Tasmania Part 4 of 4: Lake Pedder to Cradle Valley

Step into the final episode of our 4-part Tasmanian journey, recorded amid our sunny 2024 summer expedition. If you've been following along, you'll know we landed in Tasmania back in January, embarking on a dual work/holiday escapade. Our trusty 200 series Landcruiser and Ultimate offroad camper trailer have been our faithful companions as we crisscrossed the apple isle, gathering insights for the ExplorOz Traveller app.

Our podcast isn't just about our exploits; it's a treasure trove for fellow travelers. Tune in for recommended destinations, ideal camping spots, duration suggestions, and a peek into our road life as we map and update for ExplorOz. If you're tuning in sequentially, start from Ep 14 for the full journey.

This episode resumes near Lake Pedder in South West National Park, weaving through our trails, highs, lows, and the essence of Tasmanian exploration: hikes, free camps, national parks, waterfalls, rainforests, lakes, beaches, caves, 4WD tracks, mountain bike parks, state forests, distilleries, historic sites, power stations, wasp encounters, berry-picking, challenging terrains, weather swings, holiday planning tips, StarLink navigation, and the routine adventures of road life—battery woes, extending your Tassie stay, securing your Parks Pass, and ferry reservations aboard the Spirit of Tasmania.

We traverse South West National Park, the Needles, Maydena, Mount Field, River Derwent, Ouse, Victoria Valley, Waddamana, Great Lakes, Penstock Lagoon, Miena, Highland Lakes Road, Projection Bluff, Central Highlands, the Great Western Tiers, Liffey Falls, Deloraine, Oura Oura, Mount Roland,  Mole Creek,  Lake Parangana, Honeycomb Caves, Railton, Sheffield,  the Wild Mersey MTB trails, Borradaile Plains, Moina, Cethana, Cradle Valley, and the hikes on Cradle Mountain, Dove Lake, Horse Track, Overland Track, and everything in between before eventually heading north via Waratah, Burnie, Penguin and then into Devonport to board the ferry back to the mainland.

So, fasten your seatbelt, savor a Tasmanian single malt, and journey with us through the thrill, mishaps, and pure bliss of exploring Tasmania.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:04

Okay, so it's been a while since we last recorded a podcast and a lot of things have happened since then. But just to backtrack where our last podcast ended off, we were at Lake Edgar in Tasmania, in the Southwest National Park. So we have actually spent in total 12 weeks touring around Tasmania, so in this episode we're going to try and fill in the final section of the Tasmanian trip. So from Lake Edgar, which we've already mentioned in the previous podcast so if you want to learn about that one, jump back an episode From here you have to actually double back on your drive. So there were some things that we'd seen along the way and we'd earmarked as places that we wanted to stop at. Um, we'd been given recommendations, as you do, from other travelers, about worthwhile places to stop, so we didn't get very far out of lake edgar on our first day pulling out of there basically, that's not getting very far on a day of traveling.

Speaker 2: 2:04

That always seems to happen. We went, we went with one plan and, as usually and it always happens I decided I had to climb up this thing called the Needles and that was a great little climb. So if you're going out that way past Medina or into that sort of area, it's not a simple one. It's a bit steep. It was a bit of fun. It took me I don't know an hour or an hour and a half.

Speaker 2: 2:25

Um, it's a basically straight up and there's some wonderful views up there. So we we did that. We also did another thing called what was that? The little teeny, weeny walks. Is that the creepy crawly walk? And something like that.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Can I just mention one of the reasons that we wanted to climb that needles um and you, if you've been there, you'll know this and if you're about to go there, prepare yourselves. The views here of these amazing steep, rugged, scottish looking um craigy cliffs is really spectacular. And there's the hikes there are really that are posted are too hard, they're so long and like we're really into our hiking but we just weren't set up for multi-day hikes and they're really long and they're just hard to do casually. But this needles thing looked like we could just pull over by the side of the road, scramble up the hills about a kilometer up to the top. So we thought, yay, let's do that. And the view from the top is really fun. If you're really into your photography, stand at the top there and look down. You get this beautiful winding road and there was groups of motorcyclists fanging along. So snaking along on this narrow road through the beautiful craggy views was great.

Speaker 2: 3:32

So on a good day it's just a good spot to enjoy the scenery before you head out of that area and that's about the last of the views there yeah, that's about the last of things to do in that kind of yeah, what would you call the area central, central inland? I don't know what they actually call that area. I I know central plateau, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 3:46

So for us, we had also gone past Medina. Now, anyone that's into mountain biking will probably already know that Medina has earned its place on the map of Tasmania because it has quite a world-renowned mountain biking downhill bike park. And our bad luck is that it was a competition weekend so it was really crowded, but we still really wanted to go. Unfortunately we just missed the season, so it's not.

Speaker 1: 4:16

At that time it was no longer the summer, so it wasn't open every day and you could only. It was only open friday to monday, yep, and we came through, like on the sunday or or other, so I went in and I was overwhelmed, to be honest. There was a smorgasbord, as if you're at a ski lift area working out what costs what, and I couldn't get out of there other than spending $70 to get a lift pass, and we weren't really sure that it was the sort of mountain biking that we wanted to do. I think we got a bit spoilt at Derby, which is all rainforest and everything. Medina is pretty hardcore. Everyone was in their fancy helmets, downhill helmets.

Speaker 2: 4:56

And.

Speaker 1: 4:57

I was just going, I'm going to die. I've had enough falls.

Speaker 2: 5:00

It looked like it was going to hurt if we went to Medina.

Speaker 1: 5:02

We're too old maybe, and we're still on our pedal-powered bikes, not e-bikes, and I don't know we were getting to this point with the biking that. There was a few other spots that we thought we'd do Railton and Sheffield.

Speaker 2: 5:16

We did mark some others yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Look, we spent a really good time having a look at it and just drove on.

Speaker 2: 5:22

And just after we left Medina, we end up at Mountfield National Park.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Yeah, now Mountfield National Park is really popular and it was a place that we'd been recommended by others that said, oh my God, it's the best waterfalls we've ever been to. Highly recommend we got there. It was so busy. This is not a peaceful national park.

Speaker 2: 5:45

It was a Sunday. Yeah, it was a long weekend as well.

Speaker 1: 5:47

It's probably school holidays Every weekend in. Yeah, it was a long weekend as well. It was probably school holidays and all that.

Speaker 2: 5:49

Every weekend in Tasmania seems to be a long weekend.

Speaker 1: 5:52

At the end of summer it is. Yeah, Look, we managed to be able to whiz around and do all the waterfalls on the circuit hike just using the Visitor Day car park, and we got through that quite quickly.

Speaker 2: 6:04

We were a little bit deflated.

Speaker 1: 6:06

The caravan park was full. If it wasn't, we probably would have stayed. We were getting a bit tired we'd had a big day.

