Tasmania was once called Van Diemen's Land. The island was originally found by Abel Tasman in 1642. This Dutch explorer, searching for trading ports, named it after his patron, Anthony Van Diemen, who was the Governor General of the Netherlands East Indies and director of the United East India Company.
The Island has become a tourist destination during the past five years. The population is about 500, 000 people. Hobart is the capital and has a population of about 200, 000 people.
After a windy flight and arrival in the capital city of Hobart (from Sydney), looking at the brilliant turquoise water and white caps on it.
There is lush growth everywhere combined with the clean air that is blended with the trendy and upscale shops and cafes makes it a perfect destination.
Our Hotel
We were very comfortably at the Grand Chancellor Hotel. It had nice rooms and a fantastic chef and a menu that included quail a l'orange.
Port Arthur: We were intrigued by the history of the convicts, (the early Tasmanian settlers were mostly convicts), we started our investigation at Port Arthur at the southeastern tip of Tasmania
This is the biggest convict site with large yellow sandstone penitentiary ruins. The hardest of the convicts were sent from 1787 through 1840. Here, through innovative illustrations and verbal shows, we saw the way these convicts, officials, soldiers and their families all lived and died more than 150 years ago. The entry fee also includes a fascinating harbor cruise on a breezy fall day.
We left Port Arthur early the next morning and start to drive toward the northwest tip of the island where the Van Dieman's Land Company is, (in Woolnorth).
What We Saw:
This is the oldest and largest farmland area in Tasmania that was about 22, 200 hectares. They offer farm tours as well as accommodations at the original "Homestead" in the Director's Lodge that was built in 1970.
Then we drove through the country passing historic and fascinating little towns like Oatlands, Ross, and Campbell Town. March is fall and it's like no fall we've ever seen with flowers in raging abundance flow over fences, trees, and around mailboxes and houses. Blazing magenta-red Warratah trees rising up 30 feet in the air are covered in mammoth blossoms.
We continued to go northwest and went through the area where the farms are. There were thousands and thousands of sheep grazing in the valleys.
Driving through Launceston, Devonport and Burnie I kept going to reach Smithton in order to take a tour the next morning of one of Tasmania's "wind farms, " part of a system of wind turbines providing electricity to many homes in Tasmania.
We stayed at a motel called Tall Timbers that is set in a serene, park like atmosphere. My single room was huge room containing every item possible. There was an upscale bistro where we enjoy a wonderful meal.
The next morning we drove to the Woolnorth gate and are met by tour guide. We went over bumpy and unpaved roads to view some of the original buildings built by the very first English folks who started the Van Diemen's Land Company of London in 1824.
The guide tells us, "In 1825 by Royal Charter from King George IV the company was established and granted 350, 000 acres of land for the cultivation and improvement of wastelands on island of Van Diemen's Land."
It has survived many problems for 170 years. It is currently using wind farming.
The company brought the first flocks of Merino and Saxony sheep thinking they would thrive, but chose the wrong parts of the island to raise them on, especially at Emu Bay, (now Burnie), and Surrey Hills and Hampshire Hills. In these areas thousands of the sheep froze to death in the sub-alpine weather conditions. They were subsequently transferred to the milder climates of Circular Head (now Stanley), and Woolnorth in 1834.
Over the years new managers tried various innovative ideas and in 1873 the company bred a pure bred Hereford herd and distant descendants of the original stock still graze today at Woolnorth in Australia's oldest Hereford herd.
On the way we saw a few local animals including the Tanzanian Devil. It is not a cute like we see in pictures. When I saw it I was scared. Most of their animals are marsupials, (pouched mammals), the platypus, the devil and the thylanacine, (a tiger).
Later on a tourist operation was established to meet the growing market of visitors wishing to see Tasmania's most historic and on going farming.
We arrived at one of the windmill locations to walk about and take some photos of Cape Grim, the two "dough boys" islands and Trefoil Island off the breathtaking coastline. The giant white turbines of Danish manufacture sitting high on the stark, wind-blown bluffs are so enormously tall they appear as white giants waving their huge wings.
Following the tour, we are left to relax at the Director's Lodge, an imposing timbered home built in the shape of an airplane by an aviator director. Our huge bed-sitting room has a high poster bed almost requiring a stool and the view from the window is the rest of Tasmania.
We finish our Tasmanian tour by stopping at Strahan on the southwest coast and taking the Gordon River tour to view Sarah Island, where the most incorrigible convicts were sent and from which there was no way off.
Then we flew back to Sydney.
I Hope:
This is a very interesting Island. I hope you all get a chance to see it one day.
Thanks for reading my review.
©Lyla 2007
