tasmania – Kieran Campbell

13 July 2010

Tasmania Day 15: Cradle Mountain

Today David was going to start his 5-day hike along the Overland Track, and we were were going to follow him as far as Cradle Mountain, although a ‘probably’ was quickly added to that plan as soon as opened the tent to find everything dripping in the pea-soup that had engulfed us through the night. As usual our plans to start early fell foul of me being the only one who was capable of getting up before 8, but in the dreich weather even I wasn’t in much of a hurry to get going, and neither was the car. It wasn’t as bad as our Lake Burbury experience though and we were eventually heading back into the national park after our night of exile.

Overland

We decided on a circuit starting from Ronny Creek, past Crater Lake, Marions lookout, and kitchen hut, where we’d branch off up the Mountain, returning via Lake Wilks and the west shore of Dove Lake. By the time we’d cooked a load of 2-minute noodles in the hut-with-a-view at Waldheim, it was pretty much midday, but at least we could see some blue sky. The board-walk over the relatively flat moor away from Ronny Creek felt almost too easy but we slowed down soon enough when we left the comfort of that. The day stayed a bit dull as we passed some falls and hiked up around Crater Lake but by the time reached Marion’s Lookout patches of sunlight were tracking across Dove Lake and illuminating the ever-looming Cradle Mountain. From there on till Kitchen Hut it was pretty easy going with bits of board-walk over the relatively flat Cradle Plateau.

I obliterated my noodles at Kitchen Hut, leaving only a tin of spaghetti to sustain me for the other ¾ of the hike, and thought it would be a pretty cool place to be stuck at if we’d been here in winter. The ascent up Cradle Mountain was pretty well straight to the point, aiming dead middle and heading straight up the slightly shallower lower slope before giving in to a gentler climb along the side of the steep boulder field of the higher slope. Hopping up and scrambling over each boulder was pretty fun we could see the view of the valley opening up with every step, justifying photo-stops every couple of minutes. As the track neared the peak we crested a sort of saddle, dropping down the back of the hill before tackling an even steeper climb, steep enough that having the weight of my camera bag on my back worried me a bit, especially when I thought about how I’d manage to climb back down some of rocks.

Cradle Mountain

At the summit the day was perfect. Calm, sunny, fluffy clouds and a view that just went on forever in all directions, and a drop off the edge of the epic rock formations that seemed almost as immeasurable. I got my usual jumping shots out of the way while Kevin and David had a few celebratory games of shit-head. I can’t remember how hard going the walk down was, apart from finding the bit I almost couldn’t climb up as difficult to climb down with my camera bag as I expected, but I’m pretty sure our knees were shot by the time we got back to Kitchen Hut.

And then it was time to leave David to continue his first day on the Overland Track. At this point I didn’t think I’d see him again so it was sad to see him go, while we started to race against the sun, our hunger, tiredness to get back to the car. Through breaks in the cloud the mountain was glowing brilliantly in the later afternoon sun so my incessant snapping slowed us down a bit, and once we reached the fork in the track, overlooking Dove Lake, we both had a stop for a few minutes to soak up the view. Down at the lake side, we ended up running on the board-walk to shave a few minutes off our return, stopping at a little beach in the now fading light to dip our roasting feet in ice cold waters. The reason for our urgency was now more apparent, we were at the Dove Lake carpark, but still possibly had to walk along the road to the car at Ronny Creek, but our luck was in, and 5 minutes after we got to the carpark the last bus came.

Tomorrow, I Climb That Mountain

Back at Waldheim we found the showers, and then found they were hot – if I could only have one hot shower in Tassie, this would have been it. After all that I was pretty well knackered, but not too tired to drive so decided I’d try to find one of the rest areas on the way to the north coast instead of trying to camp at the side of the road again. Going by the map we just had to stick to the road we were on and there would be two rest areas, but, in another example of Australian road-moronity, without ever turning off the road we were on, I found myself driving through a village on a different road, with no rest areas. So, a great day was finished with yet another night sleeping with the road-trains howling past..

