Every journey has unforeseen twists; ours in Tasmania's Northeast was no exception. From the moment we set foot in Devonport, the chill was a brisk welcome to an adventure teeming with wildlife encounters and majestic sunrises tempered with the real-life dramas of health scares and road mishaps. We break down our travel approach to embrace the Tasmanian landscape's splendour. Come along as we share tales from serene hikes to our camaraderie with locals like Rosie, who turned our mountain biking escapades into stories worth telling around the campfire.
Navigating the unexpected is part and parcel of any travel experience; ours came dressed as healthcare hurdles and navigating Launceston's one-way streets. A health concern for David led us into the arms of the Tasmanian healthcare system, revealing both its quirks and unexpected efficiency. During the back-to-school frenzy, the journey's comedic relief was found in pursuing a simple haircut. Then, a sudden car accident tested our reflexes and introduced us to the heartfelt support of the local community, serving as poignant reminders of the mindfulness required on unfamiliar roads.
Our episode wraps up with heart-pumping tales from Ben Lomond National Park's icy slopes to the mountain biking haven of Derby. While our camping misadventures range from managing overcrowded sites to containing an accidental fire near our campsite, these stories of setting up new camps and tearing down bike trails genuinely capture the essence of Tasmania's great outdoors. If you've ever longed to understand the bond between travellers, locals, and the land they explore, let our experiences from Tasmania's picturesque Northeast be your guide.
Every journey has unforeseen twists; ours in Tasmania's Northeast was no exception. From the moment we set foot in Devonport, the chill was a brisk welcome to an adventure teeming with wildlife encounters and majestic sunrises tempered with the real-life dramas of health scares and road mishaps. We break down our travel approach to embrace the Tasmanian landscape's splendour. Come along as we share tales from serene hikes to our camaraderie with locals like Rosie, who turned our mountain biking escapades into stories worth telling around the campfire.
Navigating the unexpected is part and parcel of any travel experience; ours came dressed as healthcare hurdles and navigating Launceston's one-way streets. A health concern for David led us into the arms of the Tasmanian healthcare system, revealing both its quirks and unexpected efficiency. During the back-to-school frenzy, the journey's comedic relief was found in pursuing a simple haircut. Then, a sudden car accident tested our reflexes and introduced us to the heartfelt support of the local community, serving as poignant reminders of the mindfulness required on unfamiliar roads.
Our episode wraps up with heart-pumping tales from Ben Lomond National Park's icy slopes to the mountain biking haven of Derby. While our camping misadventures range from managing overcrowded sites to containing an accidental fire near our campsite, these stories of setting up new camps and tearing down bike trails genuinely capture the essence of Tasmania's great outdoors. If you've ever longed to understand the bond between travellers, locals, and the land they explore, let our experiences from Tasmania's picturesque Northeast be your guide.
Welcome everyone to another episode in our podcast series. This is our trip around Australia and this episode we're going to be talking about our first two weeks in Tasmania. We're wearing jumpers for the first time in two weeks, so it's a little bit unfair. You think that Tasmania is cold, but we have had some epic weather. It's been Summer weather, beach weather, t-shirts, shorts, no problem.
Speaker 2:For those that have been watching a few of our podcasts, you might realise that we're in the same spot. It's because it's a good day to do podcasts. It's not super clean, it's a bit of a cloud, it's a bit of a covery, a bit of breeze around, so what better day to do some podcasts than today? That's why we've got a little bit more on. I've got a long sleeve and a shirt on underneath and tracky pants and hug boots that you can't see under the table.
Speaker 1:Alright, if we're going through clothing, this what I'm wearing here is something very special. It's made from alpaca and we picked it up along the way at a quaint little shop.
Speaker 2:Nice to have something local At Branksome.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:With the little town that that happened in. So Alright.
Speaker 1:So we got off the ferry in Devonport and in the last two weeks we've just stayed on the northeast and this is our fifth camp, and we've only travelled a distance of 160 kilometers.
Speaker 2:From the terminal. If we navigated back to the terminal we're about 160 k's but we've actually done 730 k's of travelling, of driving around.
Speaker 1:Because we have been touring and day-tripping and looking around. So look straight off the ferry 10 o'clock in the morning or whatever it is, we get going Like anyone. The first port of call had to be the IGA, because they take all your fresh fruit and veg away from you and for us that means we can't eat anything because we don't eat meat and dairy. So that was a very important top-up. I think we bought five things. It cost $15. Anyway.
Speaker 2:It was a little. It was the closest IGA to the boat. It was not even a block away from the boat, from the boat. It was a little IGA. It happened to be open at that hour of the morning. It didn't have a great deal of stuff, but I got one avocado.
Speaker 1:Probably cost me three dollars.
Speaker 2:And a couple of tomatoes. Something simple, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, we probably should have bought a bit more because we drove following our nose and made our way up to the coastline and we went to Norandapu National Park and Norandapu National Park is a gorgeous spot. We got there and camping at Baker's Beach Campground.
Speaker 2:Now is it Norandapu or Narawantapu?
Speaker 1:Well, it's spelt Narawantapu, but the locals corrected our pronunciation.
Speaker 2:One local and said it's.
Speaker 1:Narandapu, but she was at a visitor center and she also corrected.
Speaker 2:No, she was a nurse at the hospital. Oh, a nurse at the hospital, Anyway don't tell them all the secrets yet.
Speaker 1:We've got some stories for you, yes, and one involves a hospital, in fact, it's one that we didn't end up there three times.
Speaker 2:Two dollars but let's continue on.
Speaker 1:So Norandapu National Park Tons and tons of wildlife, lots of venets, wallabies, lots of bird life and a couple of nice hikes. We went up to the Arches knob. A beautiful scenery from the top up there.
Speaker 2:That track logs published now as well. So if you're interested in having a look at that Arches knob, if you search that up in the track log system, you should be able to find that.
Speaker 1:From there we then came back down and moseyed our way around. There's a track across to Greens Beach, yorktown, and we did that. That's just a dirt road but that's a good shortcut rather than coming back down the highway. So Yorktown, greens Beach, kelso, clarence River and we found our next free camp at Gardens Island, which is on the Tasman Sea at the beginning of the entrance into the Tamar River, and wow, what an epic sunrise view. Have a look at the photos on social media. Got purple sky looking across to Georgetown. Really really pretty little free camp. Could have stayed there longer, but we're already beginning to realise everywhere you go in Tasmania is just so beautiful you don't have to travel very far, I think. What was our distance that day? It was like we haven't done over 100 kilometres in a day and we're busying our day with seeing beautiful things.
