I’d been told I had to see the dead hills on the way out of Tasmania’s old mining town of Queenstown. All vegetation had been killed off years before by the felling of the trees to burn in the mine smelters and the sulfur fumes from the smelters themselves.

Continue reading “Curing My Fear of Heights – Queenstown” →

White Australia began as a penal settlement, a way for the English to clear out their overloaded gaols and to rid themselves of what they called the “criminal classes”. Many of the convicts were sent to Tasmania, around 76,000 between 1804 and 1853. We were taught at school about the colourful and fascinating history surrounding this time but I wanted to learn more. Continue reading “Gordon River Tasmania” →

I came to travelling alone, late in life. I’d always wanted to explore Tasmania, the island south of where I live in Melbourne, Australia. ‘Tassie’ is often ignored by Melburnians; something about it being so close, so easy to get to, takes it off the radar. And then it doesn’t offer palm trees and tropical islands, scuba diving among corals in warm, pristine waters. No camel rides in red deserts or coat-hanger bridges and shell-like opera houses. But something had always drawn me to the place, though apart from a quick drive from Hobart to Burnie years before, in true Melburnian fashion I’d kept putting it off.

Continue reading “Tasmania The Beginning” →