Central historic country

A quick study of the map indicates that there really is no sensible way to plan a route around Tasmania. Whether it is sensible or not, our plan has come down to basically a lap around the outside. That leaves us with the occasional sortie into the middle to colour in some interesting bits. Today was one of those days. While it might seem like a detour, today we have been within 100km of both Hobart and Launceston. And incidentally of Perth and Bagdad, so really while we have covered some country, it isn’t that much of a detour. We find ourselves tonight in Interlaken, so our whirlwind world tour continues.

Our early morning (such as it was for us) had us leaving the Tyenna River, which was old hops growing country and climbing back over the hills into the Derwent Valley. Whatever may have been the original motivation for settlement has now turned into sheep and cattle by and large. The hops infrastructure now remains as drying houses which are quaint reminders of times past.

The 1820s were times of optimistic expansion. To the expat English, and Scots and Irish the land must have seemed vaguely familiar with rolling pastures, low hills, running rivers and fertile ground. They left familiar sounding names all over this country. They built sturdy stone Georgian cottages and built schools, flour mills, roads and bridges. It did not take long though for things to turn sour. The ground was not as suitable for wheat production as they had initially thought, and soon the improving road transport meant that local flour milling was uneconomic. By the time of the Victorian gold rushes the optimism had vanished along with the young men who left in droves to seek their fortune elsewhere. The stone cottages, churches, post offices, mills and bridges though remained.

Our criss-crossing of the state gave us a selection of roadside stalls for all of our berry, cherry and egg needs, but finding towns for vegetables and bread was rather more problematic. We wound up making a detour to find a town advertising fuel for $1.12 so I suspect it is a while since they sold any. We did get a bean and potato topup though.

Ross was the target of today, but in what has become a familiar story there was somewhat less to occupy us than we had thought.  Ross was the midway point overland now famous as a historic town with a convict-built bridge, but rather better finished than the Richmond bridge. Many of the historic buildings have lost their original functions, and browsing in the knick-knack shops that have replaced them only takes so long. Ross also has a museum to the wool industry, which again, did not take too long. So after a walk up and down the main street, and in and out of the churches that were open, there seemed little reason to stay there.

Anybody know what these flowers are?

So it was time to head west again, returning to our clockwise route. In doing his research Louis came up with a campsite at Interlaken, which is a locality in the central highlands. Tonight we are in a very pleasant campground, plenty of firewood, only two other campers, clear skies, facilities (of a sort), a start of a moon, dry grassy site. Going to be cold though. 10 degrees on arrival before sunset and we are up 800m. Wish us luck!