Speaker 2: 6:12

The camping area, probably the caravan park, yeah, I think it's run by caretakers.

Speaker 1: 6:15

whatever the hiking, the trails, lovely rainforest and all but no different to anywhere else we'd already been. We've seen a lot of beautiful waterfalls and rainforests.

Speaker 2: 6:27

It was very well formed and had disabled facilities and disabled access, which is obviously something important if you need that kind of stuff, so it was very tourist friendly.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Yeah, it was more mainstream and, given that most people weren't in hiking shoes, they were wearing white sneakers and white jumpers and they're best clothes and they were able to stay on a form path and there were some steps and all of that.

Speaker 1: 6:52

That wasn't challenging at all for anyone that's done the sort of hikes that we've been doing, but certainly it's a more user-friendly way to get into the rainforest for those that are less inclined to do some of the type of hikes that we've mentioned before on our channel that we do. So we chose not to stay Again. Again, we moved on and we had a number of campsites as potentials and a bit of a route mapped out, because we needed to start heading north and then eventually a little bit inland further to eventually get to cradle valley, which we decided was going to be the end point of our trip, and we'd make a final dash to get onto the ferry at the end. So basically, from there to Cradle Valley, we had another couple of weeks and we were just sort of following our nose and stopping at what we wanted to stop at. A couple of highlights we loved a free camp, bethune.

Speaker 2: 7:43

Bethune Park Camp Area On the River Derwent.

Speaker 1: 7:47

We found a lot of berries that you could free pick by the side of the road, the good old Tasmanian produce that you can pick a blackberry over the fence, gorge yourself on fresh food Did a bit of that. Wineries up in that area are fabulous. In fact.

Speaker 2: 8:02

We found a distillery and that had David's name all over it, and although it, was nine o'clock or 10 o'clock in the morning 10 o'clock in the morning and you lobbed past and the sign said open.

Speaker 2: 8:10

So what better opportunity to go and drink gin and whiskey than 10 o'clock in the morning on a Monday? Yeah, it was. The place we're talking about is Lorraine Estate. Fantastic, the owner there, the guy he was running the place and he was the owner. He was running the place and he was the owner. He was very accommodating. He opened up the whole distillery and he showed us around all the barrelling areas and the kegs and he went through the whole process and, being a gin distiller myself, I make gin at home. He gave me the I'd always wanted to do whiskies and he gave me the whole process and he showed me all the machinery they use and how it all works and it was really fantastic. And they had I don't know five or six whiskeys and five or six gins and we tried them all at 10 o'clock in the morning, 11 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 1: 8:52

I didn't think I could manage it, but once we started it was easy enough. Except it wasn't so much easier leaving and driving away we got the personalised service because we were his first customers, but literally we would have had a personalised tour that went at least an hour. Oh, it was an hour and a half, I think, before we actually left, but we did spend a fair bit of money.

Speaker 2: 9:11

Yeah, we spent a fortune. We bought some whiskey, we bought some gin One of the things about touring around and buying and going to wineries and distilleries and your wine collection and all that sort of stuff I always keep saying to everybody you know, I don't just go to a winery to hear a story, and it's the story that sells the product. And you know, when you for me going into a winery and going into this laurenia state and speaking to the owner there and having this great tour and a completely ad hoc thing that all came about, it was really easy to spend five or six hundred dollars because it was just such a good, a good time, was good value and, um, I've still got the whiskey. I've got to actually open that one. I haven't cracked my head on that one yet.

Speaker 2: 9:53

But I think we drank all the gins before we left Tasmania. That was about three bottles, but anyway, we digress.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Gordon, you're making it sound like we drink too much. Well, we're Alcos.

Speaker 2: 10:01

Yeah, it sounds like it, but basically after La Rennie or any, we went to the first town we'd been to because we were running out of groceries and things as well was Ouse O-U-S-E is the name of the town.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Oh well, it's very exciting. They had a sign that called my name I-G-A.

Speaker 2: 10:16

I-G-A.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Come in, michelle. I know that sounds really boring, but we really were having such an unplanned trip that we never knew how long we were going to stay somewhere and how many supplies would last. Um, and we like and we prefer to eat fresh fruit and vegetables predominantly, and there's only so long that can last. So, you know, we were getting to the bottom of the the fridge and, um, of course we've got tin food and I can make bread and all of that, but that's the emergency stuff, yeah, so really, um, going to the igas just to sort of top up on the niceties yeah and oh, we got a gas bottle refill there.

Speaker 2: 10:54

That was exciting too, because we needed some fuel and there was all sorts of. There was all sorts of things. We were able to do it had been, it had been, it had been probably weeks since we'd actually found an iga. So, um, you know, even, even because we'd been out at the Lake Petra and stuff, you know we'd been there for quite a number of days, there was no shops out there and you know we'd been down south before that there wasn't many shops down there either.

Speaker 2: 11:20

So we basically cut this path of trying to cut across, you know, from the bottom corner to Cradle Valley in a sort of a straight line and we were basically taking every off-road road and everything that we could do to sort of do that at a diagonal.

Speaker 1: 11:34

And we had a few misadventures Nothing.

Speaker 2: 11:38

Oh, a few roads that you get up to. You drive a couple of Ks and then you get a no-through road or a fence or something.

Speaker 1: 11:43

But it's worth exploring and that's all the fun of it, and that's what we do, and it's all part of the mapping updates.

Speaker 2: 11:48

They're all part of the map updates, so it's important for us. You know, we see a road and we'll have a go and we'll get halfway along and there might be a fence that says this is permanently closed or closed. Well, all of a sudden, we have a mapping update, and so that's part of our job and that's what we do it for to go, so you don't have to have misadventures in trying to drag a heavy trailer up this monstrous hill Now.

Speaker 1: 12:10

I'm not sure if Wondermarfa Wondermar what is it called Wondermatter?

Speaker 2: 12:15

Oh, is that what it's called, wondermatter the?

Speaker 1: 12:16

power station. I'm not sure if it was a hot tip we'd been given or we saw it on our map.

Speaker 2: 12:21

I think we just lobbed at it, but we just turned up Wondermanner.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Wondermanna, okay, and it's just at the bottom of the Great Lakes, really, and that you need to allocate a couple of hours, for If you're one of these people, that is passionate about old engineering and mechanics A mechanic junkie and engineering and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 12:40

if you get off on all that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: 12:42

You'll love it.

Speaker 2: 12:42

It was fantastic you know they've got. It was basically a fully functioning nine turbine power station up until not so long ago, and you know so they've made it a full museum now. So they've got all the original turbine generators and all the bits and pieces are all still all in there, and what they've done is they've like cut open all the chassis of things so you can actually look inside how all these things work. We had a good time All free. There was no charge. Yeah, I was just about I'm looking at the place. It was a free open daily free for self-guided tours.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Now, having said that it's self-guided, you usually do get an introduction by the caretaker there, the the on-site guy, who will give you a bit of a summary of the history, which you can sense the passion that's run by volunteers. It's an amazing building, so it is quite a nice spot and they do have picnic grounds outside and a coffee van and things like that.