Speaker 2:After our camp at Gardens.
Speaker 1:Island. We awoke and David gave me the sorry tale that he was in a lot of pain Now. He'd been complaining of this a lot of pain in his calf for quite a few weeks. Actually, if you were listening to the couple of podcasts back, you'd know that I had to fly back to Perth for a family medical emergency. Meanwhile, while I was turning to that, David was telling me on the phone that he had a sore leg. He's on blood thinners. He's had a history of having deep vein thrombosis in the past, DVTs, and he had a sense that this might be another one. It didn't seem to make much sense to me, because if you're on blood thinners, the doctors tell you that you can't get another DVT.
Speaker 2:You shouldn't be able to get another DVT.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we really didn't know what was going on. David had been doing a fair bit of mountain bike riding in Sydney with my dad and that had involved a few falls. So we worked through the usual. Was it a muscle injury? There wasn't anything particular, but we made this decision at Gardens Island that we went very far from Lawnceston Hospital and that was probably sensible at this point in our trip to go and get some peace of mind and get an ultrasound. So we spent that next day driving to Lawnceston but David was avoiding going to hospital. I could tell, because everywhere we went there was a diversion. Oh, let's see this or let's see that.
Speaker 2:But we did go to the Beaconsfield mine.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we went through Beaconsfield. Now those of you that might remember what was it 2012? There was a terrible mining disaster the collapse of the underground mine in Beaconsfield.
Speaker 2:Killed one in Trap 2 when they were there for two weeks. We might remember the digging out process.
Speaker 1:Yeah look, it is an excellent display that they've put on there. There's no longer any mining in the town, so it was very interesting to see how the town has survived and lived through that incident.
Speaker 2:What we didn't know was that they did actually continue mining after the guys got taken back out for quite a number of female years, I think it was 12 or I don't know, it was another few years anyway that they continued to mine, until the price of getting them the gold out was more expensive than the cost to pump the water out from the bottom part of the mine to make it so they can get the gold out.
Speaker 2:They have to pump so much water out. The cost of running the pumps to pump the water out and the extraction price of the gold meant that it was not feasible. They were actually losing money to take the gold out. So they ceased mining there a few years later. But yeah, they've converted. The town has sort of been revitalized by being put on the map by the disaster. I guess They've put an excellent visitor center and display it around the Beaconsfield mine. You can basically walk through the whole place. You can get up into the area where the guys came out and all that sort of stuff right on that hole. What do they call it? The?
Speaker 2:rig and the shaft and everything. It's all sitting there. You can go and climb up and down four flights of it and you can get right immersed in the whole place and they've put on a really great display. I think it was like a $20 or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, $21 a head for an adult. There were concession prices too.
Speaker 2:We were apparently rushed to get to the hospital and it was still worth the hour and a half that we spent there touring around. It was really great and the facilities in the town. It looked like it's still a little thriving town. There was actually people in it, Some of these other towns that we've driven through are almost don't seem to have any people in them.
Speaker 2:They seem to have buildings and nobodies. But Davenport sorry, beaconsfield was not like that. It was a thriving little, bustling little place. Not really sure how it really goes but for all intents and purposes, certainly during the school holidays and tourist time down here, which we were still in school holidays it was a bustling little area. It was worth it, worth the stop at Beaconsfield.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and because we're staying to the highway heading towards Lawnceston. The next part that you travel through is the beautiful Tamar Valley, and David was very itchy to taking off to all the wineries. Another distraction from getting to Lawnceston it was very upset that we were driving past so many. So finally I agreed. Finally I agreed to be taken to the winery and they had a gender silvery. It was Tamar Ridge and we had a very steep arrival into their driveway and thought, oh, it really isn't catering for people that are touring the caravan.
Speaker 2:The camper van.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, there's nowhere to really park, but we managed and stumbled our way into the most beautiful, beautiful winery, beautiful outlook. We didn't stay for wine tasting, we just knew what we wanted to buy pop that in the bag. So then they gave us free tasting anyway, so that was handy.
Speaker 2:We just went in and bought their most expensive bottles off the list and then they said would you like to taste them? We thought, why not? So Michelle had a bit. We went to the gender silvery next door Next door. What was it?
Speaker 1:Three cuts is it yeah, three cuts gin.
Speaker 2:Three cuts gin. What a great little setup. Being a bit of a being a bit of a gin distiller myself, it was great to go in and see a commercial operation. It looks exactly like the home operation, but a fair bit bigger, and we tasted their five different gins or something, and that was great. Bought a bottle from there. So we've got that sitting in the camper for when we run out of my home brew, which is going to be a lot quicker than it was going to be, except for I keep stopping at people's houses that can't seem to like my home brew. Gin, yeah, but Tamar Ridge and three cuts gin. That was a great little diversion. Another way to slow me down from getting to Lonseston.
Speaker 1:And then we drove through that Gnomesville no, what is it called? The place with the Swiss village.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, what was that called? There is Grindelwald. Grindelwald, yeah, it's a little Swiss, a little Swiss village just out of Lonseston. You drive in there and, yeah, you would think you were driving maybe Through the Swiss Alps or something into a little, a little Swiss town. Everything was made in that genre every street, every frontage every home. Immaculate and they were immaculate. It was very clean, very tidy.
Speaker 1:It is a residential area, but there's a Commercialized resort and there is also there's a golf course and a putt-putt and Tamar Valley resort is the resort that operates in there.
Speaker 2:What it was? A great little place. We went just did a tour around another distraction from getting to Lonseston. We tried more distractions but I couldn't keep them going.
Speaker 1:I've got a friend in Lonseston so I've been in touch with her.
Speaker 2:We have a friend. Yes, helen we have friends.
Speaker 1:Thank you to Helen, who Will helped me stay sane in trying to Plan whether we were going to the hospital and where to stay. So we Set up camp at Old Max farm, which is four and a half cases out of Lonseston, and it is an old farm that they've turned into an RV camping area so you need to be self-contained. But it's a beautiful big open paddock, a couple of lakes that they've made and we were able to have a waterfront frontage set everything up and it was possible that when I took David to hospital that he may stay overnight. So David wanted to have it all set up so that I could just drive back. The camp was all set up and you know we really didn't want to have to go through that.
