First of all my apologies to all of our regular readers for the lapses in our publication. One of the things we need is a working wifi system and sometimes that presents problems. We also need to remember to blog in a regular basis. So there we go lethargy backed with a failure to link to a reasonable communication system. This blog has now had over four thousand readers so I believe you are all due an apology.
Monday was the day of our great expedition to the west coast with our good friend Rennie. We were heading off into the unknown, a five hour trip from Hobart. We were picked up at ten after we had found Rennie who for some reason was waiting outside number twenty three. The tour manager had the good sense to go down to the kerbside and look up and down the road and lo and behold there was Rennie three houses down.
The journey followed the course of the River Derwent and it wove through a beautiful valley the river borders lined with weeping willows planted by early settlers. Pastures ran down to the river and there were several places where one could have been looking at English countryside.
We stopped for lunch at Lake St Clair the largest lake in Tasmania surrounded by mountains and looking particularly appealing in the hot summer sunshine. I forgot to put on my insect repellent and consequently the mosquitos had a filed day on my legs as we sat by the lake and enjoyed a picnic provided by Rennie.
After Derwent Bridge we entered the high country, large mountains and temperate rain forest, eucalyptuses and ferns lined the road, an impenetrable forest lining the road. At Mount Lyell mining reared its ugly head. Sulphur fumes and apparently helped to delude the countryside of vegetation and there were no trees in what was clearly a major mining area of some importance. A tough unfriendly landscape with no redeeming features. The town of Queenstown waits anxiously for the copper mine to announce that it is going to reopen, there are large numbers of unemployed and the government is currently subsidising the pumping out of the mine until the owners think that the mine is once again economically viable.
After another hour and a half of driving we arrived in Strahan a picturesque port in MacQuarrie Harbour. After dropping our bags off at Kiah's, a friend of Rennies, we wandered down to the coastline and enjoyed a couple of beers in the pub before heading back for dinner.
A long day but one which gave us a different view of Tasmania, this is a much bigger state than you think and there are great differences between the various landscapes one encounters. This is our second visit and yet there is still so much for us to see.