Australia 2007

Tuesday, October 30 – Queenstown to Campbell Town

During the night, Ina and I were both wakened by loud crashes of thunder. We did get back to sleep and got up around 7. When we finished breakfast and got on the road, the weather was cloudy with patches of blue sky here and there, so we decided to go into Strahan. We climbed out of Queenstown and there were lots of signs of mining operations, some looked like they may still be operating. The signs indicated Zinc and Tin mines. We drove along a narrow, windy road all the way into Strahan. We stopped for gas and had a look around, but it was still overcast and cool. I took a picture of their Post Office and Customs House, which looked very old, but is still in business.

"Post Office at Strahan"

We got back on the road toward Zeehan. There was a mixture of terrain and vegetation along this road. It was straighter and I could actually do the 100kmh speed limit. Most of the vegetation was like scrub bush and dunes, with lots of areas that looked like bogs. A few miles down the road, there were huge stands of Huon Pine. We passed one spot they were harvesting. It looked like any back road in the interior of BC, with large areas clear cut, and logs piled up on landing decks, while a skidder and limber were operating on the down timber. It was funny to see large sand dunes on the other side of the clear cut area, and then there was the ocean. After awhile, we started into large forests of Eucalyptus, on both sides of the road. The road started to climb again and got a lot curvier.
We arrived at Zeehan and stopped in the town centre, which wasn’t very large. They did have a large mining and railroad museum, and there was a tour bus unloading to go through. We walked into the museum gift shop and looked at the old railway engines in the yard outside. I even took a couple of pictures.


"Old Trains at Zeehan"

I then got a coffee to go from the local coffee shop and we got back on the road. We continued along the highway and again started to climb, with lots of different types of trees along the road. The next town we came to was Rosebery, and the first thing we saw coming into town, was an overhead ore carrier, which I took a picture of.

"Overhead Ore Carrying System at Rosebury"

There was an active Zinc mine operating here and that seemed to be the main reason there is a town there. During this time, we were encountering some major downpours, and then it would stop, until the next one. We were heading East on highway C132 and we started to meet a number of decked out rally cars going the other way. We came to the turnoff to Cradle Valley, so decided to go in to see what it was like. It is a large extinct volcano with a lake in the crater, and is a National Park. We pulled into the parking lot and it was pouring rain. We went into the headquarters to look around and decided, because of the weather, we would pass on going into the park. It didn’t make any sense, when you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. In fact, when we ate our lunch in the car, we both swore there was snow in the rain. We did buy a couple of nice rain jackets that were light and waterproof, and breathable. While we were there, a number of rally cars came in, and they said they were on a rally to raise funds for kids with cancer. The funds raised were going to send these kids to a camp for the summer. Great cause.

We got back on the road and took C136 that wound around toward Launceston. The sun started to come out and as we wound down one of the roads, we saw a sign for a lookout, so we drove into it. It was another power station. This was the Wilmot Power Station. It had a penstock running down the mountain into a generating station, and then into a large lake, that had a dam at the end of it. I also took a couple pictures. When we left, we looked to the left, up the road from where we had come a few minutes ago, and there were several large trees lying across the road. We had gotten through just in time. We didn’t think it was even that windy out. We continued on and stopped at another lookout across the valley at Mt. Claude, where we looked back and saw the penstocks coming down the mountain in the distance.

We hit the B12 just after Mt. Claude and stayed on that until we reached Deloraine. We had looked over the maps and read up on Launcestor while we were having lunch and decided it was just another big city. So we decided to head straight down to Campbell Town. At Deloraine, we ended up on highway 1 and decided we liked the arterial highways better, so at Westbury, we got off on the B54, which paralleled highway 1. We took this through Perth and continued along until it became Highway 1 south. As we drove along in the sunshine, we noticed lots more brightly colored flowers blooming in the farmyards bordering the highway. We also noticed large flocks of white birds with large plumes on their heads. These were quite often in the fields with herds of sheep. We drove until we hit Campbell Town, where we pulled off at the first place that had a sign for self contained cabins. It was called “The Gables” and they had a beautiful little cabin that was perfect for us for the night.

"Nice cabin we stayed in at Gables in Campbell Town"

Ina asked the owner who showed us the cabin, what the big white birds were, and she said they were cockatoos. She also pointed out a number of large rabbits running around the fields behind our cabin. We went into town to a restaurant called “Zeps” that the Gables owner had recommended. It was wonderful. I was starting to catch a cold, so I started with a big bowl of Tomato/Vegetable soup, followed by oven roasted chicken breast on mashed potatoes, with compote of greens (broccoli, pea pods, and asparagus), peas and pesto – lemon, mint, and pistachio nuts. Ina had gnocchi di patate – translated means house made potato gnocchi, charred and crisp vegetables, marinated green olives, tomato and fresh herb pesto. What a meal!!!

We headed back to the cabin where we watched a bit of TV (we had a whole 4 channels to choose from), had a pot of tea, and then hit the sack.