Mercer Travels: Last days in Tasmania.

Our time in the Apple Isl was coming to a close and in our final week Kellie and I both felt we needed to just stop to smell the roses after all the setting up and travelling we had done so far. Leaving St Helens we took the main road towards Scottsdale and from there you can get to Launceston the second biggest city in the State. We had checked the maps and had a plan in our head to either stay at a free camp in Scottsdale or just stay in a caravan park in Launceston, things did not quite work out that way!.
Arriving in Scottsdale we checked out the free camp, unfortunately not quite what we had in mind so moving on we continued over the mountains towards Launceston. There was one other little spot we had read about and thought only right to check out, on the map it is shown as the town of Targa, there is no real town as such but what they do have is Myrtle Park Reserve. I went into the kiosk to see what the go was and what it would cost to stay thinking we might just stay two nights, the guy on the desk was from Essex of all places and just said check out a couple of sites by the river and come back once we had decided, price per night $7 for the family. The park is a local shire run venture and is on the banks of a small river, with about 20 sites on the river plus the huge field area we heard it can get very busy, whilst we were there it was quiet and we could use the fire pit in our campsite when the sun went down. So what was meant to be two nights became four nights at the great location.

Targa is only 20km from Launceston so we organised day trips to have a look around and collect some mail waiting for us. Our first day we took a scenic route out over the mountains as I wanted to check out a spot call Jacobs Ladder, someone had mentioned it too me but I could not remember why, from the picture below you will see how impressive it is, basically a zigzag road built into the hillside which gives access to the ski lodge at the top at a height of 1574m. Another bonus for the day was seeing around five Echida's on the road which had to be a record, to be eclipsed later in the trip by another lesser seen Australian animal.

Our next adventure day was also my birthday, this time it was decided to go out via Scottsdale where the Cottage Bakery advertises having the best vanilla slice, it was my birthday after all so cake was required. Continuing on north we made it to Bridport and after having a look around we pulled up at the beach to eat the cakes for afternoon tea, I can say the slice lived up to the hype. Leaving Bridport the road went SW towards Lilydale, one of the kids funniest sights so far were four sheep on the road which ran ahead of us for some time before turning sharply towards the field only for each one to bounce off the fence!. Lilydale on the map shows a set of waterfalls, previous such sights have been worth the time, unfortunately this one was a little tame but still a nice walk along a small fern lined creek. The last part of our little trip on the maps looked like a nice track through the state forest coming out at Targa, after a little bit of tricky driving we popped out where we needed to be and collecting some firewood returned to camp.

Day 3 at camp Targa, it really was a nice spot and the kids were able to get some school work done in the morning but today I had plans to see Beaconsfield and the gold mine famed for the two miners trapped underground for two weeks. Driving through Launceston you cross the Tamar River and travel up the western side before reaching the town of Beaconsfield, there is now a Heritage Centre and Museum to explore which details the history of the town and the later story of the trapped miners. It was Anzac Day in 2006 when an earth tremor caused the roof of the mine to fall in on the three workers nearly 1300m underground. Larry Knight died but two guys Todd Russell and Brant Webb survived 14 long days trapped in a space not much bigger than their bodies, fascinating story of their survival and the ordeal of getting them out alive, find the book if you have never heard the story.
Leaving Beaconsfield it was back across the Tamar via the Batman Bridge to the eastern side before heading north towards Bell Bay and Low Head. Bell Bay is a fairly busy shipping port at the mouth of the Tamar, slightly further along you reach Low Head which is the second oldest pilot station in Australia, only Sydney being older. The pilot station consists of a group of houses where the various pilots and workers were housed and the original pilot house now contains a museum to the history of the pilots, very interesting and one certain friends of mine in the UK would find very interesting. By now it was getting quite late so a quick run back to camp and more wood for the fire and our day was done, or so we thought!.

The previous evening some campers setup near us who were from Austria and Germany had given us some Tuna they caught when over on the east coast, now this was two large fillets which we chopped up frozen into manageable pieces before freezing some and leaving some out for dinner. To our credit the end meal came out to be quite tasty but we were still eating Tuna upto the day we left Tassie so too much for us but thanks to the others for the free meal. :)

And that was that for Targa, we had already extended our stay two extra nights and the next morning someone was booked onto our sight so we had to move on. We first went into Launceston to visit Cateract Gorge as it is one place people say you should visit, only a few km from town you can take a chairlift across the gorge above the crowds, only slightly unnerving being supported by one metal bar 30m above rocks and water but we managed the return trip so all well. It was quite amazing to see pictures of what the gorge looks like full of water in flood, the swimming pool in our pictures often has to have trees removed and other debris so quite a sight.

We had been discussing our options for destination as we only had three days before the ferry back, after a few calls we booked into the Devonport Big4 which would allow the kids to spend some time catching up with work and we could relax a little more before heading back. This park is quite reasonable for families in the off peak at $37pn plus Big4 discounts, considering we paid $54pn when we first arrived you can see where parks make their money!. Before reaching Devonport I could not resist the temptation of a cheese shop on the highway, Ashgrove Cheese Factory sell their own hard cheeses and ice cream so whilst the kids had the biggest icecreams so far Kel and I had a hot choccy and selected a few of the tasty cheeses to take with us.

So our last three days in Tasmania were spent at the library, at the beach and a day out to a town call Latrobe, the town itself is very nice but they have a shop there which is a sight to believe. If you look up www.reliquaire.com you can see some of the products available but basically 20 rooms full of toys, dolls and cool stuff, not many times I have been given a map to get around a shop!. Then it was back to Devonport to collect the van and join the queue for the nighttime sailing, this time we had a cabin so once on board we had a drink and some snacks in the bar before heading to bed and sleeping to the sound of the engines propelling us to the mainland.