Speaker 2:But what was that? 20 bucks a night as well there, I think wasn't it yeah, max farm yeah bad toilets and.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was. You could have a fire, they had.
Speaker 2:But not at this time of year.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, actually, yeah, you could have fires in there, just in barrels that they can provide. If you had a barrel, they provide that and some wood. Some people did have a fire. We were kind of getting used to not having a fire because all the national parks and stuff here Done allow fires. Obviously the colder ones, like some of the ones that we're coming up to after Lonseston, you could have fires. But yeah, I'll max farm it was. It was a nice, was a nice little stay. It was quite busy, there was quite a lot of vans and a lot of people camping in there, but you can find a little niche and yeah, you select your own spot.
Speaker 1:You select your own spot and then just go and fill out the honesty box and you put either cash or You're paid by a bit direct deposit.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, and so after we'd set up camp and made all that happen, it was time to go to hospital.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we went at five. I knew I needed an ultrasound and that could probably was going to be the next day. You've got no idea how big the town Hospitals are when you come into a town like Lonseston or you know anyway, hobart. You've got no idea what the services are like. We knew it was a 24 hour ed so we loved in there at about five o'clock, which was just the time that it happened to work out and We've got free Free parking on the main street opposite the emergency.
Speaker 1:Yeah so free parking after five a year? That was just incredible.
Speaker 2:And then we walked straight into the emergency and it was tiny and that was where we were told how to pronounce Miranda poo, or narrow one to poo, by the triage nurse who was telling us not to tell everyone to come to Tasmania.
Speaker 1:But they all had.
Speaker 2:They all had two heads in there, we're all in bread and you didn't want to come here because it's such a bad place and it's cold, and it's cold and it's horrible. That was the triage nurse. She was classic. It was quite good. Yeah but straight from the triage nurse to the check-in, people going through, you know, giving you Medicare cards and all that sort of stuff, and and within no ticket taking no, you know, you know no tickets just straight in your name and she said that's why she started talking about the inverse, because she said everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she said around this, around this area, half of the half the people in this room, they will knows each other.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it was a they called out David's name to see the doctor in 50 minutes.
Speaker 2:Mind you, they just come out of the back back room and say David. I don't even say Martin, they just said David.
Speaker 1:It's like number five and I'm going.
Speaker 2:How many other Davids could there possibly be in the room? There must have been 30 people in there, but obviously no other Davids, because I was the only one that got up and, yeah, that was about 50 minutes.
Speaker 2:And then we're told that we'd need to wait for about an hour to get the ultrasound done because the the the doctor on charge that night was a stenographer and so he was quite happy to do the ultrasound, that we didn't have to wait and we could get that done. So Some two hours later we were able to leave the hospital. The results were okay. Oh we don't really know what it is, still don't. It's not as bad now, but that was a week and week ago.
Speaker 1:Now it's just a good piece of mind. David was just Decide himself with concern. And that's just not how you want to do your trip.
Speaker 2:No, so so we, we got that out of the way, we got that out of the way, and, and then in Lonseston I'll let you keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well then that night that night.
Speaker 2:No, so that night we've come back the following morning no you wanted to get your hair cut.
Speaker 1:I decided well, we're in a main town, it's time to get my hair cut. I've just been so busy, what with flying back to Perth and dealing with my son in hospital and all that I just had no time to look after myself. No self care was going on. So we tried to find somewhere to get a haircut, but what was the problem? Oh, it was the day before school going back.
Speaker 1:It was the final Friday before schools go back and I could not even get an appointment at the most basic just cut hairdresser. So it should have been the simplest thing to do, but we were fussing around trying to get that done. At the same time, david thought he would try and buy a pair of Compression calf socks you know skins just to support the calf muscle where it was sore, and he dropped me off at hairdressers that I finally found available in the heart of Lonseston. And meanwhile he went to park the car and was going to go to the shop and, and next minute, five minutes later, I get a message from him and the message said oh shit, I have just hit up a Destrian. This is going to be a drama, drama.
Speaker 2:She's all right, this is going to be a drama. That's exactly what I put in the message.
Speaker 1:It's a pedestrian hitter pedestrian.
Speaker 2:I've never done anything like it in this ever before, but these things can happen and you know, interestingly enough, davenport sorry, lonseston, the town has got lots of, lots of one ways in the heart of the town and you end up turning right from the right hand lane into a right hand lane and you know we're all left hand lane drivers here. So it was a little bit disconcerting and I think what had happened is I was waiting, the light was green, I had the green light to go, it was a right hand turn. There was pedestrians on the crossing and I'd obviously been watching them because I hadn't already gone and the other car that was pointing straight at me. There was two cars, it was like a Two-way intersection coming into a one-way right hand. It was complicated anyway. So there was a car pointing straight at me turning left. I was turning right from the right hand lane up a one-way into the right hand side and One of the things that I found with the 200 series is it's got this very large blind spot from the door pillar, from the driver's side door pillar and the mirror.
Speaker 2:I also have my phone mounted in there, which probably makes it worse. So it has a really large blind spot and I suspect, or I believe now, you know, thinking back over a few times, that the people were in there. It was a family, there was a mum and two kids that just got in my blind spot. So I just taken off from the lights and, sure enough, as soon as I got part way around the corner I'd realized I could see that I, I could actually see Me knocking the lady and she, she felt that she basically fell to the ground. It wasn't fast, it wasn't hard. She's obviously hit the ground and grazed her elbow and had a bit of a sore back and she wasn't a hundred percent. But you know, like like small towns, within minutes someone that knew I was there, a nurse was there, an ambulance paramedic was there and then ten minutes later another Nurse arrived. So we had like three nurses in a paramedic all arrived there just street walking, all within minutes of the issue happening.
Speaker 2:One of them called an ambulance because we realized that she shouldn't really move. Makes you do all the the usual checks and make sure she's a hundred percent. So the ambulance was called and the police were called and they came and spoke to me and took a statement and and and and did all of that and I turned up at this point because I'd been in the headdress.
Speaker 1:I've got this message from David and I'd said shall I, shall I call you? And you'd said not yet and I'd heard nothing for a few minutes until I heard and saw the sirens go screaming past on the road that I was on, and so I had the thought that I'd use my phone and I looked up the tracker app and I'm following the car, which David had is our main tracking, and I was able to see exactly where David was, because he hadn't told me where he was. So I was able to see on the map that the car was stuck in the middle of the intersection of Brisbane Street and St John Street or whatever it was, and literally I just ran and followed that tracker and I went straight to him and, as I said, he was really only just around the corner and when I arrived he was being interviewed by the policeman and the lady was being put into the back of the ambulance. It was horrible to come upon a scene like that with all the flashing lights and the emergency services.
