Tourism, what Tourism?

I’m starting to believe the timber companies. Some of you may recall a debate in Tasmania some months ago regarding the state of the economy here. Namely that more timber mills needed to be created in order to keep people in jobs and money. Other cried out that this was not the way forward; tourism would save them all. The timber mills disagreed. And I know why. Because Tasmania sucks at tourism.

Last post I noted that our next trip was down to the Huon Valley. Huon Valley is advertised at a number of locations throughout Hobart as a pleasant country atmosphere with cafes, museums and workshops to view local handicrafts. First of all café is turning into a bit of a misnomer as it now describes anywhere with a bain-marie and a deep fryer. Fortunately most places understand that an espresso machine is required but damned if half of them can use it. We stopped in Huonville for morning tea at a generic (hugely overpriced) bakery and were rather underwhelmed by the country quaintness. Or lack thereof. Huonville is a small industrial town about 40 minutes out of Hobart with all the country pleasantries of an abattoir. The locals are rough working class (not that I mind, it’s just not a tourist attraction) and provided you try and swerve away from their kids on the road you should be fine. The problem here is that there is actually nothing to see if you are a tourist. It looks like any pit stop to Phillip Island, Wilsons Prom or Bendigo. I’m getting a bit dubious about Tasmania’s ability to maintain a tourist trade here.

Clearly step one is to advertise areas that have been vaguely gentrified as most people don’t find small industrial towns that interesting. Secondly, have something to attract tourists. Handmade local items. Animal park. Museum. Whatever, I don’t care, but don’t tell people it’s a beautiful place to go and then have the locals stare at tourist like they just walked in from the Queen of the Desert bus.

The country side is prettyish, but half the time I feel like we’re back home in Belgrave. Maybe I have been spoiled. Giving up on local produce we continued to head south until you get stuck with water or trees to a place called Ida Bay. Ida Bay has nothing in it, except a small historical railway. Raised on Puffing Billy I have a proclivity for old trains, so we agreed to wait for two hours for the next train to take us. Have lunch in the café, she says brightly. It’s warm and pleasant. Café, huh? Sure it’s a café? Nope, it’s a tiny linoleum tuckshop. Oh well. Two hours later it’s pouring with rain and the train hasn’t come back from its previous journey. We nearly saved a dog that was eventually found to be owned by a lazy bloke who couldn’t be bothered to put a collar on his dog, but apparently they weren’t to join us on the train. I was hanging out for the train because it would be more undercover and I’m sure they have zip down perspex windows to keep out the rain. Or not… Okay, well it’s stopped raining, it might be alright.

In actual fact once on the road it was fine, although bloody cold. The rail tractor (not really a train after all) takes us through the bush to an old timber town that has completely burnt down in a bushfire and basically nothing remains except the tombstones at the cemetery. It was a lovely journey though, and worth preserving. A better café, some bigger carriages, more info about the history, a coffee at the other end and they could double the price.

This was our last expedition out of Hobart as the next day we headed for Port Arthur. Lucky we’re heading for another biggish town. We stopped at a local wildlife park for some devil and quoll feeding before finding our rather fetching accommodation just outside Port Arthur.

Our self contained log cabin has its own kitchen, bathroom and private decking overlooking the bush and the waterfront. Mmm, Tasmania.

After bringing in our thing we decided to scope out the local town for dining and entertainment. Hmmm, seems a bit quiet. What about this road? Nope, that’s the historical site. Turn around… Okay, so a rather large town on the map near Hobart in fact contains: a Breakfast/lunch café, a general store/post office and the main office of the local cruise company. That’s it then? Right.

Unbelievable. Heaven knows what I expected, but this wasn’t it. How could Tasmania have got it so wrong? How could I have got it so wrong? There are at least 8-10 different accommodation options down here, all stocking people who need feeding an entertaining. In Arthurs Pass (NZ) the town basically existed because of the nearby glaciers. Nothing else brought money in for the town. The accommodation facilities were the same but the town must have been six or seven times bigger than here. I’m not sure why this annoys me so much. Perhaps it’s because I can see that Tasmania has so much to offer, but based on current circumstances, Tasmania will NEVER make money from tourism. And it would be a shame to convert the whole state into a timber mill. There are critters and plants here that I’ve never seen anywhere else…

So anyway, tomorrow we are going to visit the Port Arthur World Heritage Site.

