Into the wild... Tasmania

The attitude of mainland Australians is that there is nothing worth going to see in Tasmania. Even travel guides tend to gloss over Tasmania without paying much attention.  Since no one really sees any good reason to go to Tasmania, it remains mostly untouched by the hand of modern man.  There are no mega-cities with towering glass and steel skyscrapers, no super-highways, no sprawling suburban areas with row upon row of cookie-cutter homes.  Where modern humans would have placed the aforementioned items, there stand instead lush old growth forests teaming with unique wildlife and breath-taking coastline. Travelling to Tasmania is like travelling back in time.

Our first stop in Tasmania was in the capital city, Hobart, on the south eastern coast of the island state.  Hobart is a beautiful city situated on the bank of the Derwent River with amazing views of the 1270m Mount Wellington.  My first thought when I saw this mountain was that I had to climb to the top.  The mountain looked so close I thought it would be a short walk to the base, but I soon learned that it was about fourteen kilometres outside the city center. So Mount Wellington would have to wait, for now.  

Jenn and I spent our first day in Hobart touring the harbour.  While we were there we spotted a rather ominous looking black ship named the Steve Irwin.  It was an old naval ship flying what looked like a pirate flag; so, of course, we had to take a closer look.  When we walked closer to the ship we saw a sign offering tours.  We learned that the ship belonged to group called the Sea Shepherds.  This group is a non-profit organization committed to policing the world's oceans against questionable fishing and hunting practices.  The ship was in port in Hobart to refuel and resupply after spending several weeks in the Antarctic ocean, chasing Japanese whaling ships. During our tour of the ship, we were shown a video of the Steve Irwin colliding with a Japanese whaling boat and nearly being capsized. The evidence of the collision was easily visible in a giant indentation on the bow of the ship.  The crew member who gave us the tour was a Canadian (the daughter of the founder of Greenpeace, actually).  

I remain highly questionable of the tactics used by this group.  But they are helping to protect the worlds whales from purposeless slaughter that the Japanese call "scientific research".  You may remember hearing of this group in Canada.  Another ship in their fleet is named after the Canadian author Farley Mowat.  This ship was confiscated by the Canadian government after videotaping the annual seal hunt off Canada's east coast.  As you can see, this group is involved in some pretty controversial stuff.  It was interesting to hear their views.  We spent the rest of our day looking around the harbour.  

For our second day in Hobart, I was dead set on summiting Mount Welllington.  I haggled with a bus driver to give us an all day student fare for about five dollars total for Jenn and me, and then we were on our way.  We took the city bus to the small town of Fern Tree at the base of Mount Wellington where we began the day's hike.  It took us the entire afternoon, but we did it. We walked all the way up and down Mount Wellington, which, according to most locals we talked to, no one does.  There's a road to the summit, so most sane people drive.  But driving tours are ninety dollars or more, and we did the whole thing for five bucks (with the exchange that's about four dollars Canadian).  During our walk up along the trails, there were a couple of cenotaphs commemorating lives lost on the mountain in freak storms.   It was a stark reminder to always remain respectful of Mother Nature.  After conquering Mount Wellington, our time in Hobart was over and we would push forward with our Tassie adventure the next day.

So began our first WWOOFing experience, and man, what an experience is was!  WWOOF stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. It is a members-only association that provides the contact information for organic farms, so that travelers can get in touch with the farms and stay there in exchange for labour. We found our first WWOOF hosts in the small town of Derby in northeastern Tasmania.  So with no more information than a small web posting from these people saying they needed some help building, we were off on our way to Derby, a historic mining village and home of the annual gum-boot toss.  Luckily, there was a bus that went to Derby, or rather, it was actually more of a large van with a trailer attached, that acted not only as the bus but also the postal delivery service.  The passengers on the bus were a motley crew to say the least.  There were two characters of particular interest sitting toward the back of the bus.  One was a man you could tell was mentally ill; he wore a suit and gold chains and a strange black wig (a sort of crazy Mr. T I suppose).  He constantly rocked back and forth and mumbled to himself.  His wrinkled face was hidden beneath a big black beard, and he had thick rough hands; both of which spoke of a hard life.  I felt sorry for him but also a little afraid; I can't explain why.  Another man started up a conversation with him.  I listened in, interested in what the bearded man had to say.  His speech was confused, something about "moving in mysterious ways". It was all rather strange.  The man talking to him gave him some pills,  I felt like I should say something, but I didn't; I decided it was none of my business.  Anyway,  we travelled along winding mountain roads looking out at faraway mountains and huge sheep and cattle farms. That was our bus ride to Derby.  When we arrived in Derby, one of our hosts, Terry, met us at the bus stop (we would meet his partner Chris (Christine), later).  We hopped into his ute (pick-up truck) and drove a short distance out of town along gravel roads, up a hillside, to what would be our dwelling for the next two and a half weeks.  Our dwelling was "the mudbrick house".  It was a hillside shack constructed completely of salvaged materials by a man named Neil, who builds cabinetry in boats for a living.  Terry's description of Neil was rather interesting. Apparently Neil doesn't like the cold so he has shacks in different places around the globe that have allowed him to live in perpetual warmth for the last 15 years or so.  The mudbrick house had no electricity, the water was heated by an old wood stove, and heat came from a large open fireplace (DIY fire). We had to stoke a fire to cook our food on the woodstove, and the fire in the woodstove also served to heat water for the shower. We woke and slept with the natural light of the sun. It was great; I loved the rustic lifestyle.  