Speaker 2:It's pretty awful and I didn't know what I was going to say and the media arrived. So I'm thinking, uh-oh, uh-oh, the media's here.
Speaker 1:No, they didn't speak to me.
Speaker 2:They just spoke to the police. It was obviously just a nothing. So they you know that that was obviously not a serious thing, so so that was all kind of by the buy side.
Speaker 1:But you know, I didn't know whether I was going to be in the Advertiser the next morning or not, but but the lady did go to hospital for observation, obviously just to ensure there was nothing wrong, and the policeman said to you that he'd try not to.
Speaker 2:He could see there was a total accident, it was a thing, but they were able to. They wanted to go back and examine the CCTV footage to make sure the lights were as they, as we both had said, as she'd said and as I'd said, they are fairly sure that she had no major injuries and that there'd be no ongoing complications. So they took my details, took my email address, asked if I would accept being, you know, receiving any notices via email, which I said yes, all recorded on there on their chest cams and everything else. So it was all all okay and within a few minutes. You know it took quite a long time to get all that dealt with, but Within a few minutes of of all that happening, I was basically allowed to go on again and continue with my day. Obviously, the lady and her two kids, they've obviously gone off to the hospital for a checkup and that might have taken a little bit of time.
Speaker 2:I don't know how long she would have been there for and I'm sorry for any delay to her day that she had and and the kids, but we dealt with it as best we could. It was just totally an accident, something that can happen, something that you don't want to have happened to you. I still play it back in my head almost all the time when I'm driving. But you know it was. It wasn't bad, it was a the best result that could have happened. No one was injured. The car didn't cop any injury, so you know we were able to move on and that afternoon we were able to go and you got your haircut.
Speaker 2:I got my socks and my compression socks and we went and did some we went to cataract gorge cataract gorge, which is a lovely place gorgeous spot.
Speaker 1:We've featured that in some social media, but there's a beautiful hike out to an old power station. It was apparently Australia's first hydro, oh, first power station, and it was hydro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first, first electricity provider, 56 or something like really old, incredible Concept and a massive construction.
Speaker 2:You know, big tunnels through the sides of mountains to bring the water from the, from the other side, down in through the, through the power station and and and then down into the, the South Esk River, which is what the power station was built on, great walk. You know it's kind of a boardwalk it's. It's high up the valley. There's bridges and couple of suspension bridges, and and it was. It was a really nice, was it six K, seven K's or something eight K, something like that. It was a really nice walk, well worth doing. The only the the hardest part is climbing the steps on the other side of the power station. If you do it the way we did, you could come through the snake gully way first and then do the more boardwalk side second. The stairs are on the snake gully side, just Near the power station. There's why it's a bit. It's a bit of climbing, but they're nothing if you enjoy hiking.
Speaker 1:If you enjoy hiking, it's not a problem. They can go clockwise or anti-clockwise. Most people went anti and we went clock.
Speaker 2:That that that track log is also available on the website or in the track track log system. So cataract gorge or duck reach power station, they would be the search terms if you're looking for those. It's probably still on the first page of results anyway at this point. So that was another decent day around Lonseston, and we finish that night again. No, we finish that night with an invite to our friends place for dinner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we've gone back to old Macs to have our showers and clean up and get ready to go and see them. Helen had been hiking, oh, over near Cradle Valley the two nights and then she'd still offered to cook dinner for us and see us. And she's been living in Tasmania for the last three years. I haven't seen her. We know them, originally from Perth, and so, yeah, we turned up, had Dinner with them, saw their new home and they live right near cataract gorge. We might just pause here.
Speaker 2:We've got Some campers just no, no, they're just driving. Okay, that's okay, they're just driving there Okay okay, so we continue on with okay.
Speaker 1:After visiting Helen, we had a bit of a chat about her suggestions for where to go from there and we put together a bit of a plan. So we realize that Ben Lohman National Park, which is where the ski fields in Tasmania are, was not far out of Lonseston, so that's where we went to start our day and, oh my god, ben Lohman is just fantastic, but freezing. You definitely don't want to tow anything up the switchbacks of Jacob's ladder, so at the bottom you could possibly leave it. At the base, which is the first part that you'll see when you turn in, is a cafe and a fireplace. You can continue driving a lot further up there is a campground. We dropped our camper trailer there, thinking, wow, this is a gorgeous place, will stay. But after experiencing a couple of hours of that biting cold wind, we changed our mind.
Speaker 1:It's also really really tight. We struggled to get our camper trailer in and ours is only four and a bit meters long. Imagine it would be impossible with a larger caravan. You just couldn't do it. They're really tight little bays and there's rocks in all the wrong spots.
Speaker 2:And we tried to reverse it in and yeah, we obviously got it in and left it there for the drive up to the top and you know, talking about the elevation change, you know when we drove into that area were about 400 meters and the top of the, the top of the Ben Lohman Drive that we did was 1400 meters. So a one kilometer climb, a one kilometer vertical distance is is significant.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at the profile on the track log while I'm talking to you and you know it was a it was a fairly steep drive and the switchback part so there's a just near, just near the top, there's a thing called Jacob ladder and it's a set of switchbacks for the car and and you know you think you probably like driving through the hills in France and stuff and Switzerland a Nice little switch back. It was a bit of fun. There's nice look out at the top so you can watch all the cars coming up and down. And as we were going through there, there was a guy on his e-mountain bike that started from the bottom and was going to do the whole, the whole, the whole journey up with his e-bike from the base where we had a chat to him.
Speaker 2:He was from WA and Well, he has an ultimate cam he has an ultimate cam trailer and while we were doing the the videoing of the switchbacks and all that sort of stuff for our footage, he comes riding past with his e-bike. So you would do it with an e-bike, you wouldn't do it without an e-bike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's dirt, and it's a dirt off-road, so it wasn't a gravel road, so it's not like it's tar or anything fancy like you might have in Switzerland and France. It's gravel and dirt. But yeah, it was a great place and we went up to the ski fields and we had a look around at the Snow machines and all that was all very closed. There was a very new visitor's shelter it's called tourist shelter, visitor's shelter or something.
Speaker 1:Brand new building, nice, big, internal area, just to let you know how the how the temperature is.
