Black coal, blood red lichen and rare rock lobster

The rocks along the Bay of Fires coast are tinged with red. Against the blue of the sea and sky, and the white of the fine-grained sand, the red looks like blood-stain, but it is actually a lichen, and quite beautiful. It can only grow, we hear somewhere later, where the water is crystal clean. As it is here, where the lichen carpets the rocks. 

But back in the 1850s the rocks hereabouts were stained thick black. With coal dust. American workers who came to dig out the coal called the little niche of eroded land that became the port of Bicheno, the Gulch, after similar bits of land in the States. 

They loaded coal into wooden wagons and struggled to move them the bumpy five kilometres to the Gulch where steamers awaited. Conditions were terrible for the miners. Their shafts regularly flooded and the track so cheaply and poorly designed that the coal wagons frequently fell off the rails, and had to be manually upheld. The coal that eventually arrived at the Gulch was loaded into a vast bunker built at the port which fed directly into a waiting steamship's hold.

A coal that was found to be of no use to drive steam so after all that effort it was never to be in huge demand. 

So when the goldfields in Victoria boomed the Americans skidaddled and the Gulch at Bicheno became abandoned. 

Today, there are only remnants of the bunker that was used, and a few rusted mooring rings left to tell their tale. 

In the fish shop down at the Gulch we finally scored our lobster.

Last time we were in Tasmania we could buy lobster from wooden market huts that dotted the sea side of the east coast. Back then local vendors and residents, who caught more than they needed, were allowed to sell their spares on the side of the road. No longer. 

Rock lobster is now under strict quota. Everyone who sells a lobster must do so with it bearing a plastic tag which proves that it has been sold from an authorised seller, who has to buy each tag from the government, so the tag price is effectively a tax. 

The argument being: it is protection.

Rock lobster needs protection. Or I might be tempted to eat it any night I can get my greedy hands on it, truth be told.

We ate ours in juicy white chunks marinated in warmed lemon butter, tossed in zested lemon linguini, flecked with sweet green peas. 

We drove down the Freycinet Peninsula as far as we were able, and it is still as lovely as we remember. But, like all National Parks, it deserves time. We need to come back with our walking shoes and kayaks and just camp and play for a longer spell. Today, we check out the development around the Coles Bay area, have excellent coffee at one of the fine resorts and wonder how they survive. There is hardly a soul around and it is early February. If this is not people-on-holiday time, when is?

Further down the coast we come to another barely-surviving town, Buckland, with its old coaching inn looking perky in a relatively fresh coat of paint on aged wooden bones that were laid there, long ago, in 1843. 

Ye Olde Buckland Inn looks as if it is still ready to party. 

And just outside of town is a spot that I hope will stand forever, testament to the pluck and the power of a band of special folk: all locals, all volunteers, mostly all seniors. 

A group of Bucklanders took it upon themselves to fund and build a bushland Botanical Gardens celebrating the plants of this region that they loved so much. From scratch. In dry rocky terrain. Building in their own water pond and rainwater tank in case there is a long dry spell. Bedecked with their own metal sculptures and gates. 

Lest their beloved plants be forgotten. 

It is a place of peace and tranquility and feels very special. 

Thank you, Buckland Bushland Garden folk. What a welcome respite.

Red lichen along Bay of Fires shore

Simply delicious

  

The Gulch where we found fresh lobster

Once famous for its whales, then coal, Bicheno is now known for its blowhole

Looking out at Coles Bay

Freycinet, the beach, the bay, the backdrop mountains

Ye Olde Buckland Inn all dressed up to party

Sculpture by one of the Bushland Garden volunteers

One of the gardens, with plantings labelled.  

East coast For Sale

We then drove north along the coast. First the narrow paved road ran out, then a potholed dirt track petered away, then we parked and took a sandy walking path until even that was swallowed by beach rocks quickly covered by the incoming sea.

And there, at the end of all the tracks, we spied a long battered farmhouse guarding the Tasman along this Bay of Fires Coast.

At night, from the sea, you would be able to see the isolated lights the farmer burns in exactly the same way Captain Tobias Furneax could see lights from aboriginal fires dotting this very coastline when he sailed passed in 1773, with one eye on the rocks, one on the shore. 