Speaker 2: 13:35

If you're in the area, and that's well worth doing. There are close camps.

Speaker 2: 13:43

The camps that we actually made for ourselves that night, which is just how this whole power station worked was. It comes from the Great Lakes. They pipe some water to another small lagoon, which was called Penstock Lagoon, and then and Penstocks if you know about this power generation technology, Penstocks are the tubes that run. They run down the sides of the mountain where the water is coming down under pressure into the turbines at the bottom, and so this penstock lagoon is just up the hill from the power station, funnily enough, and it was fantastic.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Yeah, there's about five free designated campsites um. Some have toilets pit toilets but they're very clean and all new. And then all fire. You can fire there, but the lagoon itself um is well used by locals um fly fishing um and they're out there in their waders but you can have a boat there. We've got stand-up paddle boards um. We found a little bit tricky from the camp that we chose to stay at um to get to the water's edge. It was a bit marshy and a bit boggy.

Speaker 1: 14:45

So we just sat back and enjoyed the view. Black swans everywhere um. We had more wallabies coming up to the campfire. Do you remember we had service? I had, oh no, the only reason we had service was starling starling.

Speaker 2: 14:56

Okay, I remember the phone call. You've got to remember. We have starling, we have service wherever we go. So there's no service, no service. I don't think oh no, we have 3g on our PLI symbols for that place, so maybe there was service.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Well, 3g must have been a bit patchy 3G, 4G.

Speaker 2: 15:12

You know we've got the symbol on our campsite, so it must have had some level of service.

Speaker 1: 15:17

So this area is just south of Miena, the Great Lakes, and then driving up through Miena, we're getting into the Central Highlands, and for us, we are on a mission to check out another hot tip we've been given Apparently, the Liffey Falls is a fabulous waterfall, so we thought we'd go and look at that. On the way in, the most significant natural landform is this rocky bluff called Projection Bluff. It looked magnificent. There is a hike to it, but the weather started to turn for us, um, and so we ended up in a weather pattern for the next week and a half. Where our plans for all the hiking in this incredible area of the central highlands, where it was a hiker's paradise, um, we, we had a few complications because some of these hikes would have been a little bit dangerous In the wet and the sleet and it was starting to get cold.

Speaker 1: 16:15

We did go to Liffey Falls just before the rain started and we could have walked on a perfect day. But waterfall and coming rain. We thought, well, why don't we wait for the rain to make perfect waterfalls? And that was a good decision. So we walked after a massive downpour but we did.

Speaker 2: 16:30

The day that it was raining we did a road tour, so we did we did a bit of a drive around um and and had a bit of a look around. Did we get as far as mole creek and stuff that day? I don't think we did. We did it. We did basically a few loops around um, some of the roads in there, um, we went to deloraine and oh yeah, so from this part of Tasmania everything's fairly accessible and you're getting into the central north area.

Speaker 1: 16:54

Deloraine is a major shopping point yeah and for us again, we still hadn't got enough supplies, so we needed to head into Deloraine to spend more time waiting out the weather. So we ended up in Deloraine I, I think, in the next stage of our final stage of our tasmanian trip. I think we went four times or something like that anyway it had a big woolies and oh, we needed to get prescriptions filled and you know you can do all of that and there's quirky cafes. It's actually a lot bigger and more fun.

Speaker 2: 17:23

Yeah, deloray was quite a quite a nice little, quite a nice little town had an organic oh it, oh it actually had a Woolworths.

Speaker 1: 17:28

We actually had a shop there. We went there a couple of times that was a shop.

Speaker 2: 17:31

That's why we went there four times. It had a shop.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Yeah, liffey Falls.

Speaker 2: 17:34

Liffey Falls Fantastic Okay.

Speaker 1: 17:37

There's two places that you can access the hike. You either drive up the hill and park in the Dagus Car Park or you drive down to the bottom of the falls and a much longer walk to come up, but a beautiful rainforest walk where the campground is it's actually down at the bottom.

Speaker 2: 18:02

It's not actually near the top there, so the campsite is down the river a bit. I think it was 3km, wasn't it 2 or 3km? I've got the file here.

Speaker 2: 18:11

We did 10km of hiking that day, so it must have been a reasonable walk. I'm just looking at we did 10.4 case, but we did a fair bit because not only did we walk up the track to the falls, we went to all of the lookouts. We then went to the car park. We went to the other end of it and walked around where there's a big tree and some toilets and other stuff. That's at the actual car parking at upper liffey falls or the Liffey Falls main entranceway. But that whole hike and the whole place, it was really wonderful. Obviously, we'd come in just after the rain and the water was pumping and the waterfalls were flowing. Yeah, it was a very spectacular place.

Speaker 1: 18:51

We stayed there what? Three months or something, I think, in the end, by the time that was all said and done.

Speaker 2: 19:00

But you got stung by a wasp or a hornet or something. Oh my god, yeah, to put a picture in your mind. You know you walk around with shorts on right um, you walk around with shorts on, so I was just walking around and there was a. When we arrived, there was like there was. There was obviously something on the ground or something had happened. There was thousands of these bee-type wasps. I think they were a wasp.

Speaker 1: 19:17

We picked this great campsite.

Speaker 2: 19:18

But I said to Dave oh, no, there's bees on the ground, or?

Speaker 1: 19:21

whatever it is, I go. I don't think this is where we want to camp. And you discounted it, saying no, it'll be fine, it'll be fine, they'll go away.

Speaker 2: 19:31

I shouldn't have discounted it, I was getting something out of the car and one of those little buggers flew up the gap in my shorts, up my leg, you know, up my pants, and I kind of didn't realise it was there, and then I just bent my legs which has obviously squished my pants against my leg, and the little guy decided that that was enough to throw in the sting. Oh, that was brutal, brutal that took about four days for that one.

Speaker 2: 19:59

That was really. That was a beauty. It hurt. It hurt like a bee. I thought it was a bee for a while and then it just, it just didn't go away for a long time.

Speaker 1: 20:07

They didn't go until the rain showers had gone through, yeah, um, until the weather had completely changed. So it was quite humid when we got there originally. And lot of camps. It's quite popular and most people just come one night, two nights.

Speaker 1: 20:21

This is the lower liffey falls camping reserve so if you're in tasmania you see these little waspy bees and stuff they strongly urge you to try not to get stung, yeah look, the main thing to make people aware of if you are going to that place and you're towing a caravan, even our camper trailer the winding road in the most direct road down from Deloraine down to there past the junction, it's pretty sketchy. So we decided we'd check out the tourist drive and it's all flat. So the long way around from Deloraine via liffey, and if you do that you'll go past ura ura, which is where um bob brown, the former um senator for the greens party, um he has set up, so it's now set up with the well it's where he used to live and it's now set up as a museum.