Speaker 2:You go in and the air conditioning is. There's two rooms the entry room, the air conditioning set at 8.9 degrees.
Speaker 2:That's when you enter the building to make it warm and the other room, which is even warmer, is set at 10.9 degrees. So you know you get a whole couple of degrees warming between two rooms and it feels it feels warm in there, even at 10.9, 11 degrees or whatever. It was certainly warmer in there than it was outside, because you're outside with the wind, but air, so nice facilities. Obviously, the whole ski field was completely shut. There was nothing. All the bills, businesses and all the buildings were basically closed.
Speaker 1:There was lots of lodges and and stuff like that, but it is in comparison to where you might think a perisher or a false creek or all those places that we have on the mainland.
Speaker 2:It was just a little ski field, maybe about five or six chair lifts and tea bars and stuff around the place.
Speaker 2:But you know no and there was a walk to the top but was too cold. We couldn't be stuffed, it was just too cold. We basically drove back down the hill, picked up the camper trailer on the way back down, got down to around about the 200 what was it? We got down around about 400 meters and had a lunch. You know where. It was warmer again and we could find a bit of sun that wasn't in the biting cold. We had our lunch then and we continued on on out on our journey, but this is where we made the decision that we would head towards Derby.
Speaker 1:So Derby's been on the horizon for us and one of the reasons we've got our mountain bikes with us because it is a world-renowned mountain biking area and we didn't really know much about it. So we really wanted to go and spend a bit of time there, and on the way, helen had given us a few places to check out along the way, but again it was a weekend and we're getting closer to popular places and we went past a few towns Scottsdale for one, branks Home another, and both of those, the free camps that they have there. These three are the stops. They're okay, they've got all the facilities all set up, but they were literally jammed.
Speaker 2:Scottsdale's one was so packed we couldn't even sneak in, even if you wanted to. A couple of bikers pulled up with tents and they were able to jam themselves basically almost on the road. It was full and there was no way that we would stay there.
Speaker 1:And then. So we drove on a bit further than we wanted to, because from Ben Lowman's we took a forest track.
Speaker 2:So that was at Scottsdale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we took a forest track to get to Scottsdale so we've taken a little bit longer and we've looked at the dam and done all the usual that we do, assuming that we just get to this sleepy little Scottsdale and be able to jag a spot. But, when that was apparent. And then we started continuing on and we get to Branks Home and found the same thing.
Speaker 2:At Branks Home they have this very similar sort of camping facility free camp system there. It's at the back of the cafe and right there on the corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's right, basically right on the corner. We ended up coming back to Branks Home, but we'll talk about that in a minute.
Speaker 2:And again it was just full too many people, and so we had to go to Derby. So we got to Derby. Same thing and worse.
Speaker 1:And so we looked to the campers all along the Ringeroma River. There's three sort of marked out spots where people were all the way from the beginning of town, from the centre of town and then right at the end where the mountain biking is Chock-a-block full People everywhere. And David started to get a bit antsy by this stage. And I'm madly looking on the map, looking at all those places, and I found one that was a hip camp and rang the number and the beautiful lady, rosie, answered the phone, was incredibly helpful and accommodating and she said yep, you can come, there's no one else here. I'm on the other side of the river, turn left, go 2.7km, whatever, it was Fraser's flat. Well, that was as easy as anything and we've arrived there and it's just perfect. We had the whole place to ourselves, about 20 acres.
Speaker 2:It's a humongous paddock but yeah, the bit that we're allowed, the bit that the camping area is in, it's still massive. Yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 1:They only want to have five.
Speaker 2:They've only allocated five sites in there, but it is huge, so there's plenty of room between people if you want to go down there. But yeah, and it's on the Ringeroma River and we just set up camp, basically, and checked in with Rosie about using the fire rings and the firewood that had been left around and all of that was all OK to use, no problem.
Speaker 2:Set up wherever you like. There was a caravan already there that belonged to her daughter or something and they weren't going to be there. But we tend to move away from infrastructure, so even a caravan steered us a bit further away. It is electric fenced around the property to keep the bulls out, to keep the cows and stuff. They weren't in that particular paddock that we were in.
Speaker 1:No, we're not camping with bulls.
Speaker 2:We're not camping with bulls and cows. But the area was still electric fenced and there was one entry to the river up near the caravan. So that was a little bit inconvenient. We had to walk a little bit to get to that.
Speaker 1:Right, we could hear the river because of the way out. Yeah, we could hear the river we could hear the river.
Speaker 2:We basically camped a bit further up the river near the electric fence, but really, you know, it really was a really nice place, a really calm, very easy place to camp Later pushed in the river kayaks provided by her for your convenience.
Speaker 1:So she had four kayaks down by the river.
Speaker 2:She had these mokrami rope swings and things yeah there was no camp signage or anything when we arrived. You know, that seemed a little bit strange. But when Rosie came down and met us, we just got the fire started and we were just sort of getting ourselves organised and Rosie came down and brings a big tub of blueberries that she picked off her tree.
Speaker 1:Oh, blueberries on the spine.
Speaker 2:Off her tree up at the house or whatever. Yeah, and she was lovely and she wanted to show us how to cross the river with our bikes and everything, because there was a river crossing. Obviously, we're on the other side of the river. It's going to be several kays if we had to drive back around the road.
Speaker 1:To get back to Derby for the mountain biking.
Speaker 2:So she wanted to show us how to get through. So, as I say, we just set the fire and we just got ourselves all organised and Rosie came and asked us to go and have a look around and see. She wanted to show us.
Speaker 2:She wanted to show us the way through, and so off we went, walking down the path, down the paddock, to another electric fence, take that one down and another electric fence and take that one down, and then there was the river crossing. It was about 200 metres from camp, or 250 metres from camp where the river crossing was. So she showed us that and showed us where we could see the Platypus and all that, and then, as we were making our way back to the camp, we could see more smoke than we'd expected.
Speaker 1:And a very loud crackle, and lots of crackling noises.
Speaker 2:So we kind of had immediately realised that we'd set fire to the joint. We all started running the fire barrel that we hadn't been used before. It still had some oil remnants in it and we'd lit the fire in it. I was a bit conscious of setting that fire and then Rosie dragging us away.
Speaker 1:We were both a bit conscious of it. We realised it was against our better judgement. But we were kind of being steered by the property owner to come and have a look, we didn't know how far we were going to go, and we had no idea how we were going to go.
