream. Tasmania is located so far south that there’s nothing but open ocean between here and South America, 6,000 miles to the east. And Antarctica is only a hop, skip and a jump to the south, a mere 1,500 miles or so away. If you look at a map or globe, you will see that Tasmania truly is on the edge of the world!
After we landed we got our rental cars, and I volunteered to drive ours with Katrina as my navigator. It had been 5 years since our trip to England so it took some getting used to driving on the left side of the road again. I elicited a few involuntary groans from Katrina by getting too close to the left edge of the road but in general managed to avoid an accident.
First we tried to go to the Salamanca Market in downtown Hobart because they have a large farmer’s market cum flea market every Saturday morning. Unfortunately, this weekend is also a large food & wine festival and the number of cars and pedestrians was a rude surprise, considering Hobart is a town of only 150,000. After driving around the Salamanca Market area for about 30 minutes without finding parking, we decided to cut our losses and head straight to our next destination, the Tahune Air Walk about 90 minutes to the southwest of Hobart.
About half of the drive follows the Huon River, which is surprisingly wide and very picturesque. Parts of the scenery—the river with the mountains to the north—reminded me of photos of New Zealand that I’d seen in books. There are lots of orchards in this part of Tasmania, many of them covered with netting (to prevent birds from eating the fruit?), and we saw fruit stands offering apples, pears and cherries.
The Tahune Air Walk is located on the edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area that comprises five national parks and 3.4 million acres, 20% of the total land mass of Tasmania. I read that over 40% of Tasmania is protected, either in national parks, conservation areas or state preserves of some kind. Where else are you going to find this?
The area we drove through to get to the Tahune Air Walk looks to be pure wilderness. The nearest town, Geeveston, is about 40 minutes away. The last leg of the drive from Geeveston took us through forests that at first glance could have been anywhere in Northern California. However, it didn’t take long to realize that the trees aren’t the conifers we’re familiar with, but rather gum trees (eucalyptus). Blue gum seems to be particularly common here. The road was bordered on either side by a variety of ferns, almost lime green in coloring. The smaller ones are blechnum ferns, with fronds about 2 ft long. The larger ones are Tasmanian tree ferns, with fronds up to 6-7 ft long. Definitely not the kind of vegetation that grows at home!
The Air Walk is a steel walkway about 120 ft off the forest floor. It affords outstanding views both of the tree canopy above and the forest floor below. The tallest trees were stringybarks, yet another member of the eucalyptus family. We also saw sassafras, dogwood (not related to our Western dogwood), several types of acacia, and a tree called “horizontal” because it tends to grow, well, horizontally rather than vertically. There were also blooming tea trees.
The wind was blowing quite strongly at times (gusts up to 30 mph according to a ranger we met), and the walkway did jiggle a little in spite of its strong steel supports. Normally I’m a bit squeamish about heights—and I absolutely hate suspended foot bridges like what you sometimes find across small rivers—but I was OK with this.
The final section of the walkway is cantilevered and therefore particularly bouncy. The ranger there assured us that it is engineered to hold 12 baby elephants—sure sounds like a lot of weight! It overlooks the confluence of the Rivers Huon and Picton and affords views as far as the eye can see.
Along the River Huon grows the famed Tasmanian huon pine, highly sought after by the early settlers for its rot-resistant wood. Huon pines were used extensively in shipbuilding, a vital industry on an island so isolated. Apparently next to the bristlecone pine found in California’s White Mountains, the huon pine is the oldest living thing in the world; some have been dated to be 3,000 years old. They only grow near the river because they need a constant supply of water.
The tannin from the huon pines leaches into the water, which is why the River Huon looks like black tea. When Laura used the restroom at the Tahune Air Walk visitor center, she came back and told me how gross the water looked. I’d read that even the drinking water in the area is colored, but that it is completely safe. Still, it is a bit disconcerting to turn on the faucet and have yellow, brackish-looking water come out :-).
Here are some pictures of the girls enjoying the Air Walk:
After we got back to Hobart, we checked into our hotel—rather nice, with the reception, restaurant and conference facilities located in a historic building from 1914 that used to house a school for the deaf, mute and blind—and then proceeded to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Amigo’s. It was a bit odd to eat Mexican food in Tasmania (definitely not a center of Mexican immigration), but my chicken in mole negro was outstanding. In fact, it was the best mole I’ve ever had in a restaurant outside of Mexico. The margaritas, on the other hand, were rather disappointing due to a pronounced lack of tequila. I’m not sure there was any in it!
Side note 1: After the lackluster margarita, I had a glass of house wine (called “cleanskin” here). It was a Tasmanian riesling that was surprisingly good. Tropical fruit notes, with a coconut overtone. Gotta look for more Tasmanian wine. They grow mostly cool-climate grapes, in particular riesling, gewürztraminer and pinot noir. I love off-dry riesling and will try to obtain a bottle or two tomorrow. In Australia, supermarkets don’t sell alcohol, so you have to go to a “bottle shop” (pronounced “BAW-oh” in Aussie-speak).
Side note 2: No free Internet connection at the hotel (the “special” rate is AU$0.79 per minute, or AU$29 per 24-hr period), so it may be a little while before this blog entry gets posted.
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