But there are no aboriginals here now. 

A few black cows munch in one or two paddocks on tufted grass. There are more pelicans than people. It looks salt sprayed and crisp -- hard to imagine it is rich or fertile terrain.

Not far from here, we spy three council workers clearing a small clump of exotic shrubs from the seashore, planted by birds lifted from a nearby property where it grows freely. The workers have a stretch of this north east coast they are responsible for. They carry their pruning and prising tools and scour the coast from north to south, then start all over again. Like painting the Sydney Harbour bridge. 

It is lonely, remote -- and utterly lovely in its remoteness.

There are no real towns, so virtually no facilities. Just fishing shacks hugging the coast wherever they can. Most of these are posted with 'For Sale' signs. Most are tiny: one bedroom at best, or maybe two very tiny ones. A few, around The Gardens are new, even architect designed. But most by any name are shanties, cabins, shacks, fisherman's huts, bought by Queenslanders and New South Welshmen we are informed, who, on a romanticised trip along the coast, thought they might visit a lot, bought themselves a cabin to do just that, then came too rarely to make it work for them. Or for the area. 

So now most are for sale and look as though they need a facelift. 

The trouble is that given the lack of real folk in these coastal places for most of the year means that what villages, even St Marys tucked up in the chill of Elephant's Pass interior, are suffering. For most of the year no one is occupying these second homes, so little places that try to stay open by selling plastic buckets, ice-cream, coffee, lunches, or even crayfish in season, are visibly struggling. 

Roads along the coast are narrow and potholed, shacks mostly for sale, an occasional village shop is open, at least while we are here on these chilled summer days, attempting a brave face at best. 

A few summer tourists are still turning up to walk the walks, eat the pancakes, buy the fresh oysters at $13.00 a dozen and local blueberries at $4.00 a punnet, and, because the quota for the summer has now been met, lobster are currently selling for around $99.00 a kilo, or $150 a piece, more expensive than usual, we are told. 

But while tourists still roam, some are still sold, even at that price. 

Lone farmhouse guarding the Bay of Fires coastline

There are more pelicans than people

Tough clumping grasses holding the sand in place 

The colours of Binnalong Bay are simply beautiful

Holy Grail of the Holy Cow

It is such an odd mind shift to drive for hours along an exceptionally quiet route where hardly a vehicle passes, and to turn up an even quieter track, and there find not one tourist 'hot spot' but two, that have so caught the attention of the touring public that carloads, and, when we were there, busloads, stream in from literally nowhere, by the dozen in any hour. 

Where are they all coming from? And what happens to them from here? They just appear, then disappear like vapour. 

This is the Pyengana Cheese Factory. We had debated even bothering with Pyengana until something we read on a snippet of a tourist info suggested the cows there were milked by robots. This we had to see, we reckoned, so right we turned. 

Amidst all these dying villages we'd been immersed in for days sits a wet green valley dotted with buttery fat black and white Friesian dairy cows. 

Herds of dairy cattle have apparently been in this family for several generations, but not always so successfully as today. 

When Jon Healey was a young lad in the third year of his Agricultural course in Burnie he chose to use real figures from his dad's farm to illustrate an accounting spreadsheet assignment he needed to complete. He soon realised from the figures he'd laid down, that if he was ever to take on a dairy farm himself, he would need to come up with an unique idea that could fly, be financially more viable, or he would be wasting his time. 

He thought of cheese-making, something his family had been involved in in this very valley for four generations on a small scale. Jon had bigger ideas. With help from his family he headed off to small dairy farms in Switzerland where he learned cheese-making from scratch over many long months. He then spent years on the mainland experimenting and researching and learning about cheese and dairy. 

Jon came back to the Pyengana valley and with the help of his family set about building the Pyengana Dairy Company. Today there are over 200 Friesens in the fields and some sixteen, and growing, staff. 

Each cow is individually micro-chipped and these chips hold all the information needed to enable the cows, when they turn up in the automated milking stalls, to be milked 'on demand' whenever needed, throughout the day. No staff are needed for milking. 