Speaker 2:So it was all a series of misfortunate circumstances to add to the hospital, to add to the heating, the pedestrian. We've now set fire to the property and we had the fire I basically heard it as we closed the last electric fence and I'd started running at that point to get back, just to survey the situation and whilst it looked fairly bad I knew it was fairly controllable relatively quickly. The girls jumped into action.
Speaker 1:I was not happy to see red flames under the camper trailer and red flames under the rear of the four-wheel drive, so the back of the car. I was disill. They're not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2:But so there was a bit of fire under the car and a bit of fire under the camper trailer. It had gone basically through. It was around the wheels and the tyres and all that sort of stuff. So we padded that out and put those bits and pieces out.
Speaker 2:Luckily even the back of the stairs. The wrap on the back didn't get singed or anything, but the fire had gone past it. Michelle grabbed the fire extinguisher out from the camper trailer because behind the electric fence was very tall grass. It was like a wheat crop or something. It was very tall and that was where the crackling was coming from.
Speaker 2:It was as tall as me and it was very dry. And that was the bit that was burning. It was behind the electric fence. So we jumped through the electric fence and basically I squirted it with a one kilo dry fire extinguisher and that put 90% of it out. I was able just to stamp out the last few bits and so we were able to get the fire out and under control. But wow, it didn't take long, it was a couple of minutes, and luckily we hadn't crossed the river or spent more time with Rosie down the creek like we were going to.
Speaker 2:It was seconds away from that long tall grass going up into the trees and that just would have gone yeah once it got further into the long it was fairly wet so it wasn't racing away at a really fast rate, but yeah, the potential was there. We were just really lucky to catch it in time. You know, we had a lot of bad luck. We just about done our dash of luck because pedestrian fire, you know, it just hadn't, and then Michelle happened to go to Sydney, it just hadn't been such a very bad run.
Speaker 1:It wasn't a really good start, so we just sat down after that and realized we had to move camp. It's stank. Oh yeah, we had to pick.
Speaker 2:We'd all set up and we'd had everything and we were in exactly the spot we wanted and we had to move because we just couldn't stay there. So yeah, it was like seven o'clock at night, it was getting dark, we had to move out and we had a big day.
Speaker 1:We've done all that. Then loam, and we've done all that, driving trying to find a camp, found the perfect camp and then this happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we set fire to it and had to move.
Speaker 1:It was exhausting.
Speaker 2:So we only moved about 20 metres up the road, up the paddock, but we set camp again and that was it. We ended up staying. We ended up staying there for three, four nights, four nights. We ended up staying there for four nights, Obviously going into Derby with the mountain bikes the next day spectacular All you can say about the mountain biking in Derby is spectacular. It is not easy. By any stretch of the imagination. We're not as young as we used to be we might think we are so we think we can have a go at all these great tracks and all this great stuff and go smashing down these great runs and all that sort of stuff. But we are getting older and you know.
Speaker 1:We're from Perth. We're not set up for all this downhill plava.
Speaker 2:No, no, we get uphill and downhill and the downhill is usually pea gravel and soft, it's not formed and nice and fast and with certain obstacles.
Speaker 2:These are probably built tracks with obstacles of certain grades and stuff, and on the first day we just basically potted around and did a few green climbs and a few green downhills just to get back into it. We've been here a long time since we've done much, and that was a great day. We went and had a beer at the local tavern in town and then we rode our way back and crossed the river to get back to camp and had a great camp. The next day we went and did a bit of driving around. We went to Mount Parris Dam. Oh yeah, mount Parris Dam, lovely place, really nice spot.
Speaker 1:It's actually not a dam.
Speaker 2:It was a dam. It was a dam.
Speaker 1:It was a ruin of the dam wall and what's left is a trickling river coming through it and a little waterfall and ferns. It's just really beautiful spot to go and spend a bit of time.
Speaker 2:And yeah around there.
Speaker 1:we were then able to take a backtrack. We did a big loop around the back of Derby. So from Parris Dam road you then drive through up to one of the trail heads. That is a high point on the mountain biking. The mountain biking trail called Atlas, so we had a look at that and then eventually come to a town called Wilbur, and that also is a point on one of the mountain biking tours. If you want to do the blue tier, it comes down from blue tier to Wilbur. So we had a look at Wilbur. There's a lovely camping out there and it's got a historic hotel as well.
Speaker 2:Just a quaint little town, everything here is just quaint little towns, no shops, and it's also to old school. You know, the buildings and everything are so, you know, historically aged.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very quiet, there's not that much new stuff.
Speaker 2:Very scenic. It's easy to travel in. Wilbur was a great little thing.
Speaker 1:And then from Wilbur it's just farming country following the main road back around the loop, coming back into Derby and back to our camp at Fraser's Plats Rosie's property, her hip camp and I think that night we then had the first visitors arrive. No, we didn't. That was when she set up, okay.
Speaker 2:No, we came back that day and her husband was there with the bobcat and Rosie and her husband they came back with the low load of bobcat and and trade with it and big scoops full of sand and clay and stuff and they were there to pig out the sights and to set up the fire pits there was this decision in a proper way, rather than just having the firing sitting on the grass.
Speaker 1:Why did we set fire to the grass? Why would we put a fire ring on the grass? It wasn't really grass, it's it was. It had all been freshly mowing and it was quite dry and very short. There was like no long grass. There was no grass.
Speaker 2:It had been slashed and it was basically just dirt, but it had enough enough, enough dead grass on it to to make that fire just move away. And you know, rosie basically had decided after that that they'd better get their campsite set up in order, and it was then that we found out that she'd only actually put had the idea to do the campsite two weeks ago and we were like very early on very first customers, and so she came down the next day and handed over five campsite signs to me and said can you go and lay out my campsites for me and, and which we we helped.
Speaker 2:We, we walked around with her and tried to lay it out. She pretty much knew where she wanted to go anyway, because she'd seen how previous groups had camped in the place, which again is different, probably how we camp. Well, we go the furthest one out. If you go to, if you go to, if you go to the Fraser's flats and your camping campsite five, that's where we were and you'll see that we're a little bit further away than the one, two, three and four sites. That's just how we roll. But we help Rosie work out where the fire rings and the fire pitch should go, and the husband's there with the low load of bobcat making trips back up to the dirt pile to bring back more dirt, to create little mounds for the fire rings to go on, and so basically, that night they pegged out the campsites in the locations and in it, and that was because the next day they had another set of travelers coming to stay that had a booking on the hip camp system.
