Tramping tales for January 2012

After partying well after mid-night seeing in the New Year – our much needed sleep was shattered in a dawn phone call from Amanda to say a cat was in the box-trap set by George the previous evening using a couple of lamb chop bones as bait! A young feral cat, Lea and Paula Baxter had spotted slinking around in the bush in early November had been caught.

As could be expected the Cat Centre in Hobart was closed on the 1st January and the only option was to keep the cat, now named “Kitsi-kitsi” by George, for longer than expected, a prospect that understandably upset Alison. Be this as it may, things became even more complicated for our erstwhile trapper while inserting a bowl of water inside Kitsi-kitsi cage. Quick as a flash the blighter escaped within the workshop under the house.

Leopard crawling on his belly, with a torch clutched between his teeth, our intrepid and determined trapper set forth to recapture Kitsi bare-handed! He spent the next hour panting and puffing beneath the floorboards, crawling from one end of the building to the other in hot pursuit of an albeit terrified but very agile and cunning cat who took advantage of every nook and cranny, cardboard box and packing case it could usefully hide beneath. Eventually it wedged itself into the darkest and most inaccessible corner it could find from which there was no escape. Kitsi-kitsi was seized by the neck and returned behind bars ... it’s much muddied captor exhaustedly triumphant!

As for the first cat captured? Fat Cat seems to have disposed of his new collar, returns almost nightly and moves around the cage trap, warily eyeing the door despite the tempting ‘chicken Maryland’ within... on numerous occasions even tried to reach it with a paw. Council and Parks Board have been notified as the owners are certainly making no effort to keep their micro chipped pet locked in at night. A gun was brought over but Ali put her foot down to that!

A fine Tassie evening made a perfect setting for family time and pasta on the sunset deck – Amanda, Lea, George, Leecy, Chris, Keith and Sherry.

When Leecy and Chris’s Tassie week ended, we arranged for the ex-Rhodesian Howman contingent to call in on the Australian Howman’s for a meet and greet hour, en route to the airport. Muriel Howman was over from Brisbane staying with her daughter Carolyn.

Discovering it was Muriel’s birthday, the party was on! Howman girls gathered around Muriel (from left to right) are Leecy, Sherry, Lea, Carolyn and Alison.

A couple of days later Shell and Keith returned to Parramatta after treating us all to the film “Iron Lady” followed by dinner out. Meryl Steep makes an outstanding Maggie Thatcher and is rightfully set to score many awards for her believable portrayal. The trailer to ‘The Women on the 6th Floor’ encouraged a most delightful ‘girls night’ to end the first week back at work – we called it Christmas recovery time.

TECHNOLOGY! TECHNOLOGY! ‘Apple’ i-pod entered Lea’s life over Christmas and with Amanda’s patient tuition Lea has found an unexpected way of keeping in touch with her family and sisters through their Apple i-pads and phones! Words with Friends- a scrabble game, had them all scrabbling away furiously around the world, even grandson Otto games with his granny on his new i-pod present. George and Keith are astounded by the abnormal silence... bar the bubbling and rippling chimes denoting a shuffle of letters or an incoming game! Once again, Keith’s wonderful poetic juices were stimulated by the goings on of i-Apples...

A pod of Scrabblers!
The concentration is intense,
The fingers poised and ready.
Two consonants and five vowels
And the atmosphere is heady.
A message comes: a line is sent.
The challenge now is set,
A word begins to grow and score.
Thank God that they don’t bet!
I-pods in hand: almost cross-eyed
Then shouting like a rabble.
No it’s not a petty catfight folks.
It’s Amanda, Shell, Lea at scrabble!
A game they play on their machines
To reveal their limitations
As technology and connection combine
To stretch their imaginations.

Soon after Keith’s return to Parramatta we received a message from him “I'm enjoying doing the cooking and playing second fiddle to an i-pod!” Guess what? Di and Peter Ryan flew into Hobart and arrived with their hired slam-slider campervan to spend a night with us in this prestigious ‘Howden campsite’ only for Amanda to widen the scope of Di’s new i-phone and it included ‘Words with Friends’! Peter was added to the list of muttering menfolk! These multiple games of scrabble are delightfully addictive BUT once Lea is away from the Wi-Fi zone of our Howden address, her i-pod gift will revert to its intended purpose of giving her the opportunity to listen to music and audio books along the winding roads without George’s inclination to switch off or turn down the volume when ticklish situations arise.

SKV was away three days having the head gasket replaced. Afterwards we were advised to run it in 500km before the water could be drained and coolant added. We checked our map for an unexplored corner and decided the peninsula we could see from Blackmans Bay would help add up kilometres. A Sunday picnic was arranged and though the two A’s easily suffer car sickness and our vehicle is not the most comfortable – they bravely joined us for the day’s trek through to Opossum Bay.

