Week 6 Tasmania 2013

The two Aileene's

On Monday we finally managed to catch up with Aileene's aunt Aileene in Lindisfarne. At 97 she is remarkable and still lives on her own in a lovely apartment overlooking the harbour at Lindisfarne.
On Tuesday we left for the midlands as the smoke was dreadful and thus any sightseeing was not particularly pleasant.
We took the shortcut to Midland highway via Richmond and Colebrook. Stopped at Oatlands for a coffee and arrived at Ross at an early hour after a very modest 114km day. Oatlands was quite an interesting town with an operating windmill come flour mill but nothing like the beautifully preserved village of Ross.


 

 


Ross bridge

Ross is a journey back in time with a wonderful collection of historical buildings beautifully restored. We loved it and spent many hours exploring. The campsite was right on the Macquarie river and the famous bridge was in our back yard. The two bakeries were doing a roaring trade with scallop pies high on the draw cards. We enjoyed one for lunch plus a taste of a "worlds best vanilla slice".

Historical building in Ross




Escapee from the colony

Bacon Cottage

Home in Ross

Home in Ross



After two nights we felt it was time to move up to Longford a journey of 83km. Longford and the caravan park were recommended to us by just about every traveller we had met so was a must do stop on our journey. The park is excellent and also sits on the Macquarie river. Here the river  is quite fast flowing as it is fed by hydro water coming off the highlands and the Poatina power station. Longford has heaps of historical buildings and our early morning walk with Trixie sees us exploring the towns sites .



Great Lake

The Great Lake from western plains side.

Our second day took us on a journey to the highlands. We set off through Poatina and climbed the Great Western Tiers. The road rose to 1200 meters and we travelled down the east side of the Great Lake and to the west of Arthurs Lake. Around the lake are hundreds of bush shacks which are holiday fishing camps for the intrepid Tassie trout fishermen that obviously spend many cold winters days chasing the abundant trout in these picturesque catchments.



Liffey Falls

View from Liffey Falls

At the south of these two large lakes we joined the Lake highway to travel north and back to Longford. The lower section of this highway along the lake is unmade but an easy drive for any vehicle. It was amazing driving through these high country plains that were largely treeless. Once north of the lakes we followed another back route through to Liffey falls then back to camp via Bishopsbourne. A really memorable day with an incredible range of scenery and only about 150 kms in total. Tasmania sure is a compact state full of treasures.