Speaker 1: 21:12

I think it's got the lovely home and now it's his museum and now it's a museum, so that's a great place.

Speaker 2: 21:17

And, yeah, that little sneaky drive around it's on. Is that on Bogan Road? I think I've got it on the map here, I think it was something like that. So you come in on a slightly different road and it's much flatter and it was a lot easier. So you wouldn't really take a big van to this place. It's still fairly steep and that, but you a lot easier to get in.

Speaker 1: 21:36

um yeah, um. So it's bush heritage australia um yeah and they, they manage it. And we happen to be there when, um the caretaker was just walking around and we had a wonderful chat with him. If we'd realised it was there, I was thrilled because I'd seen the movie that had come out only end of last year with Bob Brown, the Tasmanian one that features the little cottage there. So if you'd seen that movie as well I think it's called Giants, I think it's called Giants, something like that.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Yeah, the road is Gulf Road. Yeah, it's a goodants. I think it's called Giants, something like that. Yeah, the road is Golf Road.

Speaker 1: 22:16

Yeah, it's a good spot to go and allocate a little bit of time to go and have a look, because you've got to go on a bit of a hike and have a look around, yeah, so we had a bit of a hiccup when we left there. It wasn't long past there and we got a phone call from one of our kids saying that he had just written off his brother's car. So our two sons have been living in our house while we've been away on this trip. They've had the responsibility of keeping the fort, and this was not the phone call that you want to have, because of course I thought he was injured.

Speaker 1: 22:48

The first thing that came out of his mouth he was in the car. He just had the accident. And look, long story short, I'm not going to bore you with the details, but it really has changed our trip and I wanted to go home and so we're sitting by the side of the road I'm crying. Dave is going. What do I do? Unhappy passenger here and we had unfinished business with Tasmania because we still hadn't got to Cradle Valley and we hadn't been there. The 20 years ago we tried to get to cradle valley. So we're really torn. But he found me a spot on a plane and he could get us on the ferry in two days time and the shock had passed.

Speaker 2: 23:40

We we worked out the logistics and the requirements and it wasn't as critical as we. I mean, it is critical, it was critical, it is critical, it has been critical. It still is kind of critical, yeah, but it wasn't something that we were going to be able to fix in five minutes, so we decided to put that one on the side burner.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Stay calm and carry on. Yes.

Speaker 2: 24:00

So after Liffey and that kind of area and dropping into Deloraine and having a look around there, we basically housed ourselves at Mole Creek Castle National Park.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Yeah, so Mole Creek is very easily accessible from Deloraine and we got to this spot on a hot tip from a friend and it's a spot where there's honeycomb caves.

Speaker 2: 24:20

Yeah, so you can go. You can go sort of free caving on your own in there. Um, they were quite. That was a good bit of fun.

Speaker 1: 24:27

It wasn't super spectacular or anything wonderful, but lots of caves goes for a long way if you've got your headlamp, you've got to take headlamps and you can go in quite a long way.

Speaker 2: 24:36

Some people say they've gone in for kilometres. But I wasn't that keen. I didn't need to get down on my hands and knees and go crawling through a little teeny wee crack in a cave to go into another hole. To go into another hole.

Speaker 1: 24:46

But just past the cave entrance, which has the information signboard, and there's this wonderful grassy area with these magnificent views to the mountains, and it's a free camp. Yeah, free camp.

Speaker 2: 24:59

And we went oh wow, well, it's actually a national park camp, but it was free.

Speaker 1: 25:01

Yeah, okay, that's true.

Speaker 2: 25:03

It is in the national park and it is free and what's the limit? I don't remember. Well, I don't remember seeing a sign there about the limit, about how long the campsite limit is. You probably a sign there about the limit, um, about how long the campsite limit is? You probably have it in the description, uh but it doesn't say okay.

Speaker 1: 25:18

But I want to tell you a little story about when we get there. So we get there and it's um, middle of the day, beautiful time of day, beautiful weather and everything, and we set up and it took us a little while because it's not the flattest and fussing around we were. We didn't want to. There was no, not many other people there, so we didn't want to block it off because it's beautiful grass.

Speaker 1: 25:37

So we tried to allocate a spot that worked for us, that would work for others and we knew we're going to use it as a bit of a base camp. Anyway. We go off for a hike thinking we've set it up perfect. We come back and we've been parked in. There is and not. Have we just been parked in by this caravan? They have strung up their washing all the way around, encroaching into our camp. View of the beautiful landscape.

Speaker 2: 26:05

A 180-degree clothesline that must have gone about 25 metres, 30 metres long, all their underwear and their jeans and their sheets and all of that, and they were travelling in convoy.

Speaker 1: 26:15

The other caravan had set up in the appropriate spot that to anyone that's got common sense, that was the obvious spot to go. I just don't know why this guy set up where he did, because he actually had angled his car hooked to his caravan in such a way that we could not leave if we wanted to.

Speaker 2: 26:34

We couldn't hook up our car, we couldn't hook up our camper trailer. Not only could we not hook up our car, he was in front of the drawbar. Yeah, not only could we not hook up our car, it was basically like he was sitting in his chair in our storage box at the front of our camper and every moment they moved we just oh, we could just hear it and see it.

Speaker 1: 26:49

They were basically right on talking, all right so because we're not used to staying in caravan parks and we're in this open area, it just felt a little bit too close and it was obvious there was a lot of space around us. Um, so you've got to remember, we just had this shocking, emotional phone call and we were, our emotions were a little bit where are you going with this? Well, you then had an angry argument with the guy with his caravan no, I didn him know.

Speaker 2: 27:14

I didn't appreciate his laundry or the proximity to his campsite, and one of us was going to go.

Speaker 1: 27:18

It was not going to stay. So it was either we were going to go or he was going to go, and thankfully they packed up and they left. So we probably have a bad reputation if he told his friends.

Speaker 2: 27:29

Sorry about that, but it was just not a friendly way there was plenty of things going on for us, which is beside the point, but there's a thing called common courtesy and decency, and if you're going to push the line. When I broached it with him, he jumped down my throat, so it was obvious, he was very defensive. He knew he was encroaching but he thought, oh yeah, it would be perfect, but it wasn't so Anyway, past that we spent four days there or something and we toured basically the whole area. We did Deloraine again.

Speaker 1: 28:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:04

We did a drive to. We did a few days' time trip to Mole Creek oh we also did the big trip, the actual little town location of Mole Creek.