Someone was soon feeling green about the gills that we made a stop at Clifton Beach to compare it with Cape Town’s counterpart!


Lea ‘exaggerates’ the cold as we wander down the A’s favourite Hope Beach towards the well known Tassie landmark- the Iron Pot!


Across from Betsey Island and further down Hope Beach, we came across a whale carcass well embedded in the sand.

Rarely does George meet up with folk that share his interests. He struck gold with the A’s neighbouring friends, Peter Jarman - a zoologist and his wife Margaret Brock - a botanist with particular interest in wetlands specialist. From the introductory sundowners to seeing in the New Year the three had lots to talk over and we were delighted to be invited round to their home for afternoon tea, as the countdown for our departure from Hobart began. During this visit we lost all sense of time and had to scurry home for a delayed dinner.

On our last Saturday we finally made it to the Tasmanian Museum to see the Traversing Antarctica and Islands to Ice exhibitions as Douglas Mawson’s 100 year anniversary is commemorated. Although the museum, housed in heritage buildings overlooking the harbour, is in the midst of being upgraded – we were able to happily delve into the legacies of explorers who traversed the coldest, driest, windiest place on earth- Antarctica. Until this visit nothing had truly prepared us for the sheer size of this continent, the size of the oceans surrounding it and the winds and current systems it generates, literally dictating climatic shifts and changes throughout the southern hemisphere. The depth of feeling expressed in the words “Great God, this is the most awful place on earth” tugged deep chords within us on reading of teeth contracting, cracking and falling out of mouths or clothes freezing instantly into awkward positions for the unwary... What unbelievable endurance!

Our penultimate night took us to the home of another couple we’d thoroughly enjoyed getting to know over the two months we spent in Howden – Peter and Helen Askey-Doran. This couple came into the A’s lives when they rented the little unit attached to their home, on arrival in Tasmania. We first met Peter on the eve of him going to have the faulty joint replaced in his hip. Despite a difficult time he was soon getting about, aiding and abetting us in the cat capture as he owned the possum cage. Aside from that, Peter is a man of many abilities and we were intrigued to learn of his years as a chemist, a farmer, a commercial jam-maker and unanticipated of all, a midwife working in remote areas.

Amanda, Lea, Alison, Helen and Peter Askey-Doran on the deck with its mind blowing view over the Derwent. In the background, is Opossum Bay peninsula to the left and Bruny Island to the right, Antarctica straight ahead!

Anyone contemplating a visit to Hobart we’d highly recommend Helen and Peter’s superb self contained holiday unit in Taroona. This Alum Cliffs apartment has a view second to none and we were so tempted to move in instantly! Contact them at paskey_d@bigpond.net.au if you are interested.

So many Sundays in Howden have passed without George being granted his favourite cheese scones. As the final Sunday arrived, everyone was on Lea’s back to produce the goods...

A large bag of hot scones for our last breakfast down in the ‘Safari Lodge’ gave reason for smiles.

The sadness of saying goodbye to the A’s was offset by the knowledge they would shortly be coming to spend a week with us over on the East Coast. Never-the-less, as we pulled out of Howden the multi-layered pleasures we’d experienced in this ‘home’ swamped us... ‘You can choose your friends but not your relatives’ reiterates the blood ties, bonds and warmth we are most fortunate have with these two wonderfully gentle and hospitable characters.

Metal silhouettes of scenes from the past marked our journey along the wind-buffeted Heritage Highway. Interesting to note on covering this route for a second time how memories work- Lea immediately looked out for the sculptures dotted out in the landscape while George had no recall of them! Once again the scenery of the southern Midlands recalls similarities to Natal’s Midlands.

Taking the Esk Highway eastwards, we drew into Oatlands in time for lunch and found ourselves a site in the overnight Rest Area beside Lake Dulverton.

This delightfully historic town boasts the largest selection of sandstone Georgian buildings in Australia. A particularly fine windmill opposite the Rest Area served as our entrance into a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon wandering around beautiful Callington Mill with its capricious history until it was faithfully restored in 2010 as a working mill grinding flour for the ever growing partisan bread market and, it is the only example of a Lincolnshire style windmill in this half of the hemisphere. Mill lane took us past the Parterre gardens and into the Main Street of a town built on the convict and military systems.

Topiary figurines chronicled the agricultural significance of the area and added green interest to street corners and gardens.