There are even automated back-rubbing brush rollers on offer in the milking yard. We watched cow after contented cow amble over for a scratch and a rub and roll. No staff are needed for back rubs.

Milk from the machines is zoomed up to the cheese factory via stainless steel pipes. Using 100 year old traditional methods, Jon and his staff create strong creamy artisan cheddars from the stirred curd and rich drained whey. But they didn't stop there. 

Using their own plentiful supply of milk and cream they created a pure natural ice-cream with no preservatives added. Real Ice-cream, they call it: handmade and non-homogenised. So delicious is this that hundreds of cones are sold each day through the cafe, and the freezers are emptied of ice-cream on a daily basis. The staff really need to learn how to produce it faster. 

Nor did they stop there. They thought of selling their products through an on-site cafe and so they set about building it on top of the deep dark cave in the ground that they use for maturing and ripening their cheddar. 

The Holy Cow they call it. 

And inside is the Holy Grail of farm shops filled with their own delicious and award-winning Pyengana products which does nothing short of crazy trading. The cafe and shop were full to overflowing for the hours that we were there. 

Not to mention they have some five chefs on call churning out, one proudly told us, some one hundred and ninety meals each day, on average. 

And it is all happening in this quiet little valley in this dying, nearly dead, part of Tasmania. 

Such a clever idea!

And just down the road is Priscilla. Priscilla is not a pig in a poke, but a beer-guzzling pig in a pen in a paddock. A little come-on she is, to entice those tourists who might have any appetite left after they have visited the Holy Cow down the road, to call into this old world pub, reminiscent of bygone days, to whet their appetite.

At the Pub in the Paddock. 

Contented cattle in the green fields at Pyengana

In line for the automated back rub

Milk is zoomed from here to the cheese factory

Rennet is added, curds are cut and drained,  then the cheese is  drained and aged

Cute branding that really works

Pub in the Paddock

 A penned Priscilla begging for a pint

She even uses her words

Trail of the Tin Dragon

As we motor along this north-east quadrant we realise we are following in the footsteps of hundreds of young Chinese tin miners along this irresistibly-named: Trail of the Tin Dragon. 

Little villages dot the hills in these parts. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they would have been vibrant with the noise and bustle of tin mining. Places like Ringarooma, Branxholm, Derby, Morrina and Weldborough tell a sad tale of the rise and decline of the tin industry. 

Today, these villages are dying. Some are already dead. 'For Sale' signs litter the streets, shops and post offices. Pubs are closed, never to reopen. The younger population has left, gone to the cities and other states, where they might find work. Only a few stoic oldsters remain. 

Government officials have attempted to encourage tourists to the area. In some places their efforts are working. A farmer, for example, in Branxholm, bought his property, barely knowing, until his efforts were nearly complete, that his land lay at the very core of the Chinese tin mining community.

Off his own bat, and so the Chinese story would not be forgotten, he set up a walk through the old mining water races that still existed on his property which follows what were once individually-owned small mine sites. He built a rustic cabin near there and filled it with beautifully-prepared information on bulletin boards that tell how young poverty-stricken Chinese boys were tempted away from home to follow mining. 

Enticed by the tale that there was a 'gold mountain' in this great south land, they hopped aboard boats and indentured themselves to owners of tin mines for a minimum of two years, so they would soon earn the means to access that mountain of gold. 

Thousands of young Chinese workers came, owing even their fare to friends and family. In debt before they started. They laboured in the mines for half the daily rate given to Europeans, and when everyone else dropped tools to follow the gold finds, the young poor Chinese labourers were left with nothing, except to attempt to buy the tin rights to these abandoned mines. 

Some did and were even lucky enough to report making £100 over the next three or four years: enough to send money home to their needy families. Others were not so lucky. 

At Derby, a town on its last legs, where barely a building is functioning and most historic places, including large halls are empty, standing forlorn, the powers that be have funded the vast expense of a supermodern structure to house what is there touted to tourists as 'The Tin Centre', offering detail on the history of tin in the area. 

