cliffs at Oz’s coasts
We are now in Tasmania for 9 days, and today we have found the first spot where you can properly access the internet, so here is the next (pretty long) post.
There are not going to be any pictures this time, since we are on a pretty tight schedule over here.
Tasmania is about four times as big as Holland, with only about half a million inhabitants, so we had to adjust somewhat to the way everything works over here. Even compared to other not so densly populated areas we have been, the Gold Rush Area and the Grampians mountains, everything in Tasmania is at least a 3 hour drive away and closes at 19.00 hrs: the petrol stations, restaurants, hotels and motels. The only stores still open after 7 o’clock are the so called bottle shops, where they only sell alcoholic drinks. It seems to be very important here, to keep everybody supplied for 24 hours a day with a proper amount of alcohol.
That said, Tasmania is at least as cool as everything I have have been to before. One exception to this is maybe the Great Ocean Road area we vistited just before we left for Tasmania.
Now about Great Ocean Road: this road has been built in the 1920’s as a Governmental unemployments project, and runs along Australia’s southern coastline. As Tasmania, it is also a very cool and not so densly populated area where all the shops and petrol stations also seem to close around 7 o’clock.
Along the Great Ocean Road we first spent the night in the Koroit village where we visited the little Tower Island park, seeing lots of kangeroos, some emu’s and even a koala bear that was doing a walk around our car. The koala was especially very great, since even Martine never has seen one so active and so close by.
Next day we drove on along on to the Bay of Islands cliffs, the first of the Great Ocean Road cliff formations and watched them at sunset. We spend the night there in a charming bed & breakfast, which even included a night visit by a possum.
After a good night rest and a very good breakfast we drove on to visit the various cliffs, gorges, caves, arches and blow holes in the Port Campell area. The blow holes are the most spectacular over there, since these are very (some 100 meter) deep underground holes in the rocks, generating a big ‘blow’ bang everytime, a wave of the ocean enters the underground hole. The big ‘blow’ sound is generated when the water crushes the air in the underground hole together.
The last visit of that day was the famous twelve apostals rock formation. We visited them at sunset, since we had gotten a tip that you could see penguins going ashore in the evening. We were very lucky, since we didn’t only see hundreds of penguins going ashore, but also saw the twelve apostals rocks covered in a misty Scottish/Irish like setting at sunset, as you can see in this picture:
After having a short night sleep in a very ‘ basic’ very cheap cabin, we moved on the next day on to yet another different area of Great Ocean Road with ecalyptus tree covered cliffs, white beaches and three more koala bears (sleeping – they sleep 20 hours a day), untill we arrived in Lorne, the surf city. Over there we found out we only had to deliver our car back the next morning, so we still had some time to visit a part of the rainforest over there, with a very beautifull waterfall in between the palm trees, as you can see here:
The last night at the ‘mainland’ we stayed in a pretty basic but very expensive room in Melbourne, as that Tuesday the Melbourne cup took place (called ‘the race that stops the nation’ over here since all of Australia stops working to watch this horse race). Next day we moved to the airport to catch our short flight to Lauceston airport in Tasmania.
When being in Tasmania we have seen lots of green hill covered sceneries, mountain lookouts looking out over white sand beaches, two 100 meter deep waterfalls, a couple of very cool black cacatoo’s, lots of echidna’s crossing the road and even two snakes (one probably a tiger snake).
The much adviced Bay of Fires which is advertised as one of the highlights, was a bit of a disappointment. You really can spent your time better in Tasmania than to visit some of the nice Bay of Fires beaches.
Driving around the island was better, where you tend to see a lot of animals. Four days ago we went on a night drive, on a non paved road to the Port Arthur town to be in time for our ECO boat cruise the next morning. During this 45 minutes drive we just avoided crushing lots of kangeroos, saw a brush tailed possom and a couple of almost extinct quolls.
The next day we did the 3 hour ECO cruise, cruising on a fast catamaran boat, seeing lots of seals, albatrosses and other birds, cruising underneath 300 meter tall cliffs and even entering some of the caves with the small catamaran boat. This really was the highlight of the past weeks, since this comes down to doing a Great Ocean Road trip, but doing it from the water side, which is even more spectacular, as you can enter some caves, cruise alongside the cliffs and even get to see lots of seals, birds and a little blue penguin.
Yesterday we visited the Cradle moutain national park to conclude our Tasmania visit and to fly back to the mainland again, but now to Brisbane on the east coast.
Next time we will show you some photo’s of our Great Ocean Road and Tasmania visits.
Jannis.
Tags: Australia, Beach, Brisbane, Europe, Global Warming, Gold Rush, Grampians, Great Ocean Road, Ireland, Melbourne, netherlands, Pictures, Scotland, Ships, Sunset, Tasmania, Wheater, Wildlife, Tag Index
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