Boat Harbour to Longford via the Tarkine

Beautiful reflections on the Arthur River

Beautiful fresh bread every day from our favourite Stanley shop

Some of the thousand steps!

View of Leven Canyon via Fisheye lens

Tall timbers, Leven Canyon walk

Each place we travel through now is almost a goodbye.  We won’t be returning to some of these places again, with our leaving date of 1^st May fast approaching.  We have Favourite Daughter and Son-in-Law arriving for a 7-day visit mid-April, and with our own 10-day visit to Flinders Island starting on Sunday, our remaining time in Tasmania is dwindling.

Beautiful Stanley was our first port of call westward from Boat Harbour, still finding places we hadn’t visited, such as the Wooden Boat shed at the Port.  Touchwood Café is always good for a great coffee and cake (Persian Love Cake this time, with yoghurt and spun sugar accompaniment), and our favourite camping spot at Godfreys Beach, with Highfield House lit up like a Christmas tree high on the hill opposite The Nut.  Of course no visit to Stanley would be complete without a walk up The Nut, and the 2km tramp around the top for panoramic views of land and ocean.  There is a chairlift, but more people walk than ride, even though it’s so steep that it’s necessary to walk on tippy-toes a lot of the way.

After our quiet night on Godfrey’s Beach, we headed for the Arthur River and a night at the National Park campground before a memorable day cruise up the river on the George Robinson with its captain, Cagey, and crew and knowledgeable guide, Greg.  This area contains vast tracts of myrtle, leatherwood and sassafras; the last remnants of the Gondwana forest that once spanned the southern hemisphere from South America to Papua New Guinea.  The Arthur River is completely wild; never logged, never dammed, and free from bushfires.  The Tarkine was the last known habitat of the Tasmanian Tiger and now provides sanctuary for the endangered Tasmanian devil.

It’s embarrassing to admit that we only spent one day at Arthur River before heading east again to Leven Canyon.  The Tarkine has so much to offer and it would be possible to spend months in the area and still not take it all in – in fact that applies to Tasmania as a whole! 

Travelling south from Ulverstone, we headed to the unknown (to us) Leven Canyon, discovering a magnificent part of the world.  The road we travelled was a C road, and at times we were in second gear coming down the mountains, but it eventually led to a great free campground, with a short walk to the Lookout for wonderful views of mountains above and rivers far below.  The longer walk took in a descent of around 900 steps to the valley floor and then a steady incline back to the campground.  It’s a choice – steps down and then uphill, or down that way and back up 900 steps!  Either way there are many seats along the way, each giving the directions in metres both ways; helpful if you’re wondering how far to the end! 

Leaving Leven Canyon this morning we took a B-road (only differentiated from the C-road by a white line dividing the two lanes) back to the Bass Highway, and thence to Longford where we are now warm and cosy in a caravan park with power to run the heating as an antidote to the solid rain outside.  It’s the first rain for close on 2 months so no complaints here.  The whole country is dry and yellow at the moment and badly in need of rain. 

We’re off to Flinders Island on Sunday for a 10-day jaunt.  The choice was to take our motorhome on an 8-hour sea crossing and then brave the narrow roads, or take a 35 minute flight and hire a hippie van over there, which seemed like a better option.  Life in a small van will be interesting; no diesel heater for a start, so we’re hoping for a return to fine weather and sunny skies.

Anyway, no doubt there will be lots of interest to report in the next blog.