February 2016

When it comes to “The New World” nowhere comes much newer than Tasmania. Despite the fact that Dutchman Abel Tasman discovered this island and named it Van Dieman’s Land after the governor of the Dutch East Indes in 1642, it was 1802 before the British navigator Mathew Flinders paved the way for the first European settlers, The Americas had been colonised some 300 years by the time the community of Swansea was established on Tasmania’s east coast and by 1820 it was already considered a place to relax,,,

With mile after mile of wide sandy beaches and sheltered anchorages it’s easy to sea why people flocked here. This general store has stood at the heart of the community since 1838….
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When it was discovered that the bark of the local Black Wattle trees contained tannic acid, necessary for tanning leather, an industry was born and Swansea flourished. Swansea today has just one store, one gas station, one restaurant and a church, but it also has the only original wattle bark mill in the world…

A locally made Heath Robinson contraption was used to chop, grind and sieve wattle bark until it could be shipped to tanners throughout the empire. Swansea’s wattle bark was in demand until the 1960s when synthetic chemicals took over nature’s role in the production of leather. The mill was simply abandoned leaving the machinery as it had been for nearly a century.

Swansea’s wattle bark museum gave us a wonderful glimpse into the lives of its earliest inhabitants…

Tasmania is sparsely populated with less than a half a million inhabitants and, although it is the last weekend of summer, there is little traffic on the roads. There is, however, an astounding amount of wildlife. We’ve already seen numerous kangaroos, wallabies, possums and other unrecognisable creatures along the roadsides… Wouldn’t it be nice if we saw some of them before they became road kill!!!

We arrived at the gates of the Great Park just after sunrise and had a magnificent view of the estate’s church spires through a copse of English oak…

The great house itself stood someway off at the end of a drive of weeping willows…

However, as we were not expected before 9 am, we hoped no one would object if we took a stroll through the gardens. Herbaceous borders of Jersey lilies and geraniums, together with fragrant roses, made a beautiful show in the morning sunshine…

The stable block was abuzz with activity as the grooms prepared the steeds for the family’s morning canter…

The castellated turrets of the medieval castle overlooking the estate must surely have been a whimsical folly designed to amuse His Lordship’s visitors, for this stately home itself was not built until 1833…

The weather was absolutely perfect, just a light southerly breeze, so we took a boat out into the bay for a clearer view of this superb period mansion in all its glory…

At the appointed time we knocked and fully expected Carson to open the door and usher us into the presence of the Earl of Grantham and his daughter, Lady Mary Crawley. But hold onto your kangaroos a minute – methinks we may have been deceived. Surely Downton Abbey doesn’t have bars on all the windows…

What a mistake - this isn’t Downton Abbey at all. This is the infamous prison complex at Port Arthur on the remote southeast coast of Tasmania.
From 1833 to1877 it housed the most hardened and recalcitrant of villains who had been transported from Britain to the colonies…

Only the best behaved prisoners were able to peer through these bars at the manicured English landscape reserved for the administrators and guards. Escapees and other recidivists spent their sentences locked inside tiny windowless cells so that they could reflect on their misdemeanours. Trustees were set to work on chain gangs cutting timber, boatbuilding and mining for coal in the nearby pits, while more educated prisoners were given administrative roles. The prison became a mental asylum once transportation was abolished in 1877 and today it is the most visited site in Tasmania.
Footnote: On 28 April 1996, twenty-six year old Martin Bryant of Hobart shot and killed 35 people and wounded a further 23 at this already tragic site. He is currently serving 35 life sentences in solitary confinement.

If it weren’t for the throngs of foreign tourists in buses, R.V.s, campers and rental cars most of New Zealand’s narrow winding roads, (with their ubiquitous single lane bridges), would be left to the great herds of cattle and sheep…

The tourist spots are busy and throughout our trip we have heard the same cry from hoteliers, “No room at this inn”. Fortunately we had booked all our 16 accommodations well in advance and stayed mainly in motels.
The “Motel” sign in North America screams, “Cheap,” and conjures nightmarish images of nylon sheets on lumpy mattresses; of peeling paint and cracked Formica; of drunks and druggies being hauled away at midnight by the cops. Not here. Here in N.Z. motels have modern, spotless, generously furnished, spacious apartments, each with fully equipped kitchen including dishwasher and washing machine, Jacuzzi bath, super-sized beds and big-screen TVs.