Speaker 2: 28:12

We also did. We had a look at Wild Mersey for some mountain biking, which we thought we were gonna do after we'd finished Cradle Mountain and we did, yeah, a big trip. The second last morning or one morning we woke up and we went to. Oh, I knew I had a battery problem. There was a slight problem with the car, the car batteries. I'd had a one of the terminals. The car's got two starter batteries and one of the terminals on one of the batteries had gone all coppery like um, it was actually like copper sulfate had built up on the whole connectors. On the whole. The whole connector was green and and like loaded with crystals all over it what's happened here?

Speaker 2: 28:58

obviously what I found was that the battery terminal, um, where the battery terminal goes into the battery, it actually cracked a little bit around the edge so that the the acid and the fluids inside the battery was leaking out, going up the terminal onto the contacts and corroding all the copper and stuff. And I'd known that for a few days. So I knew the batteries were getting a bit. It was going to get a bit suspicious. But we went out to go for a day tour and we went out to go on this day tour because I knew I needed to do the batteries. But we go to start the car and it goes and it just didn't do anything. So we were going to change the batteries. That wasn't the problem. It's just that we had to jump start our car and we used our little itech world um three, js80 or whatever it is, and it's actually able to start this car. We may have learned um when, when it needs to, which is perfect. I bought it for that uh and it and it did its job well. So that was a a good thing to learn. Obviously we've got lots of batteries and we can have a bit of a discussion about the battery management and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2: 30:02

Um, but the two star batteries when one goes, the other one will go. They're connected in parallel and that's just battery technology. If you lose one, you lose them both. So they both had to go. So I tripped to bernie. Uh no, we were going to go to bernie, but it was too far. Oh yeah, we went. We went on a bit of a road tour.

Speaker 1: 30:22

We need to go for a long drive to charge up the batteries okay, that's what.

Speaker 2: 30:26

That was the plan.

Speaker 1: 30:27

Actually, it was a long drive, it was a long drive to charge the batteries and you wanted to go to a Bunnings. So I looked on Google and I found there was a Bunnings at Devonport and there was a Bunnings at Burnie and there's no need to go to Devonport. We've been there and we've got to go back there at the end. So, okay, we haven't been to Burnie this trip. So I plotted him out a 260-kilometre round trip for the day to charge the batteries, and halfway through that trip we'd be at the Bunnings and on the way we thought we'd do our usual work, which is updating places and verifying what exists. We did so many of these that we got so exhausted and so tired and it was nearly four o'clock when the shop was going to start that we made a change.

Speaker 2: 31:11

It was actually super cheap because we had to go and buy the batteries.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Oh super cheap, was it? It was actually super cheap because we had to go and buy the batteries. Oh super cheap, was it? I'm sorry, not funnys. It was super cheap to buy the batteries. Yes, super cheap.

Speaker 2: 31:16

But you know, yeah, we did this trip and we're trying to get out there and we started working again, and then blom, blom, blom and we've gone. Oh, let's go left instead of right. Oh, look down here, there's a great thing. Oh, so all of a sudden, I'm looking at my watch and going, gee love, it's 3 o'clock or something and we've still got to get.

Speaker 2: 31:37

Not only have we got to get to Slipachook, we've got to get there, we've got to be able to buy the batteries, we've got to install it, we've got to do all this freaking around, and I looked at the website and it said that the one at Burnie was going to shut at 4.30 and the one in Devonport was going to be five or six or something, so we decided to quickly change our plans.

Speaker 1: 31:54

So we changed our plan and got to Devonport.

Speaker 2: 31:56

And we got there at about 4.20 or something and bought the batteries and everything.

Speaker 1: 32:01

So we were in the car park there and it's one of these mega super centres that has everything. It had Anaconda it goes. Do you want new shoes? It had BCF Anaconda.

Speaker 2: 32:09

It had everything it had super cheap, it had car yards, it had all sorts of shops, some shops we'd never even seen before Brands and things like that.

Speaker 1: 32:18

So you actually replaced the batteries, the two charging cranking batteries under the bonnet of the 200 Series Land Cruiser that we have out of a trolley in the car park. And I'm in the car park and I'm probably looking filthy, dirty, hiking boots and grubby and I'm making lunch out of the back of the car, making a wrap and spreading the avocado and putting the lettuce on everyone who lives in devonport. You know everyday shoppers. They're looking at us a bit weird. What are you doing?

Speaker 1: 32:46

desperate anyway we did what we had to do solve the problem and then we hightailed it all the way back to our camp down the highway from Devonport.

Speaker 2: 32:56

Yeah, back to Mole Creek.

Speaker 1: 32:58

Yeah, back through Mole Creek. Yeah, so we were exhausted.

Speaker 2: 33:02

Yeah, we were pretty exhausted that day. That ended up being a bigger day than it should have been, but oh well, that's what happens when you do these kind of things. So, whilst we'd been in that area, you know that Mole Creek, so we did Dellerone a few times. When did we go and do that mountain biking at Wild Mersey? When did we actually do that? Was that part of that? Or did we end up doing that as part of that because we decided to go and do that mountain biking day, so we went up to Sheffield, wasn't?

Speaker 1: 33:31

it Yep, wasn't that?

Speaker 2: 33:31

where we went. Yeah, so we went up to Sheffield and had a look at some mountain biking at a place called Wild Mersey. It's a network of MTB trails, yeah and it links with Browton and Sheffield and a few towns together it was a lot easier than what we've done at the other places, but it was still challenging, yeah except that they didn't have. They didn't have shuttles, so you had to ride yourself up the hill. You know that always makes it a little bit harder when you're on a pedal bike.

Speaker 1: 33:58

Oh, that's right, I've briefly forgotten the pain.

Speaker 1: 34:00

That actually was quite a hard uphill, yeah, and I had a decent stack that day that actually affected my knee and still was giving me a bit of grief, so it wasn't that easy actually it wasn't that easy, but it was a bit of fun, and we so the highlight for me of that mountain biking ride was to get the views of Mount Roland Now what I was talking about earlier, this whole central highlands with some fabulous hikes. This Mount Roland is a very visual feature of that whole area. It is absolutely spectacular.

Speaker 2: 34:28

It'll be on the postcards and it'll be on the tourism brochures.

Speaker 1: 34:32

Our weather had not been that great and I really, really wanted to do the hiking there, but you know what? We actually didn't do it, so I was glad we got halfway up a mountain that looked across to it, at least on our bikes. It's an area that we'll come back to and do some more hiking. Do you know the one thing we didn't tell our listeners in this podcast that we did do at Mountfield National Park? This is important.

Speaker 2: 34:54

We extended our.

Speaker 1: 34:56

National Parks Pass. So here's a hot tip when you come to Tasmania, you can buy your Parks Pass on the ferry and they have a thing called a holiday pass and it gives you two months. So we originally thought we were going to be six weeks in Tasmania, so we thought we'd buy the holiday pass because that would give us enough. As it turned out, if you've been listening to our previous podcast, you'll realise that we have extended our trip in Tasmania and it meant that we weren't actually going to have that National Parks Pass valid.

