If you want to know what heaven is, indulge yourself with hot chocolate made in a chocolate factory: pure liquid chocolate. Anvers Chocolate Factory is situated in a beautiful Californian bungalow, surrounded by cottage gardens, on the outskirts of Latrobe, in the north of Tasmania. I sat next to a window. The room was cold but the light morning sun shone through, emulating warmth. A waitress approached and I ordered my liquid heaven.
Continue reading “Anvers Chocolate Factory Latrobe Tasmania”
The Edge of the World. That’s what the sign said and, standing on the hill looking out to sea, that’s how it felt. Untamed and untameable: Arthur River, North-West Tasmania. If you sailed from where the river enters the sea and kept going, you would hit South America without touching land. This accounted for the vicious wind ripping through me and I was grateful for the knitted beanie a caring friend gave me on my announcement that I was exploring Tassie in the depths of winter.
The trouble with a brand new rental car is that there are no scratches already on it and so any I added couldn’t be blamed on the last person. I would have been happier with a ‘bomb’, as long as it kept going. Still, driving that Toyota Hybrid was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It floated. There was not a bump or rattle, none of the normal sensations, certainly those associated with the cars I’m used to. I glided through the suburbs of Harrogate and out the other side.
∗
I met a woman on the train while crossing the south island of New Zealand in 2010, who said the best way to see England was to rent a car, set yourself up in a different town every few days, and do day trips out to the surrounding districts from there. I decided to follow her advice.
I was nervous, I admit. I’m not a confident driver at any time so this was always going to be the challenging part of the trip. Still, it wouldn’t be that different from Australia, surely. They drive on the right side of the road – that is, the left. They speak English so I could ask directions if I needed to. No, it would be fine.
Continue reading “The Car Knows What to Do – Or Does It? York England”
I’d often been told I should go to York and so, in England’s autumn of 2011, I boarded a train at Manchester and headed north.
York has had many incarnations since the Romans left in A.D.400: Anglo Saxon, Viking, Norman, led by William the Conquerer, and the Tudors. Wars have come and gone, and bust times and booms. In the 1970s and 80s, industrial unrest and strikes swept the country and manufacturing went into decline. It was then that York realised its greatest asset was its history and the tourism it could bring.
In Queenstown, I boarded the steamer, T.S.S.Earnslaw, for a cruise along Lake Wakatipu to Walter Peak High Country Farm. T.S.S.Earnslaw is the last surviving of the grand steamships that graced Lake Wakatipu. It served the remote farming communities around the lake, transporting cargo, livestock and passengers. These days, it’s tourists.
In 2010, I spent two days in Christchurch, on the east coast of New Zealand’s south island, before taking the TranzAlpine Railway to Greymouth on the west coast. The next morning, I picked up my first-ever rental car and headed south towards Queenstown.
I’m not sure what gauge is used to determine travel times on maps but it’s certainly not mine. I was supposed to arrive around 5pm, but it was 7pm and I was on autopilot, as I pulled into Makarora Tourist Centre, in Mount Aspiring National Park.
My accommodation was a wooden, A-framed cabin, with a little pathway round a corner to an outdoor lavatory. It was surrounded by bush, which, in turn, was surrounded by mountain peaks, the one in the centre still snow-capped. They towered over me, protective and paternal, like giant guardians. I collapsed onto one of the single beds, breathing in the pure air.
Forty-five minutes south of Ulverstone on the north coast is Leven Canyon, Tasmania’s deepest limestone gulch.
In 2010, I ventured across the Tasman Sea to the south island of New Zealand. I had wanted, for a long time, to see what is described as one of the most beautiful places in the world.
It was also a good spot for a practice run at lone overseas travel. They speak English, of a sort, their money is similar and they drive on the right side of the road which, in Australia and New Zealand, is the left. I was planning to drive through the Southern Alps, which extend down the western side of the island but to get there I had to catch a train across from the east.
At the end of July, I headed north to the township of Airlie Beach, on Queensland’s famous Whitsunday Coast, to escape Melbourne’s winter for just a week. I needed some sunshine to get my brain working again, and some warmth, to release my body from the five layers of clothing it had been carrying around for what seemed months.
From Airlie, ferries take tourists to explore the islands around the Great Barrier Reef.
Planning to the Nth 