|
We woke early again so we could return the
key to the interesting bikie hippie park Ranger. We were a
little later than planned because while we packed up the tent we
got talking to a guy who was set up next to us. He was
originally Scottish, but now lives in Tassie. The Scottish
background was pretty obvious because he wore a big black dress,
I mean a kilt. I think he would have been in his late 50’s, he
was a nice man, and was short with beard and Scottish accent.
We chatted about what things we could do in Hobart, and the
North East of Tassie, and generally about Tassie, but also about
our ideas on Mr Howards recent comments about Nuclear power
stations, I think most people oppose it. I wonder if there will
be big protests like there were for the Franklin Gordon dam in
the 80’s.
We dropped the key off, without too much chat
this time, and went to stock up on food again for our last
week. I think we had forgotten how long it takes to shop when
you have these massive city supermarkets where you walk for
miles just to go up and down all the isles for a few things.
But we finished and packed up everything neatly into the car.
We drove off heading generally North up
towards the East coast following a couple of tracks from the 4WD
book. The first track was through nice countryside and farm
land, then moved onto a rougher track that passed the back of a
military training area, it was interesting with a few nice
views. After stopping for a yummy lunch with those pizza rolls
you get from the supermarket, we continued on some dirt roads
until we came to an old historic site.
 To see it we had to park the car and continue
walking up a barely visible track through the relatively open
eucalypt and scrub countryside. After getting a bit confused on
where to go we soon arrived at an old dam wall that was built by
convicts. It was about 20 metres high and has been mostly
overgrown by vegetation, it was planned to be a way of damming
up the river so the farmers could have water for irrigation, but
unfortunately it was never completed. In about 1840 new rules
came in that required convicts to be paid a small amount for
their work. The land owners then saw the project as being too
expensive so it was just left half finished.
 Some old building ruins had also been left
near by. The buildings have all fallen down, but some of the
walls and foundations remain. They were all made with rocks
from around the area. We also saw a grave site of a poor
convict who died while building the wall from a rock falling on
him. It was all very interesting, and just another example of
really old convict relics that are scattered throughout Tassie.
Arriving back at the car we decided it was
time to camp, so we set up camp in an open area near the start
of the walking track. Just before we were about to make dinner,
Jo noticed a big leach climbing up her pants. After jumping
around and carrying on a bit we decided its punishment would be
cremation. We put it in a match box coffin and lit up a little
fire around it. Not long after the box started to burn up the
most amazing thing happened, the leech exploded, it actually
went bang! I couldn’t believe it, it blew apart the match box
and scattered some of the fire ashes around. I have never heard
of that happening before. I guess it was its last chance to get
back at us, but we were just happy to know it was now blown to
smithereens and couldn’t suck on us any more. From now on I’m
going to try and explode every leech I can find.
Apart from leeches it’s nice to be back in
the bush again and not in a tent city. We made a simple dinner
of noodles and pumpkin soup. It was nicely finished off with
some extremely yummy Tasmanian ice cream that I have been
storing in the freezer for a while and not got around to
eating. It’s a blueberry one made by Valhalla, in one of those
small round 1 litre containers. It is so good I think I’ll get
a few more to take home before we leave. Mmmm.
|