Speaker 2: 35:28

When we wanted to do it for Cradle Mountain, which was Easter yeah and Cradle Valley is obviously such a hotspot tourist point.

Speaker 1: 35:35

It is not the kind of place you want to be without your parks pass, in fact, it's impossible. You can't, you can't be there without your parks pass so I didn't want it to expire because then we'd have to buy something again full price. But I went into the national parks office at mountfield and said while it was still valid we had a few days left. Can, can we extend it?

Speaker 2: 35:55

So listen to this For $5. Well, it was $86 or $87 or something to buy the four-week one, and $96 or $5 or something to buy the annual one, and $120-something to buy a two-year one, and so we only had to pay the difference between the four-week one and the annual one and, yeah, it ended up costing about $5 or $6 to go from a.

Speaker 1: 36:19

So we now have an annual pass.

Speaker 2: 36:21

Yeah, so we've got to go back from our date of purchase.

Speaker 1: 36:24

So we are going to be able to go back to Tasmania, hopefully, if the stars align with the rest of life as it does, to get us back in Tasmania again for the start of the 24 summer season the 24, 25 summer season. So stay tuned for that because, yeah, we missed some things in Tassie, as you do, it's a massive place. There's so much to do. Our time was not enough.

Speaker 2: 36:47

And our movement, our decision to move on, was to make sure that we could undertake the rest of the trip and go up the east coast and be in the weather at the right time and not too cold, yeah. And to take the rest of the trip and go up the east coast and be in the weather at the right time and not too cold, yeah, and not have to. You know, we didn't want to have to scoot through victoria or new south wales to get out of it being too cold. So that's why we sort of had fixed that leaving at easter, yeah okay, so let's talk about that.

Speaker 1: 37:06

So at this point we decided okay, the reality is, we've got easter either in tasmania or in Victoria. And we had made that decision when we did the booking that Tasmania would be quieter in Easter than Victoria, just based on population. But we had left Cradle Mountain till the last, which was probably the most touristy part of Tasmania for Easter, so we thought maybe this isn't such a good thing. How about we book it out and actually stay in Cradle Valley at the Discovery Parks Caravan Park there?

Speaker 2: 37:40

Yeah, we had no idea we could even get a booking.

Speaker 1: 37:42

Yeah, I know Over.

Speaker 2: 37:43

Easter we were going yeah, it was like Monday or something and Easter's Thursday and we ring them up and say, can we get a booking for four nights of Easter? And they went. Yeah sure, four nights of Easter.

Speaker 1: 37:53

and they went yeah, sure yeah, and it's because it's so highly priced and probably people don't book it up. But honestly it was worth every penny. Let's not jump to that just yet, because we had booked it right. But then our next part is we went from Mole Creek. We ended up down at Lake Parangana and we loved it so much there that we actually forfeited the beginning of our Easter booking over at Cradle Valley, because Lake.

Speaker 1: 38:22

Parangana was so good. So around the Lake Parangana area the road ends as you head further south into the. What's the big national park down there? Walls of Jerusalem, Walls of Jerusalem, Walls of Jerusalem. But we did want to drive all the way down in case we could see the views. The drive there you can't really see the mountains as well as I thought we might, so it's a long drive. Don't do it for the views Only go if you are going to do the hikes. Lake Parangatta.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Lake Parangatta. We got the supps out we Lake Parangatta. Lake Parangatta we got the supps out, we stayed there for a few days the weather was perfect, there was no breeze, it was sunny each day, there was no rain. You know, it was ideal and the camping location and the way that the campsites were sort of set up well separated fires allowed All the good stuff that campers should be.

Speaker 2: 39:16

It was almost what you would call a perfect place to camp. It was ideal, so it had everything for us. And, yeah, as Michelle said, instead of going on the Friday to Cradle Valley. We said, ah stuff it we'll stay at Lake Parangana. We'll just forfeit the $60 or $70 or $80 or $90 or whatever it costs us per night at Cradle Valley, just because this place is so good.

Speaker 1: 39:42

Well, really, four nights is too long in Cradle.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Valley and I didn't know that fully until I started to do a bit more research and then I realized, wow, we're going to be able to do one big hike and do everything we really need to do in that one, and then you want a day either side, so I really only needed the three. So I justified it that way and since we already had the perfect camp, okay, it didn't end up being a free camp if you factor that in and then we got to do a nice four-wheel drive circuit well, not circuit through route instead of doubling back and getting on the windy um bitumen roads um, we went to borodale road.

Speaker 2: 40:22

Yeah, it's up in the hills. So basically, from lake parangana we went a bit further south and there's a road that sort of hacks its way up into the hills and it was a bit steep and hilly. It was fantastic because we were driving up there and it was cloudy.

Speaker 2: 40:36

It was a foggy, misty morning, beautiful we couldn't actually see very far in front of the car as we're driving up this hill and all of a sudden you just come to sort of the top and the fog's gone and the fog's below you and you're driving up there and you can see all the fog in the valley all around Lake Parangatta. It was really spectacular.

Speaker 1: 40:54

I actually just published on social media the photos of that drive and did a whole story about that drive so that's already available on our social media, on both Instagram and Facebook. You can see the photos that we're talking about with the mist and a description of the four-wheel drive route that we took, and really to get from Lake Parangatta to Cradle Valley was only 75 kilometres. The slow way that we went, four-wheel drive.

Speaker 2: 41:18

We also did Caffina Dam and a few other.

Speaker 1: 41:20

We did work on the way as we did, so we took a whole day doing it. We also cut out going back on the main road, which was all the twisty twisty twisty that we'd already done on the battery driving day, and so this road where we did over the top of the hill it basically was able to take us out to the bridge that went across the river without us having to do all this complicated twisty driving.

Speaker 2: 41:39

Yeah, near Kithana and Moina.

Speaker 1: 41:42

So then, really in our summary of our time in Tasmania, we've brought you up to for us, cradle Valley, which was a real highlight. I can't express how much. It is the most magnificent, most beautiful place visually to see and even if you're not a hiker, you really come. Let's break it down. You can get on a shuttle from the car park where there's a visitor centre, or drive yourself to the ranger station and jump on a shuttle. You need a National Parks pass of some sort to be able to get on the shuttle and you pay $15, you get a three-day pass.

Speaker 2: 42:24

Three consecutive day pass, depending which pass you've got. Oh okay, all right. Well, this is how it works for us. There's a bit of technicality.

Speaker 1: 42:29

Anyway, this is how it works for us. There's a bit of technicality.

Speaker 2: 42:33

Anyway, this shuttle is a hop-on, hop-off. There's basically it runs all day.

