Strahan, Tasmania Trip (Day 11)

25th March 2016, Friday

Woke up @ 7.00 am and it was rainy again. My friend prepared breakfast for us and we all loaded our stuffs to the car after breakfast. We drove to the village office and did the check-out. Then we drove down to Strahan, another small town. It was a 2 hour long journey, we passed by Roseberry town and Zeehan town which were labelled as historic towns. It was very quiet too, maybe it was because of Good Friday. We reached the apartment early and we don't see any check-in office around too. So i got off the car and asked the cleaner in one of the apartments. She told me that we just see the name written in front of the parking lot to know which apartment is our and the key will be placed on the table.

Lunch

Engine 1

So we drove down to the town first, many shops were closed as it was Good Friday. Even the post office won't be open until next Tuesday. We went in to the booking centre to book for the wildness railway tour and we got some gifts too. We went in a bakery shop for lunch before we hit down to the starting station for our steam train. Once we arrived at the station, we could see the steam train engine and the carriages. There was a drinks & snacks carriage in the middle and the carriages in front were those with high tea included. We saw how the train engine changed the direction to get connected to the carriages too. Then the train started moving once it was ready.

The guide told us that he is not going to tell us to look out on our left or right for the sights we passed, instead he is telling us a story. So along the way, he used stories to tell us how the railway tracks were built by the people from the older times by pure hands and axes. There was a spot where the workers had slept and ate in that area and they did not have any warm clothes or shoes when it rained. It was still rainy too and the train cut through the rainforest and along King's River. The 2nd station we stopped was called Lower Landing Station. The guide went down and let us try the local honeys, which there was a small shop for selling the honeys. At the same time, the train engineers were filling the stream engine with water using a water tank at the station.

And we were off again. On the train, the guide told us that the train engine that we were on was a 120 years old and it was the very first engine. It was assembled with no instructions and it was still running well till this day. We arrived at the last station, Dobbil Barril station. The guide told us that there were 3 version on how the station got its name. And he left it to us to believe in which of the stories. At this station, the engineers manually turned the train engine in the opposite direction using the rotation table. Then the guide allowed us to go walk a short rainforest trail, and the rain started to pour again. On our way back, the guide continued the story, he told us that the west coast pioneers had built a bridge to get across King's river as there was always flooding. He told us that there were some workers who would tie themselves to the bridge during the construction . And if they were to fall off, they can swing themselves back up. The guide said they were called the swayers. The parts of the bridge were brought back from UK, each part weighed 110 tonnes.

Then the guide told us that there were actually 5 stream engines, however, only 3 were running now. The engines were just namely 1 to 5, engine 4, he told us it was the most problematic engine. It was always giving troubles to the engineers, so it was kept in the storage now. He also said engine 2 was currently exhibited in Hobart Museum. The maximum speed for the trains is at 30km/hr. He told us that the engine 3 was once used to help fight a very big fire in one of the mining caves. He said witnesses from that fateful day told that the engine was boiling red. But many people still died in that fire as there was not enough manpower to keep the fire under control. We were also very lucky that we can go for the railway, as the guide told us the railway was just opened again in 2002. It was closed 39 years ago and it ended with engine number 1 as the last train running on the tracks. Then the guide told us that the people from west coast fought to get their railway back online. And they made it. We reached back to the starting station and the story ended. We gave applause and thanked the guide before we alighted.

View from the living room

Dinner

Then we went back to the town to buy dinner and drove back to our apartment with super nice sea view. The apartment was really amazing, wide view on the sea and a open room concept on the upper deck. Then we all showered and got ready to have our dinner with the sea view in front of us. But there were too much thick clouds, can't see the sunset. Then we just watched tv and my friend tried to re-arranged their luggage as they were going back to Singapore the next day. It continued to rain heavily through the night again.


Hotel Stayed:
Wheelhouse Apartment

Places Visited:
Wildness Railway Tour

Cradle Mountain National Park, Tasmania Trip (Day 10)

24th March 2016, Thursday

Breakfast

Dove Lake

Woke up @ 6.30 pm today and we prepared breakfast and lunch too as we were going to explore the cradle mountain national park. The park does have many walking trails suitable for all, the hardest one will be the one which will take 2 to 3 days to go up to the summit. There was free shuttle bus service provided too, starting from the visitors information centre. We drove up to the fifth station, which the dove lake was located. Then we began to walk the 2 hours trail around the dove lake. Luckily the weather was sunny and it felt great too.