Speaker 1:So that was great little bit of fun setting up, helping helping them set up their campsite what was interesting about that is like when we're talking about the layout of the camp, we had sort of knowing she was going to ask us for some advice about where to set up the camps, and so David had been walking around the property and he had a bit of a thinker that move this fence here and pull that back there and create a dedicated area for camping. So when she came down and asked our help, the first questions we asked her was you know what is this place like at different times of year? And that's when we were hit with the reality of the whole place camp area camping is about it was about six or seven meters underwater.
Speaker 2:One one in one flood event.
Speaker 1:That happens once a year yeah, once to twice a year they have a flood event.
Speaker 2:They know when it's coming because it's when so many inches of rain falls at a certain spot. They know that the river is going to be full and it gets eight or so meters over the campground. So, in terms of moving the fences or slashing the grass to let people, so that grass that we set fire to instead of slashing that to give you access to the river, they want that grass to stay and find as much as possible to hold the banks together when the floods come yeah so they aren't really keen to chop all that down and so learning, learning how that works you know how the flood comes and how that's going to impact on things made me realize that you know my grand plans and my great thoughts about how you could make a world-class camping area here.
Speaker 1:We're all squashed because it wasn't going to work all year no, they knew what they were doing. She yeah, I mean they've been living there for 35 years. There it's a dairy cattle farm, so she knew all that and she knew her land. She just hadn't really thought about all the logistics of the camping and hadn't got that fully set up. But a great place to go and camp, a great and rosy, lovely person.
Speaker 2:Thank you, rosie, for putting up with us, if you do happen to listen to this. We had a great time at your site and we'll recommend it to others for sure. We also went so that same night when the people were going to come. The night after we'd set up the camps, we went and did another day of mountain biking and we went and did the shuttle services, where you take the little shuttle, buses and buggies and things from the bottom of the hill, they drive you up to the top of the hill and then you can basically do downhill, downhill mountain biking courses based on your level of skill and you can do different sorts of tours and trips around from the top to various different locations.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there's gotta be about 30 miles. It's all mapped, it's all available and they're so nice.
Speaker 2:You know the paths. While some of them are really technical, some of them are not so technical. There's some really nice sections. You can go through excellent views.
Speaker 1:It's all through the forest rain forest with big man ferns and just and it all and it all links and it all works, you know.
Speaker 2:So they've done an unbelievably good job. We had a good day a few more spills, bit of GoPro fail footage and you know I say fail because we didn't have it mounted exactly right. So we've got a whole day of handlebars and bikes and not much of the view. But you know what a spectacular place if you're into mountain biking and you don't know about Derby, you should.
Speaker 2:There's a million YouTube videos you can look up and see all the pros doing the now you all the pros doing the triple, double black, diamond, bloody things and things like that. You know that we wouldn't even attempt check it out. It's, it's very much.
Speaker 1:I should mention about the difference between the e-mountain bikes on that those trails, and our bikes, which are not e and we use cleats and the whole lot. The place is set up for any type of bike you want. There's not a lot of uphill but there's about 30% uphill elevation in every downhill trail that they build. That sort of part of what the mass trail building masses about.
Speaker 1:When you talk to, the guys are explaining all that, yeah, but a lot of people just ride it with flat pedals. Yep, you can hire an unlimited number of bikes in the town. There's about ten different bike shops in the main street and that's your pick and in Derby, that's all there is.
Speaker 2:There's two pubs, there's a, there's a. There's a pub bottle shop, a hotel cafe, a pit stop cafe, distillery it sounds like there's a lot, but you can't actually buy any groceries and You've got very limited access to medical supplies or medical. There's none of that there's a lot of bike shops and Two fuel stops and that's kind of it. So don't go to Derby expecting to buy your groceries because you won't, you can't, really you can't buy almost anything there. So the post office seems to be the one that has some stuff.
Speaker 1:We didn't actually end up going in there because it was a weekend and yeah, because it was the weekend, so it's not the place to go shopping, it's the place to go mountain biking but it's only about an hour and a bit out of lawn system, so it is very busy on weekends and all the locals come, so really friendly people Honestly have an awesome time there. But yeah, if you're traveling, try and avoid the weekend, yep.
Speaker 2:So we did our next day of mountain biking there and had a terrific time, and After that we went back to the camp that night and the people that were actually in the campsite that had come into the hip camp were Explorers, travel app users, and they loved the app and they were really, they were really happy and pleased to see us and David and Ruth, yeah, and decided that they'd make a fire and invited us over to their fire and we had a.
Speaker 1:We definitely went to their fire, and didn't we?
Speaker 2:went to their fire, so we didn't burn the place down with our fire. And they had a huge fire had a huge fire because they had it in the biggest, the biggest truck truck tire rim, the two other truck or tractor rim that there was on the property and and so that was great and then after that we we basically left there and Thought I will just duck back into Branks home to pick up a few supplies because we couldn't get anything in Derby, not knowing what we were going to go through for the next day.
Speaker 2:And then we decided that we'd head up through Gladstone and up towards where we currently are at Stump his bay in Mount William National Park and the weather has been mint. The weather has been mint. So we spent four nights at Rosie's, we spent two nights at narrow, one to poo, and we spent two or three nights at old max.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've done five camps in two weeks. Yeah, well, we're here, and we've traveled 160 kilometers, according to a navigator, from point to point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but 700 Weeks to do the whole of Tassie yeah, it doesn't it doesn't look like we're gonna be leaving when we might have this first thought provider that we can get out of the place. But so anyway, we're going through Gladstone On our way up here. We we were a bit supply short. You know we'd run out of bread and stuff, so we were trying to work out what we're going to do with. We'd run out of grog as well, and you know you can't run out of wine. That's disaster, the thing. That's a real disaster If we've actually run out of coffee and we're on decaf and we've got eight coffee pods left. We've got two coffee machines, we've got all the coffee machines in the world, but we've only got eight pods of decaf until we get somewhere.
Speaker 1:So because none of these places sell pods.
Speaker 2:They don't we may have to. We may have to move soon.
Speaker 1:They only have an Ska.
Speaker 2:So we went to Gladstone on our way through and picked up a few supplies. They've got a good bottle shop there. It's small but it's good. It's got a good supply They've. They had a Small grocery shop at the service station where you could buy a few things.
Speaker 1:It added up to $35 somehow $5 for a head of lettuce, yeah whatever.