Speaker 1: 42:36

There's four stations and the two major ones where the hiking trailheads are is Dove Lake and Ronnie Creek, and on our first day there we thought we'd check out and just do a day trip on the bus. Let's go on a tour on the bus. So we weren't in our hiking gear, we weren't planning to walk.

Speaker 1: 42:54

It was actually really hot where it was hot hot hotter than our clothing yeah, it was 30 something yeah, yeah, but the sky was blue, there was no wind, so we went to dove lake um off the shuttle and it just enjoyed being a tourist as non-hikers with all, with all the other tourists, with all the others. But everyone was polite everything was pleasant.

Speaker 2: 43:12

It was busy, though. We got our tourist photos. It was Easter, as we say, middle of Easter. It was busy.

Speaker 1: 43:17

But we planned our day's hike by going into the visitor centre, talking to the ranger there, sorting it all out, got ourselves a plan of what we wanted to do, got our nice photo view and of course the weather changed and we woke up on our hiking day a little bit overcast, but we'd already seen the weather. Do this and look Tasmania, you, you take everything that comes at you and don't make a plan of what it's like first thing in the morning, because you, you can get four seasons in one day well, not as bad as that, but but the day before had similar weather patterns, just that we weren't there in the morning.

Speaker 2: 43:53

So I kind of had half a clue that hopefully most of this cloud would blow away. And by the time we got around on our walk and started walking, I mean, there was no rain, it was nothing like that, it was just patchy cloud which you know was probably affecting the photographer here more than the actual location. But by the time we'd done half a day's walking, it was perfectly clear. And another wonderful, perfect day, yep, which everyone who lives there and works there was telling us was absolutely unbelievable. They say they only have is it 20 or 30 days a year where it's not raining at Cradle Mountain, if you didn't know that, and we had three in a row.

Speaker 1: 44:31

Three in a row.

Speaker 2: 44:32

yeah, that were perfect, perfect weather for hiking, perfect weather for sightseeing and taking photos and doing stuff.

Speaker 1: 44:41

So our big hike that we did the following day, which?

Speaker 2: 44:44

wasn't that big.

Speaker 1: 44:45

We took the shuttle to Ronnie Creek and it doesn't have a toilet. Like, oh, I need to go to the toilet. So we got back on the shuttle to Ronnie Creek and it doesn't have a toilet. They go, I need to go to the toilet. So we got back on the shuttle, went to Dove Lake shuttle point, went to the toilet there, back on the shuttle, back to Ronnie Creek. So we had a bit of a late start to the day, but that's all right. So it was only about 9.30, 10 o'clock and we did a 10K hike. So we headed out from Ronnie Creek on the Overland Track which then picks onto the horse track, and then we went out to Crater Peak and at this point you are looking over a beautiful crater. Then you can look out over to Marion's Lookout, which a lot of people hike from there to Marion's.

Speaker 1: 45:26

That's the actual Overlander Track, yeah, so the horse track takes you around a different way, but we were able to look back over Cradle Lake and Marion's lookout and Dove Lake, so it was spectacular views From that peak, from Cradle Peak. You look behind you and you see Cradle Mountain. Now we're at this peak and it was all grey. There's clouds hanging over the top of cradle mountain and then suddenly I don't know what happens a bird squawks and the clouds dissipated and it was picture perfect. So out comes all the camera gear and the gopro and then from there hiking towards um kitchen hut. It's boardwalk and I have taken my most favorite pictures of our whole tasmania trip and I've published these as well and you'll see them the boardwalk snaking its way to kitchen hut, with most magnificent view of cradle mountain in the distance and the intersection of all the hikers that have been on the alternative path, um, the more mainstream one from marion's lookout.

Speaker 1: 46:29

It intersects with us at kitchen hut and everyone was at kitchen hut. Everyone uses that as like a morning tea stop, lunch stop, whatever. It was very, very busy there. And then from there you've got to make your decision as to whether you're going to do the summit up to cradle mountain or not. Um, otherwise you do what's called the face track. If you do the face track, which is what we decided to do, it's quite a long excursion. You're going all the way back towards the is it west, east, east, sorry? And you come to Hanson's Peak and you're at the top looking down at Dove Lake and you get another whole big extension of the hike and the face itself is the face of Cradle Mountain.

Speaker 2: 47:15

So when you look at Cradle Mountain on a view it looks like it's quite wide, a big sort of it's wider at the base, wider at the base, the smaller at the top. So it's like a mountain but it's quite a wide thing. And the face track takes you across, basically where a transition in the slope, it's slopes and then it goes straight up. So you basically walk under the bit where there's still terrain and looking up at the cliff face that goes up to the top of the mountain. It was really spectacular.

Speaker 1: 47:45

It was a very narrow track.

Speaker 2: 47:47

It wasn't the most easy walk in that, but it was. There weren't many people on it.

Speaker 1: 47:50

There was a very narrow track. It wasn't the most easy walk in that, but it was. There weren't many people on it there was a few, but not too many, whereas scrambling up to the top of Cradle Mountain whilst we're both physically capable and I really thought that we would do it.

Speaker 2: 48:02

Well, that Wild Mersey mountain biking issue that I'd mentioned earlier, that I'd hurt my knee, had already happened.

Speaker 1: 48:08

Yeah, and David had a knee brace. I wasn't.

Speaker 2: 48:10

I wasn't particularly comfortable uh 100 to add another two hour extreme scramble, rock climb thing into our journey for the day.

Speaker 1: 48:20

So and we probably did make the right decision, because we came across another couple that had done it and then started the face track and they were crying.

Speaker 1: 48:29

They were bailing out they couldn't complete the face track, having done the summit, and she said it was too much I've I've bitten off too much than I can do, and that's a shame, because then she had to go downhill and bail out of the track. There is um a section where you can bail out off the face track and it's called will wilkes track and when you do that you come straight down to Dove Lake and you level quite quickly.

Speaker 1: 48:54

But for us we were able to continue on and we got to the Ranger Hut Emergency Shelter and the Lake Rodway and Lake Hanson's Track and Hanson's Peak was spectacular because we were able to actually look all the way back out to those um to not mate rowland, whatever it was back at the western walls of jerusalem and all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 49:15

So you get, we got. We got views all the way to walls of jerusalem and and and quite quite a long way, and a really panoramic spot. In fact, I've just opened up the hansen's peak place in the traveler app and there's a few photos in there, so have a look at the photos. We've loaded all the photos, or we've loaded some of the photos, into the places system so you can see some of the things that we're talking about and some of the spectacular views that we were afforded when we were there. It was really a nice place.