Now, I have to introduce our hosts Terry and Chris.  This is going to be difficult, I could go on forever about them, they were incredible people.  Terry was filled with many stories. I hope I can remember some of them so I can tell them in person when I get back to Canada.  He had one story in particular about a friend being molested by an old smelly goat in Derby named Big Bill, and it was so hilarious that I don't think I will ever forget it.  Anyway, I best start with a general introduction.  Terry and Chris are old-school hippies, or, as they seem to call themselves now, alternatives.  They both grew up in Sydney. Terry was from a poor working class family and Chris was from a more affluent family.  Terry spent his younger days working as a tow truck driver and had some connections with hardcore criminals in Sydney, but was never involved in crime himself.  At some point in time, Terry took up an interest in mining, and at another point in time he travelled with some American hippies in Australia who introduced him to drugs and the green way of life.  So Terry and Chris ended up in Derby as tin-mining hippies. Seriously.  More specifically, Chris and Terry were "tin scratchers"  meaning they didn't work for the big tin mine. They worked their own small operations along the river, mining tin. Apparently they made a good living at it until the tin market fell through some time ago.  

Terry is also a big-time music enthusiast.  He has a pretty good knowledge of sound engineering and he has a great sound system in his house.  His all-time favourite band is the Grateful Dead, and he could talk about them for hours.  But he also really likes bluegrass, and has a unique music collection that we were able to listen to while we worked at their house.  So that's Terry in a nutshell.  

Now for Christine.  Simply put, Chris is probably one of the most positive, empathetic people on Earth.  She feels for people and them makes them feel better about how they are feeling.  Jenn could vouch for this after coming down with nephritis during our stay, and being taken care of by Chris.  

Now, back to the actual WWOOFing.  It's odd, but Chris and Terry don't have an organic farm. They live on a property that used to be a farm and they have an organic garden, but no farm and no farm work.  What we actually ended up doing was building a covered porch on the side of Chris and Terry's house.  The porch was built from timber salvaged from houses Terry had pulled down in the past.  Most of the porch was built to my design.  I hope it doesn't fall down...

An interesting note about old Tassie timber.  It's extremely hard wood. I was barely able to put any nails through the wood without predrilling a hole first.  Anyway, I worked with Terry to build and cover the porch, and Jenn worked painting and cooking with Chris.  We had three days a week off.  Now it's time to tell you what we did with our days off.

On one of our days, off Terry and Chris took us four-wheel driving in their two-wheel drive ute to the top of the Rattler Range near Derby.   During our drive we visited an old mining dam and heard lots of stories about mining in the area.  Jenn took her first ever drink of water from a fresh flowing stream. And we saw ants and snakes that could potentially kill you.  The views when we reached the top of the Rattler Range were fantastic.  We could see for hundreds of kilometres in all directions. (Jenn's input: "We could see for miles, and miles, and miles...." 

PS: The Rattler Range is not named for rattle snakes. In fact, I'm not sure about this, but there may not even be rattle snakes in Tassie. Rattler Range name origin: unknown.)

Our other big day off was on Jenn's birthday.  Terry and Chris drove us out to Mount William National Park along the northeastern coast.  We drove most of the way from Derby along dirt tracks to Eddystone Point, a sacred Aboriginal site.  There was a lighthouse at Eddystone Point that I decided to climb up using the ground wire running along the outside. I got a little ways up and then people thought I was being too unsafe, so I climbed down.  My lighthouse climb just happened to give me a vantage point from which I could see over the Bay of Fires Beach. (The Bay of Fires got its name after explorers travelling by ship along the coast saw many small fires burning along the beach.  These fires were lit by Aborigines who had set up camp along the beach where they hunted for shellfish.  It was definitely the most beautiful beach I have seen so far.)  The sand was paper white and stretched along the coast for miles.  After seeing it from the lighthouse, we decided we had to walk over there.  Stepping onto the beach was a surreal experience.  I have never seen sand so white.   It was instantly apparent why this was a sacred area for the Aborigines.  The Aborigines not only came to the beach for its beauty, they also came for the vast supply of shellfish in the coastal waters along it.  There are giant mounds along the beach up to 16 feet high. Although they may just seem like another sand dune, some are actually giant mounds of seashells, called middens.  The Aborigines who harvested the shores of the Bay of Fires for thousands of years left all the shells of the creatures they ate in piles. What a strangely tidy people.

Sadly, after almost three weeks with Terry and Chris, our time together had to come to an end. We left Derby for Launceston on Friday.  We only spent one night in Launceston, staying with a friend of a friend of Terry and Chris', but it was very interesting.  We had our very own private banjo concert (performed by a neighbour), went to a lecture on the future of our planet presented by ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) broadcaster Phillip Adams (one of Australia's 100 living national treasures), and we were accused and then acquitted of stealing a man's wallet.  I wish I could go into more detail, but this post is too long already.  I had to take lots of details of our Tasmania trip out of the blog so it wasn't too long, so there will be plenty of new tales to tell in person in the future.   Once again there are lots of pictures to go along with the words above.  So check out both our web albums!

We are back in Melbourne for a couple days now.  We will soon rent a car and drive along the Great Ocean Road toward Adelaide.

G'day!