Liz Mike Travels

[Mid-November]

It was our second day in Tasmania. Encouraged by the short distances between locations, we decided to drive to Cradle Mountain to check it out. The closer we came, the wilder the landscape, the steeper the roads, the scarier the serpentines.

Then the surprise: a huge carpark with separate areas for buses, caravans, and cars, a modern visitors centre with a Nordic-looking design, a gas station and a dump point, and a fleet of minibuses to transport visitors to the respective walks. Everything appeared extremely well organised. Even though the weather was freezing and their was an icy drizzle, the car park was half full and we saw groups of people rushing towards the entrance. In the distance, we could make out the iconic top of Cradle Mountain half-hidden in a grey cloud.

Fresh from the ferry, we were totally unprepared and could only muster the coffee shop, which was packed with shivering folks. We decided to wait until it was warmer (the forecast for the following week was subzero temperatures and snow) and come back again.

Two weeks later we were in luck: It was relatively warm and supposed to be clear. Still we took everything with us: thermals, gloves, beanies, rain jackets, hiking shoes, and sun hats. By now we knew that the warnings about the constantly changing weather were not to be ignored. Our “base camp” was at Gowrie Park, a 40-minute drive from the east at the foot of Mt Roland.

To part 2 and part 3 of our journey to Cradle Mountain

We’ve moved on from Hagley Farm to Golden Valley, where it was very cold (see post about Tasmanian Highlands), then to a caravan park close to Launceston where it was still cold. Now we are at another great farm stay in the Tamar valley. To our delight the sun is back making everything look glorious and even allowing us to have an outdoor shower!

It was the beginning of January 2022. We had been planning and discussing our transition from working full-time to becoming grey nomads for one and a half years. We needed something decisive to give us focus. What could it be? In the past, booking flight tickets often had done the trick. Once the ticket was booked, the journey became a reality. Now, we wouldn’t use a plane but the ferry to Tasmania. So we booked the Spirit of Tasmania for 15 November. As we found out, the ferry tickets are in high demand. Making changes to existing bookings is hardly possible during summer except if you are okay with postponing your travel for up to several months.

So, the date was more or less fixed and became our guiding light throughout the year. In the middle of October, the week before we left, a flooding crisis started to unfold in NSW and Victoria, the two states we had to cross. What did that mean for our plans? We held our nerves and left as planned three weeks before the ferry date. You can read more about this here.

So what was it like to go on the ferry? We had a look at it the day before departure. There it was, the massive new ship that could take hundreds of vehicles across the Bass Strait. Fittingly, the weather was very Tasmanian – cold and fickle, switching from sunny to overcast to wind gusts and rain.

We saw that cars and caravans were lined up hours before boarding time and decided to do the same. It was fun standing in line and chatting with other nomads. It was exciting! I felt like a kid – it was decades ago that I had last been on a ferry to an island.

We took the overnight ferry and had a small cabin at the bow with a porthole and a compact shower/toilet bathroom. People had warned us that the ride could be terrible with the recent storms. But mostly it was magical: gliding across Port Phillip Bay at dusk, the city lights at the horizon, and once we had passed through the heads, the ocean rocking us – not too badly. Falling asleep looking at the southern constellations of stars in the night sky.

There was one scary moment: when the ferry left the bay and met the ocean. Huge breakers smashed against the hull with loud bangs; the ferry heaved in the waves. But it all settled down after a while. Woken by general announcement at 5.30 am, we disembarked an hour later at the city of Devonport shining in the crystal-clear, cold morning.

After a few difficulties, see here (Google leading us astray) and here (a jammed gas line), our journey on Princes Highway down the coast was glorious.

Our campsite at Ulladulla was right at the tip of the headlands in the scenic area of the sprawling Holiday Haven Caravan Park. We left relieved to have the gas line drama behind us and drove to Tathra. Wondering which of the numerous caravan parks to choose, we had decided on the Tathra Eco Camp. And boy was that the right decision!

A huge area for unpowered sites mostly to ourselves, gorgeous gum trees in front of a rock face, pods of kangaroos, flocks of rosellas and white cookatoos, and the beach just across the road. And great weather!

Driving on, we passed through large areas still recovering from the 2019/2020 bushfires. Another guess led us to the tiny hamlet of Bemm River hidden in the far south of Victoria. We had a vantage point at the top of the caravan park overlooking the Sydenham Inlet.

Warm, balmy weather, leisurely walks, icecream at the rusted servo, and later watching the full moon rise. Just sitting outside our camper.

We knew we would make it to Geelong in time for our ferry to Tasmania.