Photos of Tasmania

[Maninga]

I spent some time in Tasmania recently, wanted to share a couple of photos. I'm by no means good with a camera, but for scenery buffs you may enjoy these.

Cradle Mountain

Northwest coastline

Somewhere in the northwest. Dirt road about 100km long leading from Arthur River to Zeehan.

Coming in off the mountains approaching Strahan. Sun was only an hour or so from setting at the time, light fog/low lying cloud

 

[Maninga]

Continuing.......

Find that winter in Tassy can be a little cold, low lying cloud and occasional snow something I'm not used to. Climate, amount of water/lakes and amount of temperate rainforest different to what I'm used to in Victoria.

Continuation of photos. About 20km from Strahan heading to Queenstown.

Overlooking Queenstown

Series of phots from within Franklin Gordon National Park

Lake St Clair

Strahan and out into the bay

 

[Maninga]

Last lot

Heading up the Gordon river. Flows into the bay outside Strahan and part of the national park. Once of my favorite places during the trip, and somewhere I want to explore via kayak during summer.

The trip's renewed an interest in photography, made me want to learn more about taking better photos. I'm planning on moving to Hobart (capital of Tasmania) next year and exploring more of the island, will be happy to share as I go along.

 

[Every Miles A Memory]

That's some amazing scenery. Not at all what I imagined when I think of Tasmania...for some reason I thought desert climate???

 

[Maninga]

Thread Resurection

To continue on this thread, I have some new additions. Since the first series of photos, I've moved to Tasmania after deciding to go back to university in pursuit of a new career. The travel bug, well, it's still there, but I'm putting it on hold for a bit as I get started on way to becoming an engineer.

So anyways, new photos. These have been taken over the course of a couple of weeks while driving around the state during my spare time.

Huon Valley

Took this on latest trip returning from Huon Valley, heading back towards Hobart

 

[Maninga]

Mt Wellington overlooks Hobart, I have a good view of it from my bedroom window. It's about a mile above sea level. I've been up three times sofar, this time the top appeared to be covered in cloud but a good portion was below the top of the mountain.

Overlooking Hobart

Looking back over the range

Image looks like I took photoshop to it and cut out the background. It's just the cloud cover though.

 

[Maninga]

Headed up the east coast for a couple of days. For what's only a couple of hundred miles, there's a lot to see and do. It kinda took me by surprise at just how much there was, left myself short in time to explore as much as would have liked. Oh well, next trip.

Marion Bay
Me

Girlfriend

Looking out over the beach

Stayed the night in a town called Swansea. Town itself was fairly small, nice little seafood restaurant there and some nice views. There's a national park close by which have yet to explore, but the outlook from parts caught my eye.
Ocean shot

 

[Maninga]

Headed out fairly early and had quite a long day, though covered less than 100 miles with all the things to do

Oyster Bay

Bay of Fires

And a few other short walks, wineries, rainforests for the day. Last couple of shots before returning home after a night in St Helens.

Small waterfall we came across

Local wildlife

Blue Lake. Used to be a mine before being abandoned. Colour is meant to be from the aluminium in the surrounding area, the water is highly acidic so no swiming.

View overlooking the bay next to St Helens. At the end of a very windy drive, several miles of curves, hairpin bends and generally a bit of fun. I'm starting to believe there's no straight roads in Tasmania, certainly I haven't come across any sofar.

That's it for now. I've only recently upgraded my camera and equipment, moved from an old Olympus to a Nikon D300s which am still learning how to drive comfortably. Would put myself in the photography hack category, but working on getting better.

 

[HumphreyBear]

Nice photos, Maninga. I was having dinner tonight with some British friends who have just come back from the Bay of Fires and raved about it. Looks lovely in the photos.

Is that echidna a juvenile or do they grow them extra woolly down that way?

 

[1911]

Beautiful place; would love to visit some day. Thanks for posting the photos.

 

[Lynn]

Thanks for sharing all the great pix. We would love to get down that way. Even more so now...

Is Tasmania some sort of secret treasure? We shared a dinner table a couple years ago with two couples from Australia. When I told them I would love to visit Australia, and especially Tasmania, they responded with dumb looks and, "why would you go down there?" I was too dumbfounded to reply.

Anyway, thanks for adding fuel to my fire.

 

[HumphreyBear]

Tassie is a jewel, but often derided by those who have never been, or went to Hobart/Launceston 15 years ago. It is quite a popular sport over here (bashing Tasmania), along with knocking Perth and Canberra, both also great places. It is a social insecurity that most of those people would rather go to Bali or Fiji than visit somewhere in Australia - there is almost a poverty stigma to holidaying in Australia these days, especially with the strength of the AUD$ these days.

As a plus for this community (ExPo), Tassie is 4WDing heaven. My parents have been down there for several months now, traipsing around in their LC200, and they love it, I'm beginning to wonder if they'll ever come back. Admittedly you don't go if you want banging nightlife and a pumping social scene (or whatever the young people say these days) but if you like your travels to be fairly quiet, with beautiful small country towns set in breath-taking and ever changing scenery, amongst people with great pride and dignity, Tasmania is a great place to go. Oh, and it helps to like apples...

An Australian 4WD magazine recently released a video report of their trip though Tasmania (4WD Action - Roothy Presents: The Best Bits of Tasmania) which looks fantastic, and shows off the diverse landscapes they have down there. Worth watching if you can get your hands on a copy somehow.

Humphrey

 

[Maninga]

I have to agree with Humphrey, Tasmania bashing is a national sport. I used to live in Melbourne previously, when telling people of my decision to move down here most common response was "why would you want to live down there" or "is that where you're from originally". It seems like they don't quite understand the reasoning behind wanting to move to a place like this. The nightlife does suck (Saturday night in one of the more popular areas of Hobart, not far into the new year, everything was shut at 1am), and it is known as the welfare state, with roughly 40% of people are on some kind of government welfare according to one of the financial advisers I work with (as an aside, I currently write financial analytics software for banks). Things do tend to be somewhat expensive down here too, which surprised me.

Great things about Tasmania though. There's a lot of different styles of scenery closer together than you could find elsewhere in Australia. The 4wding looks great (trips sofar have been in WRX, though looking for a Prado currently), good fishing, food is fresh, and all the outdoor sports which I enjoy (kayaking, caving, hiking) are in abundance. People are friendly, pace of life is glacial compared to Melbourne/Sydney, it's just a great place to be.

Enough for now, I'm off for another 3-4 days now. I'll see about some more photos when I get back.

Joe

 

[1911]

The lack of night life and the sparse population would be huge attractions in my book.