I heard a joke today that there are only two straight roads in Tasmania and you can land planes on both of them. It’s been indicative of my trip so far, and I reckon anyone’s too who trips to Tasmania with a fixed route in mind; unless you’re the pilots requiring the roads above.
There are so many corners, that round many lies something you hadn’t considered visiting and so you head off on a whim. After a few days of doing this you find yourself, as I did, not far from where you started having only travelled a fraction of what you’d planned to. I’m used to putting in big drive days on excursions like this one, yet after four or five days I’d done less than 500km.
Take day one, I left Ulverstone, almost, I went to have a look at the Zig Zag gardens. Then I saw a sign for Gunns Plains Caves. So I went there but on the way a brown sign bearing the words Leven Canyon kept appearing. Canyon? Sounds grand! So after a detour underground I headed on further local advice to the canyon. Discovering a great camp site (free!) I also opted to stay over. And already my plan to get to Stanley on day one, after visiting the must-see town named Penguin of course … see where this is going? It’s more than I could.
It poured down over night. At Leven Canyon I began to regret pointing the Winnebago into the trees, and downhill a little, as a reverse out on most ground looked troublesome. I’d forgotten sage advice about always point your vehicle so you can make your escape easily.
By the time I’d left Penguin, armed with tips from a lovely local at the market about more unplanned stops to make, there was just enough time to tootle into Wynyard for an overnight in a beachfront caravan park and to discover that none of my hose fittings were suitable for taps, inlets and filling duties. Sunday evening. Nothing open. I hadn’t planned for that. And I’d realised I had an internal water issue too, as there was a drip on the Bondi’s step. No, not me.
Don’t visit Fossil Bluff when the tide’s in, I was told. I went. The tide was in. So I had a bacon sandwich and thigh burn walking up to the lookout instead. The weather turned rubbish again. Stanley was looking far off, now. But Boat Harbour wasn’t! I’d heard about this place and thought I’d stop by on my way west.
Nope. After a morning wrapped in a raincoat the fact that I could here at Boat Harbour, overlook the waves, backed up to the shore, on the bed in the Bondi, well, I was staying put. It’s popular and I’d like to hope that everyone who stays spends something at the only shop in the village – the Surf Life Saving Club café. I noticed many who never left their vans … TVs on. Why?
And so with plans to finally make it to Stanley on my agenda for the next day I immediately put them on hold and returned to Wynyard to have the water leak (remember the drip) fixed. I was almost ready to ring the caravan park in town once again when my problem was sorted and I was on my way. Finally, along the coast to the windswept, and very interesting fishing port of Stanley. So, after all this I was finally going to do my Nut! (Don’t get it? Google Stanley, Tasmania.)
Next time: I meet a striped trumpeter and have a moan about a caravan park toilet block.
