Go ahead and "Jump"...............

There are not enough superlatives in the English language to describe the pure beauty of the natural wonders I saw in Tasmania during my 5 day “Lap of Tassie” with “Jump Tours”. We spent three days in the west with luscious, green rain forests, sparkling waterfalls, and snow-capped mountains; two days in the east with miles of beaches, rocky shorelines, little penguins and one of the top ten beaches in the world. If you come to Australia and don’t visit Tasmania you are missing out on one of the most stunning landscapes in the world.  

Our Jump Group

The tour is designed as an inexpensive, no-frills way for backpackers to see and experience some of the best, and at times off the beaten path, sites that Tasmania has to offer. Our tour group consisted of two young ladies from Germany, Tina and Claudia; the Zhang (sp?) family from China, Doris and her parents; Andrew our Tasmanian guide and me. We covered about 1500 kilometers in a van, over 5 days, staying at hostels and cooking our own meals. When you sign up for a tour like this you never know what you are going to get. The group dynamic can make or break a tour. Ours was great and we made the most of the experience. The week previous tour included 13 people packed into the van, vomiting, and a trip to the hospital. Timing is everything.

Russell Falls

Rainforest

We started out from Hobart to our first stop Mt. Field National Park. Forty-two percent of Tassie is National Park and 20% of that is considered UNESCO Heritage sites. That is a huge percentage of protected land. In addition they have state reserves and conservation areas, although these do not have the same protected status as national parks. Throw in that 95% of their electricity is generated by hydro-power and the population is only somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 (I heard both numbers from different guides) and you have one big green state. It was a short walk through the rainforest to Russell Falls. The forest was green and mossy, damp and cold, well before you reached them. Some of the trees in the area grow up to 100 meters tall. You could hear the falls. The falls are not massive like Niagra, but are very pretty in their setting. A two tiered waterfall about 60 meters tall, with the lower tier separated in two by a large tree in the middle and a fine mist surrounding the viewing platform. The recent rains (it is a rainforest) made the falls dazzling with Andrew saying that this is the most water he has ever seen coming over the falls. I thought they looked beautiful, little did I know there was more stunning scenery to come.

Tarraleah Hydro

We did a quick stop to take in the view at Tarraleah. Tarraleah is one of the many hydro-electric plants dotting Tasmania. It was once a very busy (for Tasmania) town while they were building the plant, but once finished it had turned virtually into a ghost town before someone came along and bought most of the buildings turning into a nice B&B. As with most of the towns that were built for the workers while building the dams and hydro-electric plants, there is a golf course (and I’m sure there was a pub or two in the day). You had to keep the workers happy.

Lake St. Clair

FGNP

Our day continued with stop at Lake St. Clair and then the Franklin-Gordon National Park (FGNP). There was quite a bit of snow at the lake and because the rains made the lake level so high we couldn’t take the usual hike along the shore. A walk up the mountain, through the rainforest at the FGNP led to a stunning lookout view, different from the one at Tarraleah. This one had wooded hills leading down to a grassy plain with mountains in the distance and snow-capped mountains further on. Throw a couple dinosaurs down there and you had a scene from Jurassic Park. Many times the scenery reminded me of scenes from the movie. Two minutes after we arrived at the lookout it started to snow and the view gone. Timing is everything.

Treeless road to Queenstown

Our last stop of the day before settling in at Tullah, our home base for two days, was Queenstown. This is an old mining town. I think Andrew said there were once 50 some mines in town and because of mergers and buyouts (who’s familiar with that!); and some going out of business, now there is one. This landscape was in stark contrast from the rainforest we just left about 10 miles behind. Even before we reached the town I could see the difference. The lush, green forested mountains were replaced by bare, rocky, hills. This was due to the clear cutting of trees once needed to feed the mines; the acid rain and chemical leaching from the mining operations, and the fact that it is now an open pit strip mine. A perfect example of what can happen if the land is not protected. We only stopped long enough to buy some groceries, but the town has a slight look and feel of the old west. And if you think Australian Football (rugby to us) isn’t tough enough, try playing the Queenstown team. Visiting teams hate having to play away games in Queenstown because they have the only football pitch (field to us) made of gravel and packed clay. It’s so unique that it may be declared a heritage site. That would be like the Bears playing without equipment in the Soldier Field parking lot. They breed them tough in Tassie!   

Day one was great, but day two  ………….

Cheers mates!

norb