20 June 2010

Tasmania Day 14: Zeehan & First Impressions of Cradle Mountain

Meet David

Yesterday was Australia day. Obviously we did our bit as temporary residents of the red island continent and had a few drinks in one of Strahan’s pubs and so next morning I woke up crumpled up under a duvet in the driver’s seat of the car with David beside me. We weren’t feeling too bad, Strahan wasn’t exactly an exciting night out and the burgers we’d cooked at the beach before the pub had been a master-stroke of planning and damage-avoidance. Still, I was a bit confused, seeing as it had been Kevin who’d been in the front of the car with me when I’d fallen into a slightly drunken sleep. Wiping the dripping wet windows cleared that one up though: he’d had the raw deal last night with David sleeping in the back seat behind him and had bailed out half-way through the night to sleep on a bench overlooking the beach. Even with the view of the calm waters of Macquarie Harbour to wake up to, I still can’t say I was envious of that move.. To the humble, grubby backpacker, Strahan is a jewel though, as it’s the only place we found on the island that had free, hot showers so we basked in the glorious steamy goodness one more time before heading north towards Zeehan.

Zeehan

On the road up the coast we hit a viewpoint overlooking the expanse of Henty Dunes, but they were quite far away so it wasn’t all that interesting, letting us crack on to the free bbqs in Zeehan and where we tried to boil pasta for lunch. Overall it was a bit of a failure with at least one of the pans looking more like a pot of starch than spaghetti, oh well. Zeehan felt, like most of the towns in the west, very sleepy with nothing catching our attention and in little time we’d got through it, Rosebery and Tulla, leaving not much between us and Cradle Mountain.

This was more like it, heading back into the highlands of the island, with the promise of seeing some of the most stunning scenery it had to offer. Tomorrow David planned to do the Overland Track – a 6-day, 80km walking trail from Cradle Valley to Lake St Clair – and that was why we were giving him and his bike a lift to the starting point. The information centre was still open when we got to Cradle Valley so David got his bike locked up (he’d have to find a way back up here by road after doing the track). While we had some light I really wanted to get a first glimpse of Dove Lake and The Mountain and, as far as first glimpses go, rolling up to the lake side, catching the last of the low sun breaking through the dramatic and now colourful clouds was just what I needed to get me raring to climb the ominous collection of rocks that loomed in the distance.

First Impressions

Scoping out the place for possible camping spots for the night we realised the place was far too popular and completely devoid of secluded spots suitable for a bit of rock-bottom-budget sleeping, forcing us to drive back out of the park boundary, heading north along the main road in search of side tracks and the likes. Seemingly land-owners were on to our kind long before we arrived, as every possible track off the road had a little ‘private – no entry’ sign nailed to a tree, so we ended up finding a patch of relatively soft ground at the side of the road and made it our home for the night.

31 May 2010

Tasmania Day 13: Australia Day in Strahan

Burbury Dawn

Waking up to the quietly moody atmosphere hanging over Lake Burbury, I had two surprises awaiting me. Last night, I’d left my camera running the black-frame noise-reduction for the 23-minute long exposure I did of the Milky Way over the lake, and it was great to dig the cold camera out of its bag to find that the battery hadn’t died before the noise-reduction finished, and the resulting shot looked like a winner. It was just a shame that without a computer of my own, I’d possibly have to wait almost 8 months until I returned home to have a chance at post-processing it.

Next, Kevin’s dead car awaited the attention of my somewhat-amateur mechanical skills, after we killed the battery by leaving the headlights on to help with tent-pitching last night. Handily, we were parked at the top of a slope that ran – not-so-handily – into the lake, so we pushed the car round to line it up and then I tried a rolling start. Half-way down the hill, thinking I had enough speed, and wanting to be able to stop the car one way or another before I ended up in the lake, I let the clutch out, but nothing. So it was do or die, clutch in, off I rolled until, just before I hit the boulders marking the shore, I let the clutch out again, but the engine was lifeless. Now we were buggered, down an anonymous road, with a dead car, and nowhere to push it. In a last-minute-save, two guys who were camping beside us, probably quite amused by two foreigners trying to resuscitate their dead car, helped us push the car back up the hill, and back down, giving me the momentum I needed to tempt the reluctant engine back to life.

Hardly daring to let the engine rev down to idle, we were back on the road west. Cresting a hill we stopped at the lookout to take in the view of what looked like an open-cut mine, then realised it was Queenstown. The combination of it being the Australia Day public holiday and the west of Tasmania drew all but the smallest bit of life out of the town, so we cracked on through the rain to Strahan (pronounced ‘Stawn’). It was great to hear from David, who we’d left in Hobart with his bike, saying he was in Strahan too so we caught up with him and sheltered from the rain in a café across from the police station, soon stuffing our faces with as much chips, wedges and burgers as we could summon from the ever-beckoning food counter. I can’t remember the name of the place but the food was really good despite being pretty decently priced.