Signs to Nowhere and Art that Smells

We’ve learnt a lot in our last few days in Tasmania. Sometimes the road signs tell the truth, and sometimes they lie. Taswegians seem rather fascinated with giving you turning instructions two or three streets before your actual turn. This can make life slightly difficult for the average tourist who believes you when you say “Turn left here”. What? Not here? You mean over there? In the opposite direction to your sign? Well, okay…

We left Strahan after breakfast and headed to Hobart via Queenstown (not really like the NZ town). Queenstown should really be called Minetown, because that’s what it is, a huge mine on a staggeringly bendy road which made me rather ill. Apart from that Tasmanian roads are rather uneventful. Hobart is itself, rather uneventful. A town the size of Geelong, it feels like a mixture of Sydney, Adelaide and Dunedin all circa 1990. The town spreads like a fungus from the river up the mountains, where houses bleed up the sides until the trees hold them back. The houses defy age to young’uns like us; we just can’t tell when fibro was fashionable.

Our hostel is on the main drag at the darker end, up with the auto workshops and gay bars. The Pickled Frog is a bright green two storey building probably built in the 1930 or 40s. I doubt it was bright green then. It’s a really pleasant hostel with friendly staff and a malamute puppy called “Baloo” (we were impressed and told them about our cat counterpart, Bagira). The rooms are basic to say the least, but we can’t hear the noise from downstairs which is always a plus. My wrath is saved for door slammers who come up at about 11pm. To be fair the doors don’t lend themselves to peace and quiet but I have nearly screamed in the night enough times to make me very careful when I close the door. Our bed is probably an original and I feel I may need physio to survive.

Saturday is the Famous Salamanca Market, which is the Hobartian equivalent of the Southbank market, although it is actually bigger. It’s packed, even early in the morning, so be careful when carrying food around lest you wear it or purchase delicate goods with it. The market is a mixture of artisan fineries, homemade trinkets, wood products, second hand books, wood products, a steady line up of buskers on a prime corner, wood products and some wood products. Like it or not, Tasmania’s economy is based on timber. They ship it, whittle it, carve it, whatever you want. I bought some pretty little wooden earrings (yes) and a wooden stand to hang them on.

After braving the crowds, bumping into some work colleagues and surviving breakfast, we felt the need for some non-timber experiences. Tasmania doesn’t seem to be interested in zoos or wildlife parks, but we found a sanctuary on the outskirts of Hobart which could fill a couple of hours. Once again we battled the Tasmanian prerogative for mindlessly stupid road signs combined with a pretty useless map. They should just give you a compass and some latitudes when you get off the boat, it honestly would be more useful. So even though they tried their best to hinder us we found the place eventually. Bonorong Wildlife sanctuary is a small place with only native wildlife. Despite having some truly unique wildlife Tasmania has the highest roadkill rate in Australia (if not the world). It seems hard to define why, I think it might be the high number of small roads at 110k/ph coupled with just about no out of hours wildlife rescuer services, something Victorians take for granted. So the sanctuary had a lot of injured and orphaned animals to protect/raise/release. Typically most animals are nocturnal so it’s hard to see many, but we did make it for a bit of a feeding tour. Tassie devil imps (bubs) are super cute. Heroically savage, but still cute. They actually aren’t hunters which you can work out as soon as you see them run. Prey probably dies from laughing first and forgetting to run away. Mostly they eat things that are already dead, or looks dead, which apparently can include sleepy campers who don’t shut their tents properly.

Grrr

Argh

Nom.

