Waterfall, pub, cheese, rain - on the way from St. Helens to Beauty Point

Friday, 12.1.18

So I have been traveling for a week now, 4 days in Tasmania.

I wake up a little after 6 am because it's bright outside. The sky is overcast and it feels humid. The food is untouched. I haven't missed anything. The ocean is roaring, and dark clouds hang over the hills. I sit in front of the camper with cereal and coffee before 8 am. The gas stove is really great!

By 8:45 am, I'm behind the wheel and heading towards St. Helens. First, I check in with home. Maybe someone would get worried if I go silent for 18 hours, which wasn't possible because of the lack of network. Shortly after 10 am, I leave St. Helens after buying water.

I want to visit the St. Columba Falls first, even though I'm not a fan of waterfalls. In the vicinity of these 90-meter high falls, there is a famous old pub, "The Pub on the Paddock" (around 1880) and next to it, a cheese factory in Pyengana. So it's worth heading inland to the west for these three things. And I want to go west anyway, so it all fits together perfectly.

The road to the St. Columba Falls is quite curvy, and I'm glad I'm not driving a campervan. It's a bit tiring to drive uphill with endless curves, constantly shifting gears, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and then shifting back down. When I finally arrive, there are no parking spaces. Someone in front of me with a campervan looks quite puzzled, and I manage to find the last spot along the roadside. Parallel parking without falling down the slope . For such a tourist attraction, the parking options are quite minimal. There are only a few pieces of information at the wooden entrance to the hiking trail, no toilets, and not really sensible parking spaces, just a turning circle and maybe 10 parking spots along the road. The sky is quite gloomy, and I hope it stays dry for the next half an hour. The sandy path leads down to the bottom of the small falls, and you can see beautiful moss-covered tree trunks, many epiphytes, huge tree ferns - rainforest and jungle. A beautiful trail. The waterfall is tiny. It may be due to the low amount of rain and the fact that it's summer - it once again reinforces my principle of limiting visits to waterfalls and churches to single-digit numbers during vacations because it usually isn't worth it, or it all looks the same - or, as in this case, doesn't leave a real impression.

So I walk back uphill to the car and drive the curves down the mountain to the Pub on the Paddock, which is located in Pyengana in a wide valley surrounded by cow pastures that provide the milk for the cheese made at the neighboring cheese factory.

Unlike the landscape on the east coast with its many brown, dry grassy areas, it's much greener here and a lovely landscape that's something between Schleswig-Holstein and Bavaria. It's noon, and I think I'll have a snack at the pub. I meet a Tasmanian couple. The man is hard to understand, but I manage to clarify my travel plans for the rest of the day. I want to head west and to the western side of the Tamar River, to Beauty Point. The question is whether I should drive through Launceston and possibly find better roads or take the smaller roads and cross the Tamar River via a bridge at about the same level as Beauty Point. The couple suggests the Batman Bridge and the smaller roads, but also mention that it'll take me almost 3 hours to cover the approximately 170 km.

I drive a few hundred meters to the Cheese Factory and find that you can only observe the production through a window from the outside, and there isn't really anything happening. Essentially, it's a café, and my Lonely Planet guidebook praises the milkshakes. I wait an endless eternity of almost 30 minutes for the take-away milkshake, which ranks among the worst I have ever had. It's practically foamed milk with flavored syrup, there is no ice in the only half-filled cup - for me, that's not a milkshake. Hopefully, the small piece of cheesecake I took with me for tonight is better...

So at around 1:30 pm, I finally leave Pyengana and still have quite a long journey ahead of me. I drive through a hilly landscape that seems almost uninhabited. The sky is heavy with clouds, and it keeps raining. I'm glad that I'm mostly focused on driving today, so the rain doesn't bother me as much. After Scottsdale, the road becomes partially gravel, but it's still good to drive on, and I'm already grateful that Tassie Motor Shacks allows driving on unsealed roads with their older cars. I turn north from B81 and drive towards Bridestowe Lavender Estate because I want to see the large lavender fields there. While maneuvering in the parking lot, a downpour starts, so I don't even get out of the car. When it subsides a bit, I quickly run to the shop, stand in the rain looking at the wet lavender fields, quickly buy some soap, jump back into the car, and continue driving. There's no point in stopping here. Too bad. But then I'll just have to go to southern France.

Back on B81, I soon head south and turn onto C811 and C812, which are well-paved roads above Lilydale, before eventually reaching an A-road (A3) that I have to drive north on to get to the Batman Bridge. The 432-meter long bridge is Australia's oldest cable-stayed bridge and therefore a tourist attraction. It doesn't impress me as much, but anyone who knows about these things will be fascinated by the engineering feat. It was opened in 1968.

Just before 6 pm, after over 4 hours, I finally reach Beauty Point, just minutes before the campground office closes. Since the campground is secured with a barrier and access code, I could have ended up camping in the middle of nowhere today, so I'm really glad that it worked out. Each camping spot has a large asphalt area on one side, so when I open the sliding door, I have a clean surface when I enter/exit the camper, and the camping furniture is level. Very nice. In addition, there are very wide sites that are also bordered on the right and left by around 3-meter-high hedges, so you really don't have people looking into your windows. The showers are great and clean, as are the toilets and sinks, and showers are free. There's also free Wi-Fi that works well. I will definitely stay here for another day.

In the dusk, wallabies and pademelons sit on the campground's large lawn and eat.