Beach Boys

Afternoon saw the weather clear up enough to let us get the body boards out and head – against the warnings of rip and undertow in the Lonely Planet book – to Ocean Beach. As usual I found myself freezing and desperately paddling, almost in vain, towards the shore within 15 minutes of jumping in, so I left Kevin – now master of looking like he was caught in every possible rip and undertow – to it. Reunited with David on Australia Day was just the excuse we needed to check out the pub, which kept us going till we had to stagger back to the other end of the village to find the car and try to squeeze the three of us in to sleep. Like that was ever going to work…

30 May 2010

Tasmania Day 12: Lake St Clair & More Western Wilderness

Lake St Clair

Now that I’m writing about Tasmania 4 months after it happened, and I’ve left what notes I wrote about it back in Bright, some of these days’ posts might be a bit vague. It’s funny how much I can forget about what I’ve done on my travels, so quickly after the event – thankfully looking back over my photos helps fill in some of the gaps and dig some almost-forgotten events back up into consciousness.

Waking up to a beautiful morning at the idyllic and dead-silent Ted’s Beach, I wished it was warm enough to risk a dip in the dark tanin-tainted waters of Lake Peddy, since we were back to living without showers again. If it took us little time to get in to the wilderness, it took us even less time to get out again, breaking north across the Derwent River, stopping momentarily at the quaint Ellendale, dominated by a bright white-wash church overlooking a well-manicured graveyard. After another meal featuring the ever-popular indomie noodles and a side of nachos we stopped at Tarraleah – another part of Tasmania dominated by hydro-electric schemes – to witness the rows of pipeline quietly channelling the potential energy stored in nearby lakes to the generating stations tucked into the bottom of the valley.

Tasman Wilderness

Next stop was the end of one of the greatest walking tracks in Tasmania – the 80km Overland Track – at Lake St Clair. We walked a little bit of track as part of a much smaller circuit that took us round part of the south-west edge of the lake. On the return leg we branched off along an Aboriginal Culture walk, seeing some beautiful grass-land but not really feeling the information signs that were dotted around. Maybe that’s a testament to the lack of knowledge we have on Tasmanian Aboriginals due to wiping most of them out while trying to colonise the island.

Nelson Falls

Continuing west on the Queenstown road, we stopped at the Donaghy’s Hill carpark and did the 15 minute walk up the hill, being rewarded by a 360 degree panorama encompassing peaks from the south of Cradle Mountain National Park to the north of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, made only better by the late afternoon light. As that recommendation of the ranger at Lake St Clair had held true, we checked out Nelson Falls, further along the road, to find them flowing much better than Russel Falls yesterday. Not being totally fenced off by the board-walk, I got right up to the falls and was way happier with the shots I got.

With the sun down and the light fading it was time to scope out our sleeping spot, and with a few camping areas dotted round the nearby Lake Burbury we thought it should be quite easy. The first sight, tucked into a corner east of the lake near the bridge just north of the road, charged a fee but had loads of flat grass as well as showers, not that we were tempted by either. Next we tried a site near a boat-ramp on the west side of the lake, south of the main road, but all pitch-able spots were taken. That left us with a site marked just north of the road so we hunted it down, first driving past the access road as there was no sign. There didn’t seem to be a proper camp area as such, but we passed a number of mobile-homes dotted tucked into every slightly wider part of the road, which didn’t fill us with hope. Where the road ended, and met the bank of the lake, it widened into a rough sloping area that was just about adequate for us so we settled there.

Lake Burbury

By now it was pretty dark so we left the car lights on while we pitched the tent, then realising, as we tried to start the car afterwards, that we’d killed the battery. I had a fairly good idea how to do a rolling start so we decided not to worry about the small matter of being stuck in semi-remote west-Tasmania with a dead car until the morning. The night sky was brilliant and the landscape quite visible in the short summer darkness, letting me try some of those night shots that almost look like day-light, finishing up with a long exposure that I didn’t wait to see the result of before going to sleep. So, in the morning, I’d find out if my night photography skills were up to much as well as, crucially, those that I had in the art of starting dead cars.

29 May 2010

Tasmania Day 11: In to the Wilderness

Razorback Ridge

Our short time as civilised back-packers was over this morning, as I, as usual, annoyed Kevin until he woke up so we could make the most of the day that promised to take us into some of the most pristine land in the world: the Tasman wilderness world heritage area. Driving the long and steep descent back into Hobart I wondered if I came back here to cycle round the island, much like David was doing, whether this hill and the cyclist-unfriendly nature of the highway would stop me making back down to this quaint corner of the state. Through Glenorchy, New Norfolk, and stopping in by some fish farm that really only interested me for the toilets, we hit our first scenic stop in Mt Field National Park.