Sunday we started the day at the Hobart Showgrounds Farmers Market because I couldn’t find anybody in the hostel who could make my coffee for me. Here we noticed some more differences in culture and dialect between us and the Taswegians. Tom and I are frequent visitors to Melbourne Farmers Markets. The food is amazing and it’s easy to get excited about cooking when you see everyone around you, getting excited by cooking. Many of the farmer’s markets in Victoria have a mobile barista, so my weekend coffees are often consumed while buying dinner. As such we have used the word “Farmer” to define someone who grows/produces fresh fruit and veg and sells it to the public. Apparently the word doesn’t translate well in Taswegian as we quickly discovered that here “Farmer” refers to random bogan who rummaged through the spare room bagging up old stuff before chucking it in the station wagon to sell to other bogans. Clearly a language mix-up here. Coffee was discovered, purchased, sipped and discarded. Bleah. I should have just waited until we got to MONA (Museum of Old and New Art); the café seemed poncy enough to know how to make coffee.

MONA is an interesting place. It’s a private art gallery owned by an eccentric millionaire. I won’t surmise too much as I didn’t really pay attention and I know friends of ours know infinitely more about it than we do. So Google it, and then you will know.

The gallery is enormous, on four floors of dark high spaces. The exhibits have no labels, so you constantly look like a hipster referring to your supplied iPod touch which sniffs out the artworks as you move towards them and then tells you who the artist is and the usual blurb. Interesting points include seeing other people’s comments (invariably haters followed by the art buyer) and what they refer to as “ArtWank” which gives you a bit more history and detail, although not necessarily useful to the artwork in question. I admit posting on facebook that “some of it is art” because there is a huge range of artistic styles, and no one could like all of it. Some of it feels like rubbish, other parts feel very clever. It would be the perfect place to take an art class to discuss “what is art?”

The pieces are mainly sculpture, which some visual and aural art as well. Some of it stinks, and I mean literally. Wim Delvoye (Google him) seems to be the owner’s favourite artist as there was a plethora of work by him and it was hugely varied. And some of it was designed to smell. We avoided the poo room as I had a headache, but the industrial digestion simulation known as Cloaca was a provoking experience. And it makes you question. Why is this art? How is this art? Of course it is, but it’s very challenging in what it tries to represent. I rather enjoyed a work with Louis Vuitton tattooed to a pigs hide, but I enjoyed less the video of the pigs living in standard piggy conditions beforehand, already tattooed. Speaking of tattoos, one exhibit was a man, tattooed. Why?

We didn’t see the entire gallery, it’s hugely expansive and overwhelming. Some of the art is hard to deal with. While kids were there, parts of the gallery are marked for mature audiences which always freaks me out. Are we going to see violence, cruelty, or just sex? I view the two extremes in art very differently. I would totally object to a child seeing violence or rape records, but plaster vaginas don’t bother me. Both were in the same mature section, some I skipped.

Today has been a bit dull. After my morning coffee and careers advice session (occupational hazard, plus the American lass had no idea where Darwin was and what youth work up there might be like) we hung around like lost sheep waiting for Important People to call us and tell us Important Things. Our loan for our house was due to be approved today and we didn’t want to be far from the interwebs should we need to get online. Through a varied list of misunderstandings this day brought up a huge amount of stress which turned out to be unfounded, which has made me feel a lot better about being in Tasmania while this is being sorted out. Suffice to say the People who are Paid to Deal with this Sort of Thing are dealing with it, and I am happy.

After determining that we did not need to wait hovering over the laptop for instructions we had lunch and drove up the Mount Wellington. Not in the shape of a boot as you might guess, Mount Wellington looms politely over Hobart promising not to cause worry. We’ll be over here, promise we won’t fall over. The way to Mount Wellington is clearly the posh end of Hobart although a lot of it looks like the Mount Dandenong tourist road. We probably should have researched it a bit more before we went. I would like to advise you fellow travellers that: Did You Know? Mt Wellington is nearly 10 degrees colder than Hobart on any given day and suffers blustering, icy, nipple-numbing gale force winds? Now you know. Rest assured now in your key knowledge, comfortable in your house, in front of the computer. Don’t think about us freezing to death on the side of a mountain. Surprisingly we survived. Tomorrow we head to Huon Valley, Timber Country. Lolz.

