My Tassie Travels Last November

A couple months ago I wrote a blog post about my trip down south, driving with my friend Sally from here in Queensland all the way to Tasmania. Now I'm doing a post about the three weeks I stayed there in the beautiful state of Tasmania.

The day we arrived in Tassie, on our way from leaving the ferry at Devonport, we drove through Deloraine. These were some very beautiful flowers I saw there!

More flowers in Deloraine...

There were some "wild" ducks in Deloraine near the river! They were actually quite friendly, and came over to me to say hello.

Part of the reason I went to Tassie in November was because I wanted to see it in spring - there were many beautiful flowers! Here are just a few photos of some different things I saw...

There's just a little sprinkling of snow in the background, piled against the shed!

I experienced snow for the first time! It was only a little flurry (it mostly melted when it hit the ground), but it was still very fun - and cold!

These flowers smelled very sweet!

Rufus, our plump little semi-tame paddymelon friend, is having a snack! First for some carrot...

I think he looks bigger in the photo than he actually is in real life! Now for some pumpkin....

And a cabbage leaf for dessert!

Once again I mostly stayed in Waratah with Sally, but we also did do some fun exploring! We went to see Philosopher Falls, which has become more famous in recent times due to Belgian tourist Celine Cremer who went missing there two years ago. Her remains have finally been found - it is truly a wilderness in there!

The Arthur River

Just a little waterfall cascading into the water raceway near the walking track.

Philosopher Falls - it is so tall the the camera could never take in the whole thing even if the trees were not hiding most of it! These falls are named in honour of James "Philosopher" Smith, who discovered tin at nearby Mt. Bischoff in 1871. This brought great wealth to the Tasmanian economy, and became the second largest tin mine in the world after Cornwall, England, until the mine closed in 1947.

We also traveled across the state so I could see what the east coast of Tasmania is like.

From Waratah to St Helens

On our two-day drive to the east coast, we drove east across the Central Plateau.

The views were stunning - much better in real life than in photos!

Barn Bluff (left) and Cradle Mountain (right) had snow on their peaks!

On the first day we stopped at Devil's Gullet....

Devil's Gullet

It's so hard to capture the magnificence and magnitude of how deep the gorge is with a camera!

Looking down..... It was a lot further down than it looks in the picture!

....then we went on to nearby Lake Mackenzie, which was created by the damming up of the Fisher River (which is the river flowing at the bottom of the Devil's Gullet) for hydroelectricity....

Looking at the dam wall from one end.

Can you see the water raceway snaking its way across the valley??

Looking across the lake at the dam wall from the other end.

There was a small waterfall coming over the cliff where they blasted away rock for making the dam.

I think this is scarring in the rock from the blasting of dynamite - the star shape is most fascinating!

I stood below the waterfall to get an upwards shot of the water drops!

....and finally on to Marakoopa Cave.

 In another room of the cave (not this one) there were glow worms, but of course we weren't allowed to take photos of them due to the infrared lights that cameras use. After we had been in the cave for 45 minutes following the cave tour guide around, we could see heaps more glow worms when we came back than when we first went through the glow-worm cave - it takes a long time for one's eyes to fully adjust to a darker environment!

The stalagmites and stalactites were most fascinating! Some of the mineral formations were fun shapes too - the one on the right looks like a giant cauliflower!

I liked the reflection on the water....

On the second day when we came out of the highlands the landscape totally changed.

There were several quaint old buildings like this in a little town called Avoca.

A little graveyard near St Marys

We camped for a couple of days at Dora Point, and went for a couple of trips to the surrounding beaches in the Bay of Fires.

A lovely view of the beach!

A Sooty Oystercatcher resting on a rock

Flowers of kunzea, a plant related to tea tree and also used medicinally similar to tea tree.

Beaches and waves are so much fun to get photos of!!

Not sure what this flower is - but it's pretty!

These geraniums were so lovely!!

There were lots of black swans in the brackish waters in the bay.

Four birds sunning themselves and preening on a rock pile - two Sooty Oystercatchers, a cormorant, and a juvenile Pacific Gull.

When the sun came out and shone at the right angle, the water was such a rich blue!!

Finally the time came for me to go back home, so we drove from St Helens back to Launceston via a more north-eastern route. I was driving for part of the trip, so I didn't get many photos. We did stop at Bridestowe Lavender Estate though - sadly it was the wrong time of year to see it all blooming.

Thousands of lavender plants in hundreds of rows over about 260 acres - the world's largest privately-owned lavender farm!

A pretty orange poppy with droplets on the petals.

Tasmania is such a beautiful place - and so diverse, from rainforests to beaches!