Oddly enough when we got to what we were looking for all we saw was a sign for ‘National Park’ – seemingly a somewhat vague name for a place in a state, let alone a country, with dozens of national parks and reserves – but it was actually the turn-off for Russell Falls. We figured we had to see these falls as they were plastered over almost all the stamps we’d been sticking to postcards bound for back home, and naturally they looked quite stunning there. Our excitement to be walking along the trail to one of Australia’s iconic sites of natural beauty was all but culled when we got to the fenced off platform, peering through the menacing – at least from a photographer’s point of view – trees at the trickle of water running down the not-so-glamorous rocks. Clearly, at height of the Australian summer, we were a bit late in getting to these falls, although the Horse-shoe falls redeemed things, if only a little bit. Lunch in the quiet park across the road from the information centre, watching people in various forms of inflatable vessels bobbing down the river on what was another perfect day weather-wise, renewed our energy and optimism for carrying on into the World-Heritage-listed wilderness.

Ted’s Beach

On the Gordon River road, I was almost completely in my element – it’s the closest thing to the Scottish Highlands I’ve yet seen, with almost as much drama and grandeur, but I think we missed a trick by blitzing through it quite quickly in the car. I thought there were quite a few walks to the various peaks that loomed over us as we twisted our way through the rugged landscape, but all I ever noticed were small signs at the side of the road, pointing in the general direction of peaks. But hey, maybe that’s why they call it a wilderness, and anyway, the walks would have probably just been long enough to be dismissed by our lazy sides. We hit Ted’s Beach, a little bit before Strathgordon and scoped out how good it would be for sleeping at that night: some space for pitching a tent and a well kitted out building with a sheltered kitchen area including free bbqs made it sound like the spot we were looking for.

Strathgordon was so small and devoid of any life we didn’t see any reason to stop so it wasn’t until we got to what looked like a lookout over a huge gorge that we got out of the car again. Looking out into the tree-covered wilderness, not even being able to see the bottom of the gorge we got distracted for ages shouting and waiting for the chorus of echoes to calm down, such was the size of the gorge and the number of little spurs that gave our voices something extra to bounce off before they returned to us sounding altogether more haunting. When we eventually turned and looked to the north we realised we only had to drive the car another 100m to be at the end of the Gordon River Road, for we were at the Gordon Dam.

Lake Gordon

Walking around the, now closed, visitor centre to get a view over the biggest dam I’d ever seen, seeing the ground falling away through the gaps in the steel-grate floor, I had to stop for a second to recompose my legs as I took stock of what was close to a 200m drop to bottom of the gorge and dam wall. Any nerves I had were overshadowed by Kevin’s almost palpable fear of the height, so I had fun coaxing him to the edge of the lookout. The dam is open to walk across, so I steamed ahead and did just that. I wouldn’t say it’s nearly as daunting being on the dam, as it’s wide enough to drive a car on and has a high wall on one side, so there isn’t that perspective of walking a tight-rope. Just as we were going we met a guy who’d rode in on a motorbike and, curiously, asked us where the last fuel stop was. We weren’t sure, knowing we had easily enough fuel for the return trip, so he probably had a bit of a nervous run back out of the wilderness after a bit of an overly-casual stroll in by the sounds of things.

26 May 2010

Tasmania Day 10: Hastings Caves

Hastings Caves

Waking up on a very comfy sofa for the third morning, I was definitely starting to feel as though we should be moving on and seeing the rest of Tasmania before it was time to get back on the ferry, but it wasn’t even half-way through the trip and Roy and Liz really were very nice people to be staying with so we headed off on our second day-trip down south, this time heading to Hastings. Just as I don’t tend to watch films more than once – unless they’re really good – I don’t tend to do something again unless it’s amazing, so I wasn’t overly fussed to be heading to see something I’d already ticked off my list a month earlier – caves – but, the Jenolan Caves had been quite spectacular, so maybe Hastings Caves would be similarly awe-inspiring.

Hastings Caves were certainly impressive, both in scale and beauty, but the tour didn’t stand up against that of the Jenolan Caves, where well-considered music and lighting sequences had taken the show to another level. The thermal springs were a bit dissapointing too, as the water had been channelled into a swimming pool, which was packed with people and noisy kids, so wouldn’t have been very relaxing even if it was warm enough to tempt me to jump in.