Buttergrass

Wild Wormbat

After we finished the walk, it was almost past noon. So we ate our lunch in the walkers registration house and rested for awhile. Then we drove down to the 4th station, Ronny Creek. There, we happened to see some wild wormbats and that scared my friend who doesn't want to continue to walk on the trail. So i went ahead on my own up to the resort house of a man, named Gustav Weindorfer who had the vision to make cradle mountain as a national park. I went in the chalet and exploded, inside was the history of this great man and his vision. There was also a small rainforest outside the chalet, which the family will go during their summer breaks.

There was also a memorial for Gustav Weindorfer outside the chalet, then i just sat down on the bench to enjoy the view down on the big field with butter grass. Then i started to make my way down the hill, when i saw my friend came up on his own. Then we made our way down together, until he pointed to mi there was a black snake some distance away from us. i walked quickly to avoid the snake, then we drove back to the visitors information centre for a rest. Not sure was it the weather, all of us started to have slight headache (thought i was the only one). After the break, i still wanted to go walk walk but my friend wanted to go back to the cottage to rest. So the husband dropped me at the 2nd station for the enchanted walking trail and drove his wife back to the cottage.

King Billy Tree

I made my way towards to the pencil pine fall walk trail, which there was a small waterfall and the pencil pine tree. After that, i walked towards the enchanted walk trail. I was caught by the sight of a small kangaroo when my friend's husband caught up with me, Then we just continued down the trail and we saw 2 wild wormbats, an adult and a young. I went off telling the couple with a small kid who were behind us to see the wormbats. The small boy was very excited when he saw them and then he scared them away...hohohoho.....After the walk, we went for another trail - King Billy Tracks. It was obvious nobody walked on this trail. It was a rainforest trail and there were a lot of dead trees and fallen trees lying around. And one thing bad about this trail was it was with a lot of steps.

Dinner

After walking the tiring trail, we drove back to the cottage and had our showers. We prepared our dinner and had a tasty dinner while watching the tv program.

Hotel Stayed:
Cradle Mountain Wildness Village

Places Visited:
Cradle Mountain National Park

Cradle Mountain, Tasmania Trip (Day 9)

23rd March 2016, Wednesday

Breakfast

Woke up on and off during the night but still woke up @ 7.00 am as we need to move out to Cradle Mountain today. So we packed our things and loaded them up to the car. Then we drove out to the bakery shop in town, which we bought some breads for breakfast. After that, we drove to Launceston, another town (almost 2 hours ride away). We travelled past many fields with sheep and cows, the roads were all wavy and up and down. We also passed by many smaller towns along the way.

Once we reached Launceston, we went to Coles supermarket to stock up water and food as we know there was very ulu up in cradle mountain and the restaurants were quite costly. We also went to pump some petrol for the car too (Don't want to run out of gas out in the nowhere...kekeke...). Then we continued another 150km up to the cradle mountain...long long way. We even played some music from our handphones so it won't get too bored and sleepy. There was even a sign to let the travellers know that they were leaving the last town along the way. We stopped by a small cafe named Round Hill Coffee, along the road. It was small, with only one group of customers inside. There was a big and fluffy cat sitting on the table outside too. We ordered a soup and chicken cutlet for lunch. After that, we continued on the road again.

Finally we reached Cradle Mountain Wildness Village. I went down to do the check-in, the staff informed us that there were only 3 eating places area the mountain and we will need to make reservation if we want to dine in the restaurants. And it was fully booked for the night too. Then she gave us the direction for us to drive to our cottage and the parking lot. We unloaded our stuffs once we reached the cottage. The cottage was not very nice from the outside but the inside was quite nicely decorated. But i do feel quite cold inside as the heater was not feeling strong enough. And there was no network totally and we can't use the wifi unless we pay for it and it was only at the reception area. not even in the cottage. Anyway we just rested for a while.

After that, we drove out to the visitors information centre to grab some information. We also booked the Devils@Cradle tour for our evening program. So we just stayed around there till 4.30 pm (really nothing much to do there). Then we drove up to the Devils@ Cradle office which was about 1 km away from the visitors information centre. As it was still early before the tour starts, the staff let us in to see the Tasmania Devils first on our own. My friend got scared as they resembles to rats, so she didn't want to go see. So i went alone down to see the devils and quolls (the devils' cousins) and wormbats. One of the devils was quite a bully inside its dome, keep bullying on the other devil, which was smaller in size. The wormbats were hidden at the back, we managed to catch them (as the tour didn't go to their area). They were very fluffy and big in size too.