Millions has been spent on this structure, but it looks so wrong that I could not even enter it. In a village that is dying, when any one, or all, of the buildings in town might have been there to use for the same purpose, why would officials even think to build a new one? Why would they not have utilised the very 'real' buildings at the heart of the tin mining story. Given them a lick of paint. Opened their doors. Displayed them as they once were. I walked dispiritedly away from the modern Tin Centre without going in.  I would have preferred to have seen the village buildings repaired, and in re-enactment mode. Most tourists would. Such a missed opportunity.

There is not much left in Moorina. Hardly any of the amazing private or public buildings that once stood have survived. But a sharp turn right, up a steep hill with a walking path to the top, sits a small cemetery. Traces of Chinese tin miners still survive here. 

At one end of the cemetery near a pile of rocks lies a Chinese burning oven. Here, the Chinese tin miners who were left to eke out a living from the crumbling rocks of these hills burned coloured bits of paper  as spirit offerings to those who died in these parts, who were not able to make it home. 

And clansmen likely held their Chinese wakes in the historic Weldborough pub where we spent a wonderful evening.  The pub has been standing since the 1880s when some seven hundred or more Chinese miners worked in this area. The hotel slept them three shifts to every bed every day of the year.   Its creaky aged floors and mis-matched tables likely witnessed their fair share of may-jong, fan tan and roulette.  Gambling was interwoven with the culture.  But loneliness, for some, became so unbearable with their wife and family left behind in China, that many, tragically,  became addicted to opium.  

All the Weldborough pub needs are photos on the walls telling the tale of the miners who lived here back then, like Lulu and Maa Mon Chinn from Guangdong. Lulu was all of sixteen and Maa Mon, forty, when they were betrothed. The couple went on to bring up seven sons and four daughters in this community and likely drank at this very pub and joined in all the festivities. 

Chinese New Years were famous in the area. There was always roast pig, fireworks, and elaborate feasting. The pigs for the roast came from the nearby farm of Pyengana. The Chinese in charge would entice them along the five mile stretch from there to Weldborough by dropping wheat grains on the track, the pigs snouting them up as they followed.  Now, apart from such little snippets of history, almost nothing remains.  

On the Trail of the Tin Dragon

Rustic cabin in Braxholm built by a local farmer to tell the Chinese tin miner tale

Historic Derby, home to The Tin Centre

Chinese headstone in Moorina cemetery

A Chinese burning oven for coloured paper burnt in remembrance

Driving to Weldborough

Weldborough pub where once the lights never went out

Sharp and prickly, like some tearful memories

Sad old stumps

At Scottsdale we came across a much touted Forest Eco Centre, a building that has won awards for its architectural design, which incorporates many eco-elements: its outer skin separated from the inner offices, enhancing insulation, natural heating and cooling; its computerised louvres 'read' the temperature and open and close as required, and a thin central core of synthetic skin inhales and exhales air like a balloon, when it is either too hot or too cold, allowing the building to 'breathe'.

There are elements, though, where the architects might have been thrown soft rotten tomatoes. You can't walk into the loo without having to turn sideways: the passageway is so poorly designed and cramped you can barely negotiate the door. And, the loos, in the ladies, fill and flush so slowly they barely swirl the sitting water. It is annoying. 

A pretty building true, yet the office staff appear distant and removed from it all in their naturally air-conditioned louvred-office spaces while their information displays in the public spaces have curling corners and look more than a little limp and tawdry. 

Come on, Forestry Tasmania staff, strut your stuff a little better! 

There is a local man in this part of Tasmania who seems to be quite busy creating wood sculptures using skeletons of dead and dying tree trunks, carving them with his chain saw. After seeing examples of his work on remnant trees in Scottsdale parks, we drove to the village of Legerwood where there were more. 

Here, trees had been planted in memory of each of the young men from the district who died in the first World War. Decades later, when the trees started to die and were under threat of removal, a sleepy community was galvanised into action, organising memorials for each young soldier to be carved into the stump of one of the trees. 

The stories are poignant. Young men who thought they were invincible, died in the arms of their mates, who lived longer to tell their tales. One dying soldier asked his mate to look after his young wife if he made it home. His friend did. He even married her. So many sad stories. Such thoughtful carvings. 