At the old state school Lea’s mind boggled at the reference to the children’s playground being part of a series of cells used to lock up prisoners in overnight transit, from Launceston to Hobart! By evening, just to ensure we couldn’t be miserable without the A’s - we were well entertained by a fisherman fly-fishing the waters; a flock of little black cormorants fishing collectively - wheeling and diving and splashing amongst the beds of submerged vegetation in which fish must have been hiding. Masses of gulls, black swans and coots paddled up and down and finally to cap the evening off, a musk duck arrived and began his territorial tail flicking and wing splashing display.

Wind continued to swirl around our rig for a second day as we made for Fingal, SE of Ben Lomond and we kept an eye out for The Dog Kennels on our south side, only to conclude the naming of the range was very imaginative. Although Fingal laid on a most pleasant overnight parking area for travellers even provided free power we decided it was too early to stop and moved on to St Marys, over-nighting on their Sportsground with its excellent ablution block. Definitely the best shower – spacious and no tiresome fiddling with temperature controls. We are grateful to these little towns providing free night stops (on rare occasion power or showers are a real perk).

A wave of disquiet is rippling through Australia’s large community of grey nomads as the media covers a conflict between caravan parks in the State seeking to ban overnight camping on council land whether it be for free or a small fee. Although we have read that it is only 4 out of the 107 caravan operators it has raised merry hell in the papers. One of the great attractions of making the costly ferry trip to Tasmania is the freedom camps available, particularly to the grey nomad fraternity. In general, we have noticed a jump in caravan park fees, some really over the top in many States and, we see more and more signs restricting free camping to self-contained vehicles only. While we understand the necessity we are adversely affected and find it limiting, particularly as we do make special effort to be environmentally considerate. This past winter we constantly used caravan parks and soon realised if we didn’t make a deal, we wouldn’t stay within our tight budget. Now that summer is here we love the great escape to freedom camping...

Riding carefully down St Marys Pass to the coast we spent our next night in St Helens Point State Recreation Area staying at Diana’s Basin, carrying Camps 6, Australia Wide author’s ticked recommendation. On the coastal lagoon just in front of our well screen bush site – George observed some strange ‘duck’ behaviour and once he’d checked his bird book was quick to call Lea out to watch a little flock of hoary-headed grebes diving together. We did a circular walk of the recreational area and enjoyed watching yellow cheeked black cockatoos feeding on the Banksia cones along the way. Down on the beach we found a fine stretch of coastline to wander along and came across three eggs in their tenuously rough and ready nest on the sand. On moving away we noticed a hooded plover scooting across to check all was well with the nest. Big eggs for the size of the bird!

A glorious expanse of Diana’s Beach

Come afternoon, George went off to St Helens to successfully find someone to exchange the head gasket water for coolant. On his return two hours later he learned it had already been done by a young Kingston mechanic contrary to his boss recording this requirement after 500km. A very decent man charged nothing for his time or the phone call he’d made to Kingston.

Passing through St Helens next day we made for our favourite Cosy Corner North Campground along the Binalong Bay road. We found ourselves stiffening in disappointment to see our particular camp site and those around it taken up by campers despite it being a week away from the Australia Day Long-weekend. Even as we surveyed the area a kindly Tasmanian came up and said he’d move his car to give us more room in an available site. Not much choice we could only hope we’d be able to upgrade before Alison and Amanda arrived. Fortunately at the opposite end, George found a recently vacated spacious site that suited better and with the advice of yet another kindly Tasmanian re ponds collecting after rain and the likelihood of possums - we set up camp and waited expectantly for the weekend arrival of the A’s and perhaps the early arrival of Di and Peter Ryan.

Pan of the Bay of Fires... We love this beautiful place and we were blessed with glorious weather until the A’s arrived...

Over the past years the name Stieg Larson has come into our consciousness and we were aware of this author’s death and the court case about his ever growing Estate as a result of his very successful Millennium Trilogy. We’d made no attempt to look at the books let alone read them, erroneously believing they belonged to the Marshall Arts genre, we have no interest in, thanks to the titles! During our Howden days, Amanda- an avid reader highly recommended the books roundly pooh-poohed by us. A Sunday night, just as we broke up for bed, Amanda noticed the Swedish film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was about to start on TV and she very persuasively had Lea stay and watch. Within seconds, Lea was riveted by an extraordinarily different heroine in crime fiction. Staggering off to bed in the early hours with a head swirling overtime Lea was thoroughly hooked! Amanda had the books and in next to no time both Lea and George jostled to keep their noses in Volume 1. Friend, Ruth Smith will sagely nod her head and see similarities to the Clan of the Cave Bear series she fought long and hard to get Lea to consider with exactly the same results....once Lea got going there was no stopping.