Speaker 1: 49:46

And so this hike, doing this circuit, we were able to end at dove lake and, of course, get on the shuttle within a few minutes. The shuttle comes along, but they run on a continuous circuit based on demand. Um, it's really really well run place. That whole place understands how to deal with a volume of people. So, if you can consider, we are happy and we have been there over easter um, that's saying something because we'll complain about too many crowds and rah, rah, rah and look, we really enjoyed ourselves and we spent a lot of nightly fee at the Discovery Parks. But again, that place was really well done, good facilities. I got good laundry done, so we were able to leave Tasmania with everything washed and dried and clean At there. We were able to use power and water hooked in directly into the camper trailer so we didn't have power issues and water issues.

Speaker 2: 50:35

Um, we were happy, happy campers and you know and you think about these poor people that we were just talking about. You know having to bail out a walk and stuff. You don't want to have to have that kind of thing in your head when you come to a lovely place. You know he wasn't able to finish the thing or he wasn't able to do this so so making it a little bit, making it a little bit easier.

Speaker 2: 50:53

It wasn't easy, it was still a solid days hiking, uh well, I can't remember the kilometers, I don't have it in front of me.

Speaker 1: 51:00

It was only about 10 or so, but it was. Look. That's strenuous for most people, I'm sure, and there's a lot of ascent in that particularly.

Speaker 2: 51:06

There's a lot of up and down and lots of lots of, lots of um, hammering the knees up and down as you go up and down the hills and stuff like that, which wasn't great when you've got a slight knee problem. But oh, you know, cradle mountain, cradle valley, that kind of area we'll be back. I suspect that we'll probably try and book in the overland track for that return journey that we might try and do oh, coming into season 24, 25.

Speaker 1: 51:26

I've got the facts on all this because, to make sure that we're prepared for that, these were some things I did not know. So when we first planned to come to Tasmania if you've been listening to the earlier podcast we thought Well, it was only a last-minute thing, yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:40

Yeah, we thought we wouldn't be able to get a booking because our whole plan of travelling around Australia is all out of sync with the right time of year and the right place and all that. So it's been a bit of a hodgepodge put it together plan. So we didn't have advanced booking for coming for Tasmania. We booked it in December and we arrived in January, and I've mentioned this before in an earlier podcast. That is possible if your vehicle manages under 2.1 high and under 10 metres long.

Speaker 1: 52:09

So with our camper trailer we fit in that metric. So if if you can fit into that, you you can get bookings, um, and you can adjust your bookings once you've got one um. But what I couldn't do was book the overland track at cradle valley. So how that works is there's a summer peak hiking season which starts on the 1st of October. Yep, 1st of October through to 31st of May is your summer hiking season. Now there's a booking period to book your hiking for that whole period every day of that.

Speaker 2: 52:42

If you're doing the full overland track. This is talking about not just any little day trips around. Yeah, the five, six day overnight, the overland track, yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:50

The booking period opens in early july and on the day, within hours that they open the booking period, every single day of the booking period is booked out for hiking. The reason for this is they cap the number of hikers for independent hiking. They'll only allow 34 hikers per day to start. So you book your hike as your starting day. You don't have to nominate how many days and where you're going to stop. They don't care about that. So you can. The shortest distance of the overland track is 65 kilometers, but most people will extend that distance by doing a few side trips out and back. There's one of them. Um is is another 15 kilometers. So you know some people will be out there for nine days, not just the shortest thing, five days. That doesn't matter. In your booking it's it's your start date.

Speaker 1: 53:39

That matters and because they're capping that, you really have to make sure that you know what you're doing and you're booking in advance. So if we are going to do it for this season, we have to be online and making that booking on the 1st of July or the opening. They haven't announced the exact day of the opening. It's early July For the winter hiking season. That booking period opened on the 1st of May, which has just happened, and you still have caps. But because it's prone to snow, rain, sleets, blizzard, the whole lot, there's less people.

Speaker 2: 54:14

You really have to be very experienced to cope with that. You can get a booking for the winter hiking period.

Speaker 1: 54:19

We have friends that hiked it in winter, but there's no way I'm doing that Anyway. And when we left Cradle Valley, we woke up in the morning packed up and drove straight to Derwent.

Speaker 2: 54:35

We drove to Burnie because we drove the long way. We had a whole day we didn't have to be on the boat till 7.30 at night or 8 o'clock at night, 9 o'clock at night, or something 9.30 it was, so we spent the day touring around. So we finally got to Burnie, after not doing it the first time.

Speaker 1: 54:52

Oh yeah, Burnie and Penguin and all of those places, yeah, and Top of Creek and all those things along the coast and we had a decent day.

Speaker 2: 54:59

We checked out a few campsites and a few locations around the area.

Speaker 1: 55:01

We had more time than what we needed to do with.

Speaker 2: 55:11

Very, very.

Speaker 1: 55:11

It was a bit leisurely yeah, and, and we got to. We ended up going back to the shops, at the same shops again. We did. You wanted to buy more hiking boots or shoes or something.

Speaker 2: 55:16

Oh yeah, my hiking sandals, my hiking uh steva sandals and crap themselves who had to buy some new sandals. And then, yeah, then back over to davenport and join the queue to jump on the boat and you know, the boat trip well getting. I don't even know where I'm trying to go right now. That was kind of the end of.

Speaker 2: 55:39

TAS. You know, and we had such a great time in Tasmania and, as you've been hearing us talking about now, you know we're already planning to possibly get there so that we can save our $100 National Parks Pass. So we're already planning to possibly get there so that we can save our $100 National Parks Pass, so we don't have to buy another one you know what a great excuse is to say I've still got a National Parks Pass and I have to go and spend a few grand on the ferry to go back.

Speaker 1: 56:01

Yeah, but look, the reason we've put so much time into the last three podcasts that we've prepared on Tasmania is that we've really been very passionate about the experience there, as we hope we've inspired you Highly recommend planning a trip to Tassie. But the number one takeaway from all of this is you cannot book enough time there. There is so much to do that is so good. So please, please, please. Nine weeks that we started with is barely enough. We have circumnavigated Tasmania before in three weeks and gone all the way around the whole thing and knew that we had to come back and do this longer trip. Now we've done this longer trip. It's still not enough and we're going to go back and do more. I might be preaching to the converted. Any of you that have already visited Tasmania know this. But if you have never been to Tasmania, take it from those that are telling you now Go as long as you can.

Speaker 2: 57:00

Go three months, go four months and, of course, all the data for your great journey and adventure has all been updated within the Exploros Traveller app. That's what we do each day and that's what we've spent our entire daytimes doing while we were in Tasmania. So there's a great wealth of new photos and the tracks and track log updates. There's a whole myriad of content updates that Michelle's been putting through onto the whole system. So if you're planning to or thinking of going to Tasmania, nothing better than the Exploros Traveler app. You can see all these great photos and all these great destinations that we went to. You can have a look at our track log, which is available in the track log system so you can see exactly where we went if that floats your boat and and know all the locations and the names. Fantastic place, highly recommended Tassie. If you haven't been there, you got to go.