Made even more tragic as our car radio seems tuned to one of the many Armageddon stations, all promising a bleak future for Tasmania's timber, pulp and wood chip industry. 

Tasmania's last woodchip mill was shut down in April. The big woodchip buyers, Japan and China, still need woodchip but seem able to access cheaper product in other parts of the world or in other states of Australia, undercutting Tasmania. Moreover they seem to prefer the soft stuff, not the native hardwoods that Tasmania apparently has on offer. Or so says the radio. 

Three thousand timber workers throughout Tasmania have lost their jobs in recent months and unemployment among young adult males is running at dire levels, 7.3% this January. But, it is not only timber that tells a tragic tale as we drive. 

Wood sculpture in Legerwood

All along the street in memory

Eco Centre, Scottsdale

Convicts, colonists and other motley crew

First there was Sydney: settled in 1788. Then there was Hobart: settled in 1802. And, believe it or not, the third place in Australia to be settled was George Town, just north of Launceston. This settlement took place in 1804, two years, even, before Launceston. 

Today, you would hardly credit it. George Town is tiny, and not exactly thriving. There are remnants of that time in a couple of lovely colonial buildings surviving still: one where John Batman stayed enroute to attempt to establish the city of Melbourne. Another was the Watch House. 

A few kilometres out of town down the mouth of the Tamar at Low Head lies one of the earliest pilot settlements erected in Australia. It has been in continuous operation since 1805. The earliest pilots lit a large fire on the head above the rocks, stoking it all night to make sure the whalers, sealers and merchants sailing past would be aware of the danger. Later, a rubble and stucco lighthouse was erected to warn of Hebe Reef where eight or ten boats have been shipwrecked. 

Low Head Pilot's settlement was home to a motley crew. The first pilot ended up a pirate; the second harbour master found better working conditions as a bushranger, while the earliest lighthouse keepers had convict helpers, who had to be locked up each night. 

The remains of their colonial village, comprising houses and workplaces for the pilots, cable workers and bosses, survives. Painted in pristine white and red it looks crispy clean and immaculate. 

Just around the headland we camped that night at Bridport where an old jetty that serviced the merchant ships runs far out to sea, and where moonlight slices through  the waters where pirates once hoisted their sails. 

Historic George Town, third settlement in Australia

Low Head Pilot's lighthouse

 

Old jetty at Bridport

Moonlight where pirates hoisted their sails

Wet, wild, and a wee bit woolly

As we drove off the ferry early next morning it started to drizzle, which is just as well as Tasmania is looking tinder dry up here in the north. 

We camped on the scenic river bank at the Longford River Campsite but as we pulled our doonahs up (in February, would you believe?) and put our ears deep under the covers it became terribly windy outside the camper. 

Pete was awake half the night convinced we were about to be blown away. I was awake, ignoring him. Bec was asleep, snoring. 

As we drove into Launceston next morning the car suddenly stalled at traffic lights in the centre of town. Decided to go nowhere. Little puffs of smoke slithered out from under the bonnet. 

We ended up being towed to the side of the road to avoid backing up traffic at the lights. Thank you, stranger! Then our camper was trucked to an auto-electrician's just a few blocks from where we'd stopped. Thank you, RACQ! 

In his panic the night before Pete mis-plugged the Anderson plug. That little error burned out the entire electrical cable system in the car. Luckily, the auto-electricians had time to replace the cabling that day, finishing it up about dinnertime. Costing Pete just pennies short of eight hundred dollars. 

Then, at lunchtime, he managed to drop his brand new camera, smashed the UV filter attachment. 

Not one of his better days, so far. 

Still, we had fun roaming Launceston streets checking out historic little shops like this mid-Victorian Umbrella Shop which still has its original fixtures and fittings and where we were entertained by a delightful lady volunteer, nearly as ancient as the shop itself, telling us tales of what it was like here way back when. 

We were quite captivated by the Post Office building. As we turned corners in Launceston city streets we were often drawn to its unusual brickwork and in-your-face architecture. We then discovered that at the time it was built the locals really hated it: calling the pattern, colouring and design the "grossest insult to the people of Launceston". 

