next morning and drove to the North coast, to a town called Stanley. Stanley
is an old historic town, population 600, which is home to the unique
geological formation known as Circular Head, or more commonly, The Nut. This
is known as a volcanic plug, a large protruding rock in the middle of flat
country, formed over 12,000 years ago when a crack in the earth's crust send
lava spewing out. It is a singular formation because of it's size, it can
bee seen down the coast as much as 40 miles away. I rode a chairlift to the
top and was surprised to find it heavy vegetation up there. There was a
winding, 1.5 mile track at the top and it afford beautiful views of Stanley
and the surrounding country side. I had been warned by my collection of
Australia guidebooks that it was windy at the top, but that turned out to be
a gross understatement. The wind was amazing!
Tamar Valley
Wombat
(pronounced LAWN-sess-ton). This was quite a hidden gem of Tasmania, even
though it is Tasmania's second largest city. The downtown area was full of
old Georgian style building, which are common in Tasmania, but never in the
abundance there are in Launceston. I was informed by my hostel manager that
keeping the buildings around really was not done by a conscious effort to
give the town ambience, but instead they were left because during the time
when other cities where tearing down such building and replacing them with
more modern structures, Launceston was too poor to afford the newer style
buildings. They realize now how lucky they were. Launceston's downtown also
had some nice pedestrian malls, which is a pert of European cities that I
really love, and these gave this city a definite European feel.
Near Launceston are a host of natural features which make for convenient
day trips. The most striking feature is known as Cataract Gorge. This is a
dramatic canyon formed, like the Nut, by volcanic forces in the earth
crust thousands of years ago. As the Australians do so well, they had put
walkways down both sides, and a chairlift crossing the gorge in the middle,
creating an amusement park atmosphere out of a striking natural feature. The
river that runs through the gorge is the Tamar, and it's valley, 25 miles of
it to the sea, is one of Tasmania's most famous wine regions, and some
small, quaint towns that are also full of Georgian architecture. The most
famous of these towns is Georgetown, which calls itself the oldest TOWN in
Australia. Everyone knows that Sydney is the oldest city in Australia, and
what the difference between the two is lost on me. It probably has something
to do with size. Georgetown is a small hamlet of 1,000 people, while Sydney
has 4 million. I really wasn't all that impressed with Georgetown.
Devonport