The rest of the people started to come in slowly too, the tour guide gathered us in a briefing room @ 5.30 pm. In the room, she gave us introduction to the devils and Tasmanian tigers which were extinct. And because of this, the devils went up in the chain of the life cycle in Tasmania. However, the devils' population went down sharply due to a cancer disease which only targets on the devils and it was spreading fast. The tour guide told us that there wasn't any cure yet till now. Hence, the devils were on the endangered list now. She mentioned those kept in the protected area are currently free from the disease, however, they were also worried to let the devils out in the wild. She also showed us a 10 minutes video on the devils' behaviour and lifestyle. Apparently, the female devil can give birth up to 20 young but she could only feed 4 young. Due to this, many young can't survive, only the strongest can survive. Sometimes, the males do fight to see who is the strongest, however they don't fight to death. Once the winner emerges, they will stop and recognise the winner as the strongest. Every devil have their own unique white marking on their body too. So the staffs were using the different marking to recognise each devil. This marking will help the devils to camouflage in the bushes to hide away from their predators. After that, she explained more details on the devils, which later she told us she is going to feed the devils. So she went down to get some wormbats' torso for the devils. And she went in to the devils' open area and put down the torso.

We could see one of the devils (name: Chopper) approached and started to bite on the torso. However, when the other smaller devil tried to approach the torso, the other one made some loud noises to get him away from the torso. The guide told us that was the way the devils communicated, by making loud noises. And the devils' bite can be very fatal, its teeth were very sharp that it can break off the bones. But fortunately, the devils don't attack humans as far as she knows. And the devils can also open their mouth to at least 90 degrees angle, we could see it when the devils yawn.
Later, the guide brought us to see other 2 younger devils (age of 12 months) and later the compound where they put 2 males and 2 females for mating purpose. Normally, they will try to let the devils to mate naturally when the devils reach the suitable age.

Dinner

Then later she took us to the quolls' compound, where she also fed them with the raw meats. The quolls were smaller in size, weighed about 2 kg plus and they jump on trees. After the tour, we were free to go off or walk around to the see the devils. So we went back to the cottage, where we started to make our dinner. After preparing the dinner, we just watched the TV while having our dinner. Then we just rested for the day.

Hotel Stayed:
Cradle Mountain Wildness Village

Places Visited:
Devils@Cradle

Freyinct National Park, Tasmania Trip (Day 8)

22nd March 2016, Tuesday

Woke up lazily today @ 7.00 am, and then we prepared to head out to Freyinct National Park for our hiking. It was finally a clear sunny weather today and we arrived at the visitors information centre before starting our hike. After getting some information and the park map from the ranger, we started to walk the park. We started off to Oysters Bay, which was a 15 minutes walk return trail. There was nothing much to see after reaching the end. Later, we walked toward Wineglass Lookout which was 5 km away.

Wineglass Bay

Wineglass Beach

So we drove up to the car park where the lookout starting point located. This trail was really the toughest trail we been to throughout the whole Tasmania. It was with a lot of rocky steps and stones and some parts of the trail was quite slippery with rubber shoes. We had to keep on climbing up and down the trails, very tiring. But when we reached up on the lookout, the view was amazing and beautiful. It was a lookout to Wineglass Bay. We spent some time enjoying the view from the lookout and took some photos too. After taking a break there, we decided to head down to the Wineglass bench. The road was scarier, with all big rocks and stones. The road was not even straight and it was really not easy to walk. Very very tiring....pant pant.... It took quite long to finally reach the beach shore.

Honeymoon Bay

I walked further down the beach on my own and picked up some seashells. Sea gulls were also flying above and walking on the beach too. After spending some time on the beach, we had to climb the same trail back up to the starting point. It was much easier to climb up back rather than climbing down. After the whole trail, I was getting sweaty and hungry. We rested for a while, had toilet break and went off. We stopped by at Honeymoon Bay, where it was so silent in the area, not even the sound of waves can be heard.

Fresh prawns and Abalone Sashmi

Fresh Natural Oysters

Garlic Scallops

Oysters Katparick (Cooked)

Mussels with tomato sauce

After that, we headed to Freyinct Marine Farm for our seafood feast. We ordered raw oysters, oysters katparick, garlic scallops, mussels, prawns and abalone sushmi. It was quite expensive for the meal but the seafood were super fresh. Yum yum....nice!! Every person who went there to eat was sure to order their fresh oysters. After the meal, we travelled back to the cottage where we rested for a while. After resting, we walked out to the Bicheno visitors information centre, where i bought some postcards to send. After that, we bought a small lottery ticket to play (scratch and match type) which we didn't win anything. Then we went to buy dinner.

Fish & Chips

Fish Burger & Chips

We went to The Glutch, where it was famous for its fish & chips. We bought a fish & chips and a fish burger and brought back to the cottage. Didn't want to eat at the place as it was open and there were a lot of sea gulls eyeing on the food too. So we tabao back to eat in our cosy little cottage with TV as our entertainment.

Hotel Stayed:
Bicheno By the Bay

Places Visited:
Freyinct National Park
Freyinct Marine Farm