Great Places

Tasmania in Australia boasts some of the most incredible natural wonders to explore from rainforest walks, through to alpine environments. There are so many places to see and experience that offer history and nature as well as scenic beauty that defies any justice attempting to describe it.

From the State capital city of Hobart, it is a 20-minute drive to the base of Mt Wellington from which there are numerous hiking trails to explore. Five kilometres of hiking up one of the main trails from the base will take you through a rain forest and up some mildly steep inclines into which steps are cut to assist in your journey until you reach a picnic spot called "The Springs". From this point, there are a number of short walks that take you to some scenic lookouts that overlook the city, and out to sea. The main trail to the summit is up a trail called the zigzag track 12 kilometres of fairly tough going. In places where passage is truly difficult, cables are strung out to assist with your climb, and to improve on the overall safety. The view from the summit is awe-inspiring and worth the effort to get there. The summit is snow covered in the winter, and often you will experience sudden and freezing changes with little warning at the height of summer. It pays to be prepared when planning a hike on this mountain.

Approximately 50 kilometres North West of Hobart is the picturesque township of New Norfolk, on the Derwent River. You can find some great historical and interesting places to visit, one of which includes the salmon ponds a little misleading since the fish are trout! It is a trout-breeding farm where tourists literally hand-feed some of the most enormous trout I have seen in my life.

Continuing into the National Park from New Norfolk, one of nature's oldest natural wonders is Russel Falls. Walking along the trails to the base of these falls is awe-inspiring given you are in an old-growth rain forest. Some of the trees that fell across the track have been sawn neatly to create passage and I was stunned to count over eight hundred growth rings on trunks that exceeded three metres in diameter. When you reach the falls, the signs advise that you are looking at rock face aged over 600 million years. That makes you feel so insignificant given our pitiful life spans of approximately 80 years or so.

Driving through the National Park towards one of the massive hydroelectric dams, I crested a hill and almost ran completely off the road when I first say the majesty of the

saw-tooth ranges. The rock formations seemed to reach up to the very heavens and they look like a sheer wall of granite. Upon reaching the Strathgordon dam, the wall feature itself was impressive yet not as much as the drive down a 1.5 kilometre tunnel to an underground viewing station from which the enormity of the hydroelectric power plant was on display. 800 cubic metres of water per second race through three massive turbines located in a cavern of over 50 metres in height and cut into raw bedrock far beneath the mountains. One or two foolish thrill seekers made the fatal mistake of attempting to surf in the tail-race where water from the turbines is discharged. The force of water through the narrow concrete channels may look tempting to an itching surfer looking for a rush - the unfortunate reality is the force is too great and nobody survives.

On another Tasmanian adventure over a three-day frenzy of activity, I trekked for one day through the Cradle Mountain National Park over a distance of nearly 30 kilometres. This was exhausting yet the sense of achievement at the end of the trail made up for the pain and exhaustion - not to mention the spectacular views once we made it up the seemingly endless climbs. The following day was spent on a white-water rafting adventure full of excitement and rush of screaming rapids. The final day was a unique experience throug a system of wet caves. This adventure started by wading out into a small creek, then following it up a ravine where it entered a cave (with an experience guide of course). We travelled with our guide for a number of hours, and explored some amazing caverns. The deepest part of the water was about chest deep and the water was bitingly cold yet everyone was enjoying the experience too much to complain. At one point, our guide instructed us to extinguish all lights we looked up and it was a spectacular display of fireflies lining the cavern roof.

On the Southern side of the Derwent River in Hobart, there is a military installation called Fort Direction. This was firstly a colonial defensive position then it became an ammunition storage depot until after WWII. The awe inspiring views from the point at the top of the hill look out to open sea are worth the visit. Imagination ran quite rampant when I considered the next stop hundreds of kilometres over the horizon was the Antarctic ice pack.

My work for nearly four years in Tasmania was at the historical Anglesea Barracks the oldest continuously occupied military installation in Australia. The history of this establishment is unique, and one of my tasks was to supervise the rebuilding and design display lighting for museum pieces in the old military jail. This building itself is a work of history, and I enjoyed many hours of time exploring places where no tourist would be permitted (a privilege of my position that I exploited at every possible opportunity). I had access to historical photographs, hundreds of which are still not available for public display yet those that are, show pictures of history in the most incredible displays of sepia tones. It was quite an experience looking at historical pictures of buildings in which I became intimately familiar with during my work - standing in the same places over one hundred years after the pictures were taken is an unusual experience to describe.Tasmania, Australia is full of history as well as natural beauty. I could spend a lifetime exploring this one small island located approximately three hundred kilometres across Bass Straight from the main land of Australia. I recommend this as a true paradise on earth where you can enjoy relaxation with plenty to explore in the safety of a peaceful country.