New Zealand has more than its fair share of picturesque scenery like this view of the mountains overlooking Lake Wanaka…

...and this waterfall on the north island...

But, despite the number of tourists, there is little money to be made from selling the odd scenic postcard or stuffed toy sheep. So the Kiwis have outdone themselves when it comes to enhancing the rural experience and markets itself as ‘The Adventure Capital of the World.” Guided tramps (that’s a hike to us) and cycle tours are popular, but for those seeking real adventure before dementia, New Zealand offers year-round high octane daredevil activities from bungy jumps and giant swings to swaying treetop walks, cable cars and claustrophobia inducing caving,

Jet boats, jet skis, kayaks, surfboards, flyboards, sailboards, kiteboards and rafts take thrill seekers on spine-crunching rides on lakes, rivers, rapids, waterfalls and waves, while others float serenely on inner tubes through subterranean streams to view the glow worms. Some are simply content to while away an afternoon just fishing or cruising on a glassy lake…

Whichever way you view New Zealand, by land, water or on one of the many helicopter and fixed wing sightseeing flights, there is no doubt that it is a beautiful unspoilt country populated by gentle and kind people that is safe, clean, easy and completely familiar for western English speakers. There is absolutely nothing here to frighten Granny. We could easily stay longer but Aussie calls – see you soon in Tassie cobber.

The sunny days of summer are slowly sliding into fall as we sink further south with only the ocean between us and Antarctica. There is no snow on the beaches, but there are penguins - although we have yet to see one…

Before the Maoris arrived from Polynesia, (only a few centuries before the Europeans), these islands drifted unmanned in the vast emptiness of the great Southern Ocean for many millennia. The landscape was wrought by catastrophic seismic eruptions and fashioned by the fearsome Roaring Forties that circle the globe almost unimpeded – it is a rugged windswept land of fire, water and ice…

It has a ragged coastline smashed by a million storms...

More often than not the tiny two-street town of Franz Joseph is up to its waist in water. More than 5 metres (16 feet) of rain falls here every year and seven thousand tourists a day cram into the hotels, motels, hostels and campsites with only one thing in mind: will they be lucky enough to get a clear view of the Franz Joseph glacier that overlooks the town before it finally melts into the history books? Will they, like us, get to see the glacier’s reflection in Peter’s Pool…

Will they, like us, be mesmerised by the thundering waterfalls that cascade a thousand feet into the wide valley below…

Will they, like us, be enchanted by the vibrant lichens that colour the boulders in the glacier’s rocky debris field…

Will they, like us, be awed by the sight of the mighty Franz Joseph glacier…

Or will they, like so many, be dismayed to discover the glacier shrouded by the thick curtains of cloud that can blanket these mountains for day after day.

The west coast of New Zealand’s south island has a rugged landscape of mountains, rivers, lakes and forests punctuated with numerous tourist attractions like the fur seal colony at Cape Foulwind...

...and the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki – fascinating formations created by numerous layers of sandstone which took hundreds of thousands of years to create…

On the west coast the scenery and the weather changes faster than the automatic gearbox on our rental car and we could stop for a snapshot every 50 meters. Here is a just a tiny selection starting with a deserted beach…

…A picturesque lake…

…A snow capped peak…

…And a glacier fed river…

They all have names but, after twenty or more of each, names become unimportant. Every corner on the switchback road brings another scenic lake, river, mountain or stretch of forest… luxuriant evergreen forests bursting with all manner of fauna unique to these far-off isolated islands…

And at the end of the day, a relaxing soak in the hot springs at Franz Joseph after learning that we drove through a 4.4 earthquake and thought it was just a bumpy road...

Tomorrow – the famed Franz Joseph glacier.