Speaker 2:Whatever it costs, you know you just pay because you're there and it was great.
Speaker 2:So we got all of that, and then we came over to Mount William National Park and into the campsite that we're actually in shooting these videos. This is Stumpy's Bay, campsite 2. We're at the southern end of it, probably in the most tree-sheltered spot, and all these Tasmanian people that come here often seem to stay up the other end there, where there seems to be a little bit more sunshine One that's good for your solar charging and two that's probably good because it's a bit warmer. But we've had a really nice time here. It's been really relaxing. This is our Fifth day.
Speaker 1:We've done four nights already, I think so you can pay $13 a night in the National Parks, but on your fourth night it's better to pay the weekly fee, because it's only $50. We have $50 for a week and it was my birthday yesterday, so we didn't want to drive off yesterday, so that would have been the fourth night.
Speaker 2:So that's why we thought I will just pay the weekly fee and we'll stay here again and we'll talk to our lovely audience, and so that's why we've decided to do these podcasts from here. But Stumpy's Bay and Mount William National Park We've been here for four days now. We had a really lovely walk down past what are the rocks called?
Speaker 1:It's called Cobbler Rocks, so it's a sign walk.
Speaker 2:There's a sign walk. You can head down to where Stumpy's Bay campsite 4 is, and there's a sign walk to Cobbler Rocks. It says something like a two-hour return or something we walked down. It's basically walking down an old fire trail, which wasn't very exciting really until you get to the end. It was a boring walk and then you get to the beach and then it's lovely and there's Rocks and pools and there's a river, a creek, coming in, a Really lovely spot. We made the call to actually walk back along the beach, I think you kind of probably meant to do that.
Speaker 2:We walked back along the beach From there, traversed a few rocky headland parts and over some of the rocks and stuff that are around the area. Beautiful place, weather was perfect, the wildlife, the birds, everything's been fantastic and that was a that was a great walk. So we walked back, basically to the car, and that was the other day. Yesterday, after Michelle's birthday Happy birthday, michelle we decided to do a bit of a road trip and so we went up to Mussel.
Speaker 2:Road Bay and and had a look in there and pedal point and pedal point. There was some. There was a couple of camps up there, some free camps around the wind farm up there Another great spot. I still think we probably picked the nicest.
Speaker 1:We've looked at all the campsites top camp, mussel Road Bay and pedal point. They're all good, but Stumpy's offers a lot more Beach access, bit better camping areas, the swimming area. It's absolutely gorgeous. At Mussel Road Bay, unfortunately, there's a. It fringes onto some private property and there's a lot of Signage, very heavy worded signage about keep out private property. All of this, and the most spectacular part, you can't even access.
Speaker 1:So you're actually on the river, not on the beach proper, but you can walk out to the beach except that there's a sign at the moment, so you can't walk out because it's bird nesting endangered bird nesting and the.
Speaker 1:The whole access from the canberra to the beach would be closed because you can't walk over the flat you have to drive and there's one tiny little lookout gorgeous as it is and you can go down, so just not quite as convenient as it is. Here at Stumpy's we are literally we've got a water view from our setup here. Yeah, I can see the beautiful blue water and hear the waves lapping. And look to me. That's what I'm after for a camp. I'm a protected under the trees. Here for the evening you can go and sit out in the sun at the beach and go for a walk and the water is Swimmable, but it is frightfully cold. Yeah, someone reckoned it was 18 degrees, but I think it would be 16.
Speaker 2:I know no, the 18. So we did the Mussel Road Bay and the Little Mussel Road Bay and we also did Cape Portland. That was where Little.
Speaker 2:Mussel Road Bay and Cape Portland and Petal Point are all up on that point there. And then as we came back down, back back down the Cape Portland Road, we were only two K's out of Gladstone, so we just ducked back in to retop up on the Grog shop and the food shop. Still no, still no access to the coffee pods. But on our way back again through there, we decided to do the, the Forrester Kangaroo Drive. We didn't actually see a Forrester Kangaroo During the Forrester Kangaroo Drive, but we did go to the Mount William Walk. So the summit walk from Mount William.
Speaker 2:That was about a 50-minute walk, 45 50-minute walk from the, from the car park to the top. Have a look around and come back down. That was great too. That's also published in the track log system now, if you're wanting to have a look at that oh, have I published it yet? I might not have published it yet. It'll be published by the time this podcast reaches you and it'll be under Mount William. And then, yeah, back to the campsite and a day of Podcast this morning and we'll work out what we're going to do this afternoon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unfortunately it's a little bit cool this morning. It's the first day in Tasmania I've actually won a jumper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:We don't know where we're going to next, exactly.
Speaker 1:We're going that way, we're going to go to the Bay of Fies and Helen's all that area but I don't know exactly how that's going to pan out, where we're going to camp, what we're going to do. We know where all the camps are. It just is a matter of what it's like when we get there. We came through here and we did camp in the Bay of Fies and Helen's area, went to Binelong Bay 20 years ago, in 2004, and already I can see how much this part of Tasmania has changed. So it's really good re-exploring and taking it really slowly and we're really loving the pace that we're going 160 kilometers in two weeks.
Speaker 2:Well, no, seven hundred and something kilometers, but only a hundred fifty yeah whatever a distance. So also make sure Remember that the tracking system is is a value. You can have a look at our tracking so you can keep up with Pretty much every movement that the car makes is a visible on our publicly available trucker system on the Explorer's website.
Speaker 1:Put links on the Facebook page. So, that you can easily follow the link and get to that page, so that page auto updates as new positions come in. So as we move, it moves and so you can see us moving.
Speaker 2:You can see the current speed and exact position and where we stop each night. As mark, you can see pretty much you can see pretty much everything, and that's part of that feature within the traveler app.
Speaker 1:As a member.
Speaker 2:The other thing we've also done is today I've just published the last three track logs, or three track logs of the journey so far, which is Perth to Sydney, sydney to Geelong and Davenport to Stumpy's too. So if you're interested in having a look at that data, you can have a look at in track logs or, again, you can see the whole lot in the tracking system. So thanks for watching, watching us from Stumpy's to here in Tassie, and Next time when we catch up with you will still be in Tassie, we'll just be a bit further south. We might have only done another 150 Ks in two weeks, and then our timeline would be in trouble, but that's what it's all about. That's why we're here. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you on the next podcast.
Speaker 1:Yep, thanks Bye.