And so I began my first multi day solo car adventure. One that would cover almost 1500km and take me to some of Tasmania’s most coveted locations.
I’d hired a manual car and as I hadn’t driven anything but automatics since leaving home, this initially resulted in some rather painful crunching and jerking for the vehicle, followed by many sincere apologies on my part.
As the week went on I discovered that city driving, which was once most familiar, made me a mild nervous wreck. Whilst my love of driving through endless winding, mountainous country tracks and forest roads increased, as I fed from the peaceful rhythm it offered.
A few hours into my first day I was met with thick fog along hilly terrain. Great. Not only was I just getting the hang of this basic gear changing business, now I was having to try and locate the fog lights at the same time, without crashing, trying to remember to turn for the corners. Luckily this weather was a brief interlude in what was to become a week of panoramic bright blue.
My first stop was at Strathgordan (a little under two hours from my starting point of Hobart), to visit Australia’s highest concrete arch dam. Taking around fourteen years to build, the result is an impressive concrete structure 140m in height. As I stood atop the dam on the 2.7m wide walkway and looked out at Lake Gordon, tree skeletons and stumps scattered throughout the water portrayed a deceiving feeling of death across the entire landscape. A paradox to the birdsong floating through the valley.
Leaving the dam to make my way north, I began to notice more detail in the landscape. Grey rocks scattered among the hills were littered with pink and purple high and low lights. I passed deep red trunks of gum trees and noticed rainbow grassy tufts billowing from dusty white rock walls. As the terrain moved into woodland my eyes met with a natural colour chart, as green faded from lime through to a deep rich teal.
Making my way through the centre of the state, the landscape held a desert like feel, dry lands and sandy shades filling my view. Here the trees were fewer, standing solitary or in small huddles.
After a jaw chattering gravel drive around Great Lake (in my view not quite great enough to make up for the trials of the road), I paused to enjoy Pencil Pine Lake. Found only in Tasmania, this beautiful species of tree is a survivor of the Ice Age, yet is now struggling due its vulnerability to forest fires and changing environmental conditions.
I spent my first night at a free campsite by a running stream, the perfect scene rewarding the challenging drive there – dirt road tracks, wrong turns and hills so steep they demanded a first gear climb.
Day two took me to one of the island’s most famous sights, Cradle Mountain. Although on first arrival the tourist hubbub was quickly quashing my desire to be there, I managed to find one of the quieter walking routes and so for most of my amble I was able to experience the grandeur, beauty and natural discord on offer. My two hour walk took me through open grassland, damp, waterfall scattered forest and along the edge of a glacial lake, before the peak of Cradle Mountain came into view.
A long drive east on the highway brought my second day to a close, with a brief stop at Launceston gorge giving me respite from rush hour traffic (which I’d once again forgotten existed). Finally, I made my way through and out of the hills of the city, doing my best to concentrate on the road heading to the campsite, rather than the deliciously orange sky in my wing mirror.
