Tasmania recap #3: Columba Falls, Derby, Legerwood, Lilydale Falls & Launceston
Mood: 
|| Productive
Tune : Mama Mia! OST - "Our Last Summer"
April 28: We did a lot of driving today and stopped at all these interesting little sights along the way. The first one was Halls Falls where we did a short walk but it wasn't that spectacular unfortunately. The next one was Columba Falls, which were a little bigger and a lot better than the previous ones we saw. When we arrived there though we discovered we were almost out of petrol… You see we had this feature in the car that would display how many kilometers we could drive on the remaining petrol in the tank and suddenly it went from "range to empty 120km" to "range to empty --- km" o.O And when we looked at the regular fuel meter it was indeed nearly empty so we had a little freak-out (mind you we were very much in the middle of nowhere at that time), but fortunately we saw some other travelers and asked them if they knew a gas station close-by and they told us there was one not too far off. Not wanting to drive back and forth we first visited the Falls and then headed for the gas station. We rolled down the hills as to not to run out of gas completely and finally made it to the main road and the (apparently) last gas stop for the next 50km, pfew.
At the gas station we asked if there were any interesting sights nearby and the guy told us about a look-out over the valley. Knowing Tasmania pretty well by now we knew there would be poor signage up for this so we stopped at what we assumed was the look-out and had an absolutely breathtaking view from there. Only later did we find the actual "official" look-out, but it wasn't as good as the one we found earlier so we were lucky we had made a stop at the first one. The next place we stopped at was a little village called Derby which had a beautiful historic bank dating back to 1888. It was now a cute little antique/touristy store and we browsed around there before heading off to the next town: Legerwood, which is a town famous for its amazing wood carvings (made out of tree trunks with a chainsaw). When we arrived there we saw someone spraying the statues with water and we thought he was "just" a maintenance guy but it turned out to be the artist and we spoke to him briefly, which was pretty cool. We saw another one of his works at the next town up (Scottsdale) as well.
After lunch we set out for the well-known Bridestowe Lavender Farm. Unfortunately it wasn't blooming season so we didn't see purple hills, instead we found heaps of ducks asleep on the road, lol (they didn't budge for anything!). Driving further we made a stop at Lilydale Falls, which was pretty nice. Not as good as the Columba ones but better than the first ones we'd seen that day. The last stop of the day was supposed to be Launceston (second biggest city in Tasmania), but instead we got distracted by the MacDonalds on the highway where we used the free wifi until my laptop ran out of battery (though I was unable to obtain the season finale of Heroes...). We eventually made a stop at a supermarket, lost the car on the parking lot, than lost the highway and because of that when we finally made it to a camping place for the night we were laughing so loud we nearly choked. At least we saw the fun side of it all XD
Halls Falls
Columba Falls
Tasmania has lots of sheep
Historic Bank in Derby
Pointing the way to Legerwood
Close-up
Lazy ducks
The not so purple lavender fields
At Lilydale Falls
April 29: We were pretty frozen when we woke up today, it must've been a colder night again (remember, we camped out in our car, like the real cheap backpackers we were, lol). We were seriously considering staying in a hostel that night. But first things first we had to find our way back to Launceston, preferably without getting lost this time. We did well and first paid a visit to the visitor's centre, which wasn't overly helpful. Next up was the library so we could charge our camera/phones again and in the mean time I started watching Pushing Daisies which had been on my laptop since forever but I finally got around to watching it (and so my Lee Pace obsession was born!). There was no wifi so I still was unable to obtain the season finale of Heroes :(
Several hours later and warmed up fully (at this point we weren't thinking about hostels anymore, lol) we started to explore the city. We had a taco at a Mexican cafe (yum!), went to a sweets factory in an adorable little part of town with a mill, we tried to go to the museum (but when we finally found it we saw it was temporary closed for renovation) and made a stroll through the city park. After that it was fairly later already (since we had wasted most of the day at the library) and we went back to the car and drove to a little village nearby to find a place to stay.
