Day 33 – Launceston    

 After our sneak preview of Lanuceston yesterday we decided it would be nice just to walk around the city.  At first we went to see if we could do a tour of the Boags beer factory, but they were closed, so we just kept on walking.  There were lots of nice old churches and every other type of building too.  We went past the city park which had nice gardens and a monkey enclosure.  The monkeys were really funny, there was one monkey that decided it didn’t like another monkey so it just went up and slapped it on the face, so the other monkey got mad and chased the other one all over the place jumping on everything, then they wrestled a bit and chased a bit and yelled at each other some more, it was really entertaining. 

After walking the city we went off to Cataract Gorge, it took a little while to find because half the city roads are one way, and we didn’t have a very good map, but we got there eventually even though it is right next to the city.  It was pretty busy with lots of locals around enjoying the parks, the walks and the scenery.  It is not the most spectacular gorge, but pretty good for something right outside your city.  There was even a chair lift you could take across the gorge if you wanted.  We walked around some tracks that were near the cliffs overlooking the gorge.  There was a little eating area there with grass, gardens and tables, and there were was a peacock showing off its big tail feathers to the girls. 

We went and had lunch near the old hydro power station a little bit further up the river.  It has been abandoned now, but was originally the first one in Tazzie in about 1890 or 1900.  We went in to the old building, but all that was left was one old restored turbine and some information boards.  It was quite interesting that Launceston was pretty much the first town to have electricity in Australia, and the power station output AC and DC power.  They had to hold a vote at the time to see if people would support the use of electricity to replace all their gas powered lanterns and things, and most people voted yes, but some still didn’t want it.  It was interesting to thing back just how much has changed in 100 years.

By mid afternoon we thought we had seen enough and wanted to make some ground towards  Leven Canyon which we missed at the start of the trip.  After a few more hours of windy roads we ended up in a nice little camping spot at the bottom of a gorge near a river, it had just started drizzling when we were setting up the tent and hoped it would not get worse.  At the same time a campervan turned up to camp, which kind of spoiled the serenity, Jo wasn’t very impressed, but I didn’t mind too much.  The bloke came over and said hello and seemed nice. 

We decided to cook up the rest of our meat and veggies into a nice stew on a fire.  It was originally going to be sausages, steak and veggies, but we had forgotten to defrost the meat during the day and now there was so much rain it was just easier to make stew.  Somehow the fire kept going even though the rain got heavier and heavier.   Jo finished off some wine while I hade a beer that the lady at the B&B had given us in the morning.  We had been talking about Baogs in the morning and how all the North Tasmanians are so loyal to it, so she decided to give me one from her fridge which was cool.

 It’s now bucketing down and I’m in the tent listening to the rain in the dark, no water seems to be getting in the tent but there was a bit before so we put a tarp over the top to stop it, and also Jo dug a little trench out the front which has helped take some water away.