From Saint Helens we rode south to
Freycenet National Park. We camped in Coles Bay and visited the park
and did the walk to Wine glass bay. The name refers to the shape of
the bay. The names of the bays and mountains here often are French.
This is because of the fact that the Dutch discoverers of Tasmania,
that they called Van Diemen's Land, didn't think it worth while to
colonize it. In Napoleon's days the French tried to establish their
influence here and sent their explorers, thus the names. In the end
the British won it by inventing a very fast way to populate this far
land: they sent loads of convicts over. In these times in England
people often were sentenced to be sent overseas for very minor
offences. Just read Charles Dickens. Now the remains of the
settlements that were founded by convicta are the major tourist
attraction of this part of Tasmania.
From Coles Bay we rode in two days to
Spring Beach, were we stayed in the hospitable home of Jenny and
Dennis, friends of a Warmshowers-couple where we stayed a while ago.
They call the house a shack and named it Camelot, but it's a real
house, looking out over the ocean and a beautiful beach, with some
more small houses (wooden ex-railway station offices) in the garden.
We had our own. Soon we were, it is the continuing Australian story
again, more or less members of the family. There were other family
members around, including Belle and Rosie, two sweet little grand
daughters. Lovely (if not awesome :-) . And to complete it, we know
where the key is from their Hobart home and we will live there during
the last week or so of our Australian expedition. Now, can we learn
something from that?
Today we spent in historic Richmond,
the most English-like town of Australia. Again, do not think too much
of it, it is just a couple of streets, but there is the oldest bridge
here and the oldest catholic church of the country. The bridge was
built in 1823 by convicts, the goal (prison) of that time is another
tourist attraction of the place. Unfortunately it has been raining
more or less all day and the temperatures are below 20˚C. Not the
best circumstances to camp in a small tent. Tomorrow it is expected
to be better and we will leave for another historic destination: Port
Arthur. It's the most important place referring to the history of
Australia as the place where convicts were banned to. There are the
remains of a big prison there and people say that it is an impressive
and shameful site.
To get there we will have to pass
through Dunalley, we will even have to camp there behind the pub. You
might remember the name Dunalley; it was the first place to be almost
wiped out by an enormous bushfire this summer. It was all over the
news in the whole world. Still lots of people, many of them
volunteers, are working there to get things going again, most of the
town seems to be destroyed. We phoned in to check if we are welcome,
since so many places are taken by those workers from all over the
country. They told us that they want us to come, they want to go back
to normal as soon as possible. Thus we will see with our own eyes
what a devastating fire can do. Here's a link to some photos of the fire there, frightening!