We will do everything! ... Or not.

Day 2.

We will get up early and visit the tourist centre and pick out what cheesy tourist activities we want to be subjected to. No we won’t, we’ll sleep in, because Juliet has a cold. Damn. Looks like it’s Strahan sans cheese for us.

The main activity that can be undertaken on land and inside at Strahan is a visit to the timber workshop here. Huon pine is a big industry in Taswegia, and Strahan is no exception for the trappings of wood-made-everything not-that-cheaply. We did pick up a rather nice chopping board, but you could buy almost anything here.

It seems that Dusty the Pug did not quite survive her off roading as today we could see that most of the tyres were down. Hopefully we can get away with just one spare. A quick education on tyre inflation tools for Tom and we have them back up again, and monitoring is now in place as we face a 5 hour drive tomorrow. For now its iPad games and kindle books in between woeful napping. Stupid cold.

The Taswegian Massage Car, or Why Tom is Not Allowed to Navigate

Here we are in Tasmania! Two weeks of Sun, Surf and... Wait, no that's not why were here. We're here for Cold, Calm and Cute Furry Things. Yay!

Day 1

Day 1 is technically Day 0, as we boarded the Spirit of Tasmania for an overnight journey with our car.

Boat fans do not be fooled by the cheap car rates, the Spirit is an expensive and rather dull way to travel. The boat departs Port Melbourne about two hours before sundown, so the first ten minutes waving the shore goodbye is pleasant, but more important is beating the enormous queue for bain marie dinner. After dark there is a cinema if you want, or mindnumbing pokies, for your convenience. We went to bed early as I have a headache, and we slept until the voices of morning alerted us to the fact that is was ten to six, time to get up, get your car, and get off.

Whoever said that this was to be the highlight of our trip has left me with great fears for this holiday.

Having woken up at such an unholy hour, the bright skies of Tasmania beckoned us to the road, as nothing was open in Devonport or the next four towns so early in the morning. A light breakfast in Ulverstone and back on the road. The coast road is pretty, although bloody windy. Particularly in areas where ancient lighthouses beckoned us for a 15 minute tour from 11am. Pity its only 9:30am. We did keep seeing this on farms though:

What kind of crop is Tasmania's most popular? Poppy Crops. Mmm, poppies.

By morning tea we were in Stanley, a small but pretty town on the side of a cliff, me driving after Tom declared himself too tired after our boat sleep. He was therefore responsible for negotiating with our house sitter and mortgage broker for the transfer of key documents not sent in time by the land developer. What a surprise.

For those of you with Google maps up, you’ll notice that we managed to get most of the way up the west coastline in a morning, so we decided to head for Smithton and then south to Strahan, our bed for the night. We had bought a map on the boat and had taken the same view of the coding as a UK map, which uses double green lines for both motorway and backstreet. We didn’t take too much notice of how the map categorised the roads. That, in hindsight, was a mistake.

About an hour south of Smithton, in the middle of nowhere, we were greeted with a sign and a road that I did not want to follow. The sign said that the throughway included a ferry trip via 120kms of dirt road. That’s One Hundred and Twenty Kilometres of Dirt Road. Why is this here ? Where are we? Why is this to only choice? Why didn’t the map tell us this? Oh. Wait. It did. Shut up map. So I drove 120kms on a dirt road, which was sometimes so steep 1^st gear was required.

It was a scrub landscape, without any sign of civilisation, or wildlife, apart from a rather game bird and her two hatchlings who decided that my hugely noisy diesel on a dirt road was not enough of a deterrent to cross. Her last chick disagreed. I hold great hopes for its survival.

We managed to weave our way around the ferry trip and come up via Waratah (Note, no toilets for 250kms…) and finally stopped with a family running their three 7 week old puppies. A quick puppy cuddle and all was cured.

Strahan is a pretty seaside town with the usual tourist trappings of boats, planes and expensive steak. A supermarket would be nice though…