Hastings Caves

Back in Huonville, we’d decided we were definitely going to head off soon, but it was a bit late in the day for making a break so we settled for an evening of gluttonous amounts of fish and chips followed by Watchmen on Blu-Ray: a decent film well worth seeing in Blu-Ray and hearing through Roy’s very capable speakers, that left me missing my sound system back home.

25 May 2010

Tasmania Day 9: Tahune Airwalk & Hartz N.P.

Tahune Forest Airwalk

After 2 nights sleeping in a proper house we were probably getting a little bit too comfortable with our new-found high-quality living, and it was already getting harder to wake up at a decent time to do anything with our day. Liz worked remotely for her employer in Perth so even she could enjoy a long lie every day before the west-coast working hours caught up with her. Today, she was having some problems connecting to the company through her VPN, so giving me a chance to get some much-needed practice at my profession. Luckily, as I don’t know a huge amount about VPNs, the problem was fairly trivial for me to fix and soon I had another happy customer.

The swing-bridge

Deciding we should explore some of the coast to the south, Roy drove us down through Geevestown, where we stopped off at the information centre to find out about the Tahune Forest Air-walk, and got lured into a really tasty pie-shop, that I can’t remember the name of, but it’s on the same side of the street as, and very close to, the information centre. I’d already been to the tree-top walk at Walpole, which is basically an aerial walkway through some dense and ancient forest, which gives a great view of the trees, but isn’t something that I’d really bother to do again, so I wasn’t overly excited by the prospect of another walk. Anyway, it turned out to be better than the one at Walpole, partly as it was a much nicer day but also there were more views out of the forest over the Huon River, and there was a really fun part of the walk where the walkway was suspended out towards the river in a dead-end bridge-construction-in-progress fashion, giving a great view and endless possibilities for scaring people with a lot more sense than myself but recruiting people with about as little sense as myself to jump up and down on the edge of the swing-bridge in time and watch fear creep over the faces of the other people as the whole contraption – suspended 20m above the forest floor – bounced and rippled wildly with various creaks and groans to finish off the horror-ride experience.

I think Kevin and Roy were feeling more energetic than me so I tagged along as we did one of the ground-level forest walks, which had a scattering of shaking-bridges that we naturally put as much energy into shaking till we were almost thrown off them. The bridges were so well made that once given a good shaking, it was quite hard to not get to get hit in the face by the all the ripples running along the bridge when you stood still and waited for it to subside.

Hartz-Mountains National Park

On the way back out of the park we checked in by a few of the lookouts, including the Big Tree, a name which pretty well sums up the site, save for a few ‘very’s before the name. Hartz Mountains National Park is also accessed from the Tahune Road and I was keen to get a landscape vista fix so we did the fairly winding drive up to Waratah Lookout and did a walk to some quite scenic falls a little further along the road.

Back in Huonville, we gladly accepted yet another night’s board, set going with yet more Baileys and card-games.

24 May 2010

Tasmania Day 8: Dossing About Round Huonville

Life of a Backpacker

I was a bit surprised to wake up slightly hungover from the meal and pints from last night, so it was yet another slow start to a day for me. My GPS logger had been playing up ever since we got to Tassie and had got to the point where it just wouldn’t stay on unless it was on charge – I’d been relying on it for the past 5 months to help me figure out where all those random out-the-window shots and the likes had been taken when I look back on them later so it was quite annoying to be faced with having to try to make some conscious effort to remember where I take all my photos.

Lymington?

It was a bit of a short visit to Huonville for David, our Israeli cycling friend, as he had to resume his cycle tour today, so we drove back to Hobart with him then took a more scenic drive back down the coast courtesy of Roy. Roy and Liz had been looking for somewhere to build their own home near Huonville so we took a detour up a farm track into a small and secluded valley to check out a site that Roy was keen on getting. Without my GPS working I can even remember exactly where it was..

That was about all we did in what turned into a very cruise-y day, finished up with Kevin and I cooking our hosts a curry for tea, as way of thanks for having us staying with them. Seeing as we hadn’t done much, and there was still plenty to explore south of Huonville, we gladly accepted their offer to stay another night and continue our streak of hot-morning-showers, and settled into a night filled with Baileys, whiskey and yet more shit-head.