A mill! I felt like I was back in the Netherlands, lol
Random art is random
In the park
More pictures can be found HERE and HERE.
|| Productive
Tune : Mama Mia! OST - "Our Last Summer"
April 28: We did a lot of driving today and stopped at all these interesting little sights along the way. The first one was Halls Falls where we did a short walk but it wasn't that spectacular unfortunately. The next one was Columba Falls, which were a little bigger and a lot better than the previous ones we saw. When we arrived there though we discovered we were almost out of petrol… You see we had this feature in the car that would display how many kilometers we could drive on the remaining petrol in the tank and suddenly it went from "range to empty 120km" to "range to empty --- km" o.O And when we looked at the regular fuel meter it was indeed nearly empty so we had a little freak-out (mind you we were very much in the middle of nowhere at that time), but fortunately we saw some other travelers and asked them if they knew a gas station close-by and they told us there was one not too far off. Not wanting to drive back and forth we first visited the Falls and then headed for the gas station. We rolled down the hills as to not to run out of gas completely and finally made it to the main road and the (apparently) last gas stop for the next 50km, pfew.
At the gas station we asked if there were any interesting sights nearby and the guy told us about a look-out over the valley. Knowing Tasmania pretty well by now we knew there would be poor signage up for this so we stopped at what we assumed was the look-out and had an absolutely breathtaking view from there. Only later did we find the actual "official" look-out, but it wasn't as good as the one we found earlier so we were lucky we had made a stop at the first one. The next place we stopped at was a little village called Derby which had a beautiful historic bank dating back to 1888. It was now a cute little antique/touristy store and we browsed around there before heading off to the next town: Legerwood, which is a town famous for its amazing wood carvings (made out of tree trunks with a chainsaw). When we arrived there we saw someone spraying the statues with water and we thought he was "just" a maintenance guy but it turned out to be the artist and we spoke to him briefly, which was pretty cool. We saw another one of his works at the next town up (Scottsdale) as well.
After lunch we set out for the well-known Bridestowe Lavender Farm. Unfortunately it wasn't blooming season so we didn't see purple hills, instead we found heaps of ducks asleep on the road, lol (they didn't budge for anything!). Driving further we made a stop at Lilydale Falls, which was pretty nice. Not as good as the Columba ones but better than the first ones we'd seen that day. The last stop of the day was supposed to be Launceston (second biggest city in Tasmania), but instead we got distracted by the MacDonalds on the highway where we used the free wifi until my laptop ran out of battery (though I was unable to obtain the season finale of Heroes...). We eventually made a stop at a supermarket, lost the car on the parking lot, than lost the highway and because of that when we finally made it to a camping place for the night we were laughing so loud we nearly choked. At least we saw the fun side of it all XD
Halls Falls
Columba Falls
Tasmania has lots of sheep
Historic Bank in Derby
Pointing the way to Legerwood
Close-up
Lazy ducks
The not so purple lavender fields
At Lilydale Falls
April 29: We were pretty frozen when we woke up today, it must've been a colder night again (remember, we camped out in our car, like the real cheap backpackers we were, lol). We were seriously considering staying in a hostel that night. But first things first we had to find our way back to Launceston, preferably without getting lost this time. We did well and first paid a visit to the visitor's centre, which wasn't overly helpful. Next up was the library so we could charge our camera/phones again and in the mean time I started watching Pushing Daisies which had been on my laptop since forever but I finally got around to watching it (and so my Lee Pace obsession was born!). There was no wifi so I still was unable to obtain the season finale of Heroes :(
Several hours later and warmed up fully (at this point we weren't thinking about hostels anymore, lol) we started to explore the city. We had a taco at a Mexican cafe (yum!), went to a sweets factory in an adorable little part of town with a mill, we tried to go to the museum (but when we finally found it we saw it was temporary closed for renovation) and made a stroll through the city park. After that it was fairly later already (since we had wasted most of the day at the library) and we went back to the car and drove to a little village nearby to find a place to stay.
A mill! I felt like I was back in the Netherlands, lol
Random art is random
In the park
More pictures can be found HERE and HERE.