This debacle was quickly topped off by another: as amidst all the kerfuffle and negative press, the post office tower ended up being constructed without its clock being included. Only in 1910 was a clock finally added. The tower which holds it projects imposingly over the cityscape. 

From here we visited Grindewald, a tourist attraction and resort, just a hop step and jump from the city. This was the vision of a Dutchman who set up a milk bar in downtown Launceston in the early 1950's when he migrated to Australia. Over time, he built a chain of self service supermarkets over much of Tasmania, the eponymous Roelf Vos stores, employing many Tasmanians, and becoming very wealthy. After selling out to Woolworths some thirty years later, he built Grindewald, along the lines of a Swiss Village Resort. When we were there is was quiet, thematically robust and charming. We could see how beautifully located it was -- to sailing, golf, and the city -- if one wished to check in and enjoy the surrounding facilities.

Longford River campsite 

A swan, a'swimming and fishing

The old umbrella shop, Launceston

   

Post Office clock tower, Launceston

Grindewald Swiss Village Resort

From Nicos to a crotchety crossing

We spent a day in Melbourne before we caught the ferry so we had a patch of time catching up with family and friends at Nikos, a Greek cakeshop-cum-deli on a shabby homely corner in the colourful, eclectic and vibrant suburb of Oakleigh. 

Thanks to my sister who introduced us to the wonderful ethnic mall we have been enjoying coffees at Nikos for decades, since way back when it was a corner cake shop just selling sweet and sticky Greek treats. 

Then it offered a couple of rickety tables slanted along a cracked pedestrian pavement outside where folk grabbed a coffee before or during market shopping. The coffee was always great, the korabiedes always excellent.

Most of Melbourne has, in recent years, discovered Nikos. The cafe is now huge and casually stylish: extended on both sides and well into the centre of the mall, overflowing with shady umbrella tables. Service starts early, and we were there from morning coffee until mid-afternoon, when the crowd swelled to a loud crescendo. 

Lovely atmosphere, delicious smells, huge staff, friendly service and plenty of happy and noisy customers: its a really feel-good place, especially on a weekend. 

The ferry to Devonport from Port Melbourne advertises boarding at 4.30 pm for a 7.40 pm ferry. Do not bother arriving these three hours in advance. Arrive, instead, no more than half an hour before the ferry leaves. You might, then, board with some efficiency and in some degree of comfort.

We left Nikos and had to pay for a carpark spot in the Port Melbourne cafe precinct while we waited until 4.30pm, as there is no ferry parking in the area. Amazing that the Spirit of Tasmania is allowed to operate with no parking made available for their potential clients who are literally clogging the surrounding streets, waiting to board. Parking fees in the Port Melbourne cafe precinct has been deliberately raised to $4.20 per hour, attempting to deter ferry folk from occupying every nook and cranny. But how can they not? Many foreign visitors we heard today were vitriolic at these parking prices, and even the locals were agreeing that they really are outrageous. 

From 4.30pm, when the first vehicle was shepherded into the ferry terminal proper, it took a further hour and a half to negotiate just two hundred metres of pre-boarding parking lanes before being shepherded onto the boat. The 4.30 loading time seems to be just an excuse to get traffic out of the neighbourhood streets (no doubt at the insistence of the municipality) and into these parking lanes. It was well after 6 o'clock when we boarded. 

Hot. Carpark-slow. And crotchety. The food on board was overpriced, generically tasteless, unimaginative and cold. We vowed not to eat onboard on the return -- and we didn't. 

The trip on this slow boat to Devonport cost us over $1200 return. We spoke to another couple on board who had a caravan; they paid $1600 return. Much longer and larger European ferries don't come close to matching these exorbitant Australian prices. And in these days of prohibitive costs in Australia, such excessive ferry charges mean it is unlikely that such travellers will bother to return to Tasmania any time soon. Thank goodness the view from the boat back to Geelong was soothing. 

Simply the best

Especially the korabiedes

Finally, we make the ferry 

Looking back at Geelong