24 May 2010

Tasmania Day 7: Skipping Bail for the Beach

Fortescue Bay

Breaking out of the rich atmosphere of the tent – rich from the three of us having nachos, cheese and dip, with about half a bottle of tabasco added, before going to sleep – we took stock of our surroundings that we’d stumbled into the night before. We really had just driven down some side forest track and happened upon a part wide enough to get away with pitching a tent on. Still as intent on seeing Fortescue Bay as we were on not paying to get in, we drove back up to the park boundary and walked in the half-kilometre to the camp-ground and beach. The bay is well sheltered and quite idyllic, nothing to rave about at least from our viewpoint, but definitely worth chilling out on for an hour while we woke up.

Port Arthur

On to Port Arthur, we were a bit disappointed to find that, although being clearly marked on the map as a town, it was completely fenced off and the only thing we could do for free was look over part of the site from a lookout round the side of the visitor centre. It was something like $17 for basic entry, which I’d probably pay if I went back, but the group consensus – after taking in the view for a while and wondering if we could get away with jumping the fence at the lookout – was there were better things to do with our day.

Following the main road round the peninsula, we’d heard that Roaring Beach had some good surf, so we turned off west at Nubeena to check it out. Not deterred by the suitably roaring, and nippy, wind Kevin and I jumped in while David exercised better judgement and took photos from a distance. The rip was way too much for me, so after spending a few minutes almost hopelessly trying to get back to shore – even though I was only waist deep in the water – I bailed out, while Kevin, typically, swam so far out I couldn’t see him and assumed we’d be called the SES in.

Off to the Beach

That pretty much summed up our time on the historic Tasman Peninsula before we headed back through Hobart, once again not really bothering to explore the place, only stopping so David could get his glasses fixed, while we made ourselves look like bums playing shit-head on the street. Kevin made friends with a couple how now live in Tassie, when he worked in a restaurant back in Perth, and after a week of uncivilised camping it was the perfect time to call in on them and crash in a proper house again, so that evening, we arrived in Huonville, an hour or so south of Hobart, and met Roy and Liz. For a temporary home while they find their dream spot on the island, their pad was pretty idyllic, set up the valley just outside town, looking over a sweeping bend in the Huon River, not that we really cared though, we were meeting up with some very welcoming people, not sleeping in a tent or a car for the night, and, most importantly, would have a hot shower for the first time in a week!

9 May 2010

Tasmania Day 6: Passing the Capital & Heading to Prison

Pirates Bay

Feeling pretty crap from what was the worst night’s sleep ever, we got to the information centre at the head of the Freycinet Peninsula to find the weather wasn’t looking that great. We’d planned on doing the overnight hike round the peninsula, which meant camping somewhere near the south end, so possible rain and strong winds didn’t combine to make an attractive forecast. Ditching that plan, but at least much better informed about what we could do on the peninsula thanks to the information centre, we steamed on to Hobart to meet our Israeli friend David, who also was circumnavigating the island, but on two wheels, with no engine.

Almost completely ignoring the capital, we caught up with David, got some supplies and tried to leave Hobart. That was easier said than done as, once over the bridge, I assumed what seemed like a fairly sensible position in the left lane of the highway, only to find that after a corner there were signs saying this lane slipped off the main route and, with no time to change lane, then no sign of a slip road back on, I ended up driving back across the bridge, then back across again, just to leave the city. Once again, Australian roads: I despair.

Tasman Idyll

Heading towards the famous and, by white Australian standards, historical penal colony of Port Arthur, we took a detour just before entering the domain of convicts at Eaglehawk Neck to see the Tessellated Pavement and check out a lookout over Pirates Bay and Eaglehawk Neck the spit of land that we’d cross to enter the peninsula. After reading the information on how the cracked formation of the ‘pavement’ – a flat area of rock on a beach – formed, I understand how the cracks formed but still don’t really know why they make a uniform grid. Anyway, passing Eaglehawk Neck didn’t have quite the feel of a no-man’s land marking the entry to what was once the worst prison you could end up at in the British Empire, as we couldn’t see the sea that was so close to us on both sides for the thick bush.

Just inside the peninsula, we checked out the Tasman Arch, Devil’s Kitchen, and Tasman Blowhole: all fairly impressive rock formations carved out by the sea. Definitely in need of a shower again, Fortescue Bay looked promising, although quite far down some unsealed roads, with a camp site and showers. Determined not to pay anything for washing or sleeping though, we sneaked into the campground, had a hypothermia-inducing shower (hot water is available, at a price) then drove back out beyond the limit of the national park and camped by the side of some obscure forest track for the night.