No talking! Head down, voraciously reading The Girl Who Played with Fire, Lea took sustenance from biltong as she gets into Volume 11 on arrival at the Bay of Fires.

All rugged up, we toast the arrival of the A’s and insistently a week of the best beach weather!

We awoke Monday morning to discover the bus across from us had vacated its month long site and a rapid upgrade took place...


Hours later, the Ryan’s rolled in to complete our little laager. We were so pleased we did as by Australia Day there were more campers than hairs on a cat’s back squeezed in and around our old site - far from pleasant!


Definitely NOT the best feet thanks to a talc like black powder across the campground that adheres to everything, yet everyone thought blackened possum prints were SO sweet!

The close proximity of bush provided us with possums dancing on our caravan roof most nights and leaving footprints across everything they climbed upon or inspected. The camera traps were set up to capture the nightly partying of possums, pademelons, wallabies, rabbits and delightful Eastern Quolls, sometimes called native cats here. In keeping, a huge lean, feral cat put in an appearance several times too. Alison and George ventured further afield to set up a camera late at night and retrieve before the sun rose after spotting what could be Tassie devil prints in the fore-dunes much further up the coast. However, mists rolled in and the night was a failure. A special cheese box casing was constructed to protect the camera the following night but this time wind kept triggering the camera and only a tiny New Holland mouse came bounding along a creature highway. Only! Did we say? This was a significant find given the fact that these little mice were thought to have vanished for more than 120 years until rediscovered on the mainland NSW in 1967.

The ludicrous ring of the banker’s phone and glasses of port enlivened some nightly games of Deal or No Deal


Australia Day began with the noisiest dip in the briny after the A’s persuaded Lea to take her first ever swim in Tasmanian. Although it was tortuous getting wet, it turned into the finest swim Lea has had since Tongaat Beach days with her sister Holly!


Grateful African immigrants settle to a champagne breakfast of blueberry and oat hot cakes on a glorious Australia Day, made all the more meaningful as Pete and Di were the forerunners, celebrating their 34th year of arrival on this day, 26 January.


Lea attempts to return a ‘yellow’ towel to Di and Peter after it had been well used as a foot cleaner- door mat! Let it be known they flatly refused further ownership and it took some doing to regain a glimmer of former colour after we departed Cosy Corner.

Our last day in Bay of Fires dawned the most beautiful day to date and clicketty click, Lea celebrated her birthday beginning with another delicious arctic swim in close company. George stayed well clear of the cold, rough and tumble of the surf.


The swim team gathered after their most invigorating pre-breakfast Birthday dip. .


Wow! We were treated to the best fish lunch, with the best view of Binalong Beach and we closed it off with another wonderful swim just below. Thank you folks!


A whole day without any change in the weather even the nippy winds stayed away and we took to the rocks down on the beach for ‘Sundowners’.

Quite the most perfect birthday ended with Lea and George putting together a last supper for our Cosy Bay sojourn. What incredibly good times we’d shared together with the A’s and it was easier to strike camp in the misty, overcast conditions the following day before dealing with the lumps in our throats as we bid Alison and Amanda au revoir! Di and Peter will tread the road northwards with us and they kindly went ahead to St Helen’s Laundry to set our pile of washing in motion.

The Long and the short! Necessary time to say good-bye to self appointed Camp/ Parks Official - ‘Molly’ alias Sandra – a wonderfully charming Tasmanian character who roamed Cosy Corner each day checking all was well with the world.

We made our way up to Derby looking forward to seeing Paddy Murphy at ‘The Painted Door Gallery’ and enjoying her delicious scones only to find it closed with SALE notices plastered across the front. We made ourselves at home in the Derby free camp beside the Ringarooma River. Our caravan looked like a Chinese laundry with washing strung across from end to end and hanging from every cupboard handle and it was good to take it down and drape sheets across a fence to dry out in the sunshine we’d found at the top the range. The Ryan’s rolled in later after enjoying the tourist sites along the route. By evening we were all feeling the heat and mossies especially when it came time to watch the Australian Open men’s finals...

Rain often follows high temperatures and we awoke to drizzle as we took the Willborough Pass through the Rain Forest up to Branxholm where Lea was keen to follow the tracks of Chinese trailblazers mining tin within the mountains around 1886 staying long enough to accumulate sufficient funds to return to China comparatively wealthy men, after harsh realities. In a tiny settlers hut we were sucked into fictitious Henry Ah Ping’s story before taking the 2 kilometre Ormuz/Arba water- race round walk to a historic alluvial mine site, during which time the rain fell all harder and we returned pretty well soaked to the skin. The Tin Dragon Trail has been well done by a private enterprise and all it asks is a voluntary gold coin. The rain continued with mountain mists through to the chainsaw carvings in Legerwood and in Scottsdale we gathered for warming coffees in a delightful red and black gallery (its name eluded us all!) with a superb selection of paintings in oils, watercolours and pastels depicting the very same places we’d visited along the East Coast. John E. Gibb’s many watercolours of rocks in the Bay of Fires were particularly worthy. These misty, wet conditions were not conducive to the Lilydale route and we made for Georgetown.

