Launceston and surrounds (Wk 12)

On 27/01/20, we left St Helens and took to the easy route to Launceston. Well if that was the easy route, I can’t imagine what the Elephant Pass was like. As always Paul’s driving was brilliant, and we arrived at Old Macs Farmstay safely for 5 nights to visit Launceston (Tasmania’s second largest city situated in the north of the island) and surrounding areas.

We love Launceston. This seems to be a recurring theme in the Tassie blogs and with good reason. Each place we go to we love. It’s a toss-up between Hobart and Launceston as the place we’d like to live in. The scenery up here is breathtaking, roads to get here, not so much!

As we arrived early we went on a Cataract Gorge Cruise, the lazy way to see the Gorge (more later).

The following day (28/01/20) we drove up west side of the River Tamar and back down the east side. We visited Beaconsfield Mine (a gold mine on and off until 2012) which also experienced a mine collapse in 2006 in which one miner died and two were trapped for 2 weeks in a tiny steel cage (there was a replica in which I would not like to have been trapped for 1 hour), an amazing story of survival and team effort to save their lives.

After Beaconsfield we drove further up the River Tamar to a seahorse farm. Yes, a farm, which breeds and supplies aquariums around the world with seahorses. They had an assortment of other sea life for show including a weedy sea dragon called Phil (Paul’s favourite animal – along with a thorny devils 🙂 ) who had just lost his partner (they mate for life), it was very sad. Then we crossed the Tamar and drove along the east side of the river.

On 29/01/20 we drove west of Launceston to the cross country ski fields on Ben Lomond. The road up is called Jacobs Ladder which Paul drove up but his vertigo got the better of him so I drove down (in 2nd gear 🙂 ). Luckily we did not meet any cars on the way up or down. Amazing views at the top but rather than walk on Ben Lomond we drove back to Launceston and walked both sides of the gorge. There is an amazing centre at the end of the gorge including a swimming pool, gardens and restaurants. At the end of the Gorge there are 3 ways to cross: over the weir, by chair lift (at 308 metres it is the longest single cable chairlift span in the world) or a suspension bridge. We choose the bridge ….. it bounces …. not good for my vertigo. What a day!

On 30/01/20 we drove south west to Liffey Falls. A great 4WD fire trail through a beautiful forest with the bonus of the falls at the end. Pretty impressive even though there has not been much rain recently.

Today (31/01/20) we decided to have a down day and walked around the lake in the caravan park. We have really enjoyed our stay in Launceston and to have a such a beautiful quiet place to park the van so close into town has been a real bonus.

Tomorrow (01/02/20) we are off to discover the wild west of the island. Here is a map that shows the route we have taken so far (down the middle and up the east coast in Red) and where we are to go to next (along the top, down the west coast and back up in Green). We are excited as there is about 150km of dirt road to test the caravan on and then finally to Devonport for the ferry back to the mainland.