A bush camp was out of the question as Lea was longing for a proper shower with plenty of water for a good wash! A large power corporation cherry picker blocked the entrance to Low Head Caravan Park. After we’d booked in, we were told power would resume within the next half hour. At first opportunity Lea dashed off to the ablution block and prepared for an almighty cleanse- wetting her hair as she waited for the warming process to begin. IT never happened. In disgust she redressed and returned to the caravan with wet hair. Checking the water as the clock ticked on provided little change in water temperature. George suffered a cold shower just before bed and the Ryan’s were fed up to endure the same in the morning. NO putting up with that for Lea especially after a restless night with an icy wind blowing and relentlessly pummelling the caravan. The Ryan’s backed by George received a refund when they stopped to complain on departure.

February arrived! Our ferry crossing was looming and we were looking at Narawntapu for our last three nights but Lea still needed a ‘proper shower’ and she knew Narawntapu wouldn’t fit the bill! A decision was taken to look at Greens Beach at the head of the Tamar River, on the opposite side to Low Head. Not only did it provide a very good shower, albeit in a metered six minutes for a dollar, it was a very worthwhile place to come across and we regretted not trying out this new spot while Paula Baxter had been with us rather than taking her to Beauty Point. Feeling good and clean and fresh tra-la-la, Lea was finally able to relax with everyone and enjoy Greens Beach.

Greens Beach – a wonderfully wide sweeping, flat beach on the doorstep of the campground.

While calling for George, a tentative little voice answered “yes” from behind Lea. She swung round to see an eight year old on a bicycle. “Are you a George?” Yes! Was the response, “I’m George the 5th” thus began an enchanting conversation with George and his sister from Hobart. Interesting and interested – these two children will be undertaking a family adventure ‘Round Australia’ as from May.

We took the forestry road short cut up and over the Dazzler Range to Narawntapu National Park and arrived to find our favourite site taken within the congested campground. Providentially, a number of people were preparing to depart and it wasn’t long before we were able to pick a decent site and nab another bush site alongside for Di and Peter. Springlawn was looking dry and there no creatures to be seen however, during the afternoon a wombat bumbled out from under Getaway and briefly gave an excited Pete and Di their first sighting of a wombat, virtually at their feet before rushing off in fright at their close proximity! At evening time George was keen to find a good place for his camera trap while taking Pete and Di on a walk across Springlawn to watch the early wombats coming out to graze. An eye was kept on the clock, as it is all too easy to lose sense of time during these wonderfully long summer evenings. We needed to have dinner relatively early as we wanted to avail ourselves of the Wednesday ‘Sunset Stroll’ at 8p.m. National Parks Rangers provide daily ‘Discovery Activities’ during peak season. There was a good turn-out for Narawntapu Ranger John’s interesting general ecology on the Wedge tail eagle, Tasmanian Devil, wombats, echidnas, the population explosion of wallabies and the three snakes found in the State and, as the light gently faded John took his group walking across the plains of Narawntapu likened to the Serengeti Plains when it comes to Australia’s wildlife.

After a delayed start we finally had the Ryan’s on top of Archer’s Knob before hiking back along Baker Beach to our campsite where some creaking bodies happily collapsed for the rest of the afternoon.

As could be expected, camera trap results for the first night produced plenty of pademelon activity and, most intriguing of all, a fleeting glimpse of a small, white bellied creature. George eventually decided it could be a water rat. Later, in speaking to Ranger John, he said a white tail is the distinguishing feature of a water rat, which this creature didn’t have. For the last night, camera was set opposite a wombat burrow and we were thrilled to see the comings and goings of a wombat particularly when her youngster appeared during the midnight hours and spent time gambling around and nuzzling mum directly in front of the camera.

George sets his camera trap – What enormous pleasure this gives him all thanks to Alison.

A last night in this favoured setting, was spent with the Ryan’s before parting company for a good while... They will return to Hobart and fly back to their waiting caravan in Melbourne next week to continue their anti-clockwise trip around Australia. We return to Devonport in time for the evening ferry back to the mainland as another "grandchildren round" is calling. This season’s exploration of all the terrific Tasmanian possibilities is over.