24th January 2010
Fifteen minutes from the centre of Launceston is the magnificent Cateract Gorge, our destination this morning. Access to the gorge is via a nice park area with a public swimming pool with views over First Basin, a large, deep canyon worn away by the river and filled with water.
Standing at the entrance to the gorge is the decorative, wrought-iron Kings Bridge with a span of 60 metres. Before we crossed the bridge, we took a short walk along the side of the gorge with its cliffs rising almost vertically from the smooth river of the South Esk River. Then we crossed the bridge and took the easy twenty minute Cataract walk around First Basin.
Since being back on the road again we’ve been struggling with accommodation and not only because we’ve been well and truly spoilt since arriving in Oz. The hostels here don’t seem to be as good as what we had in NZ (which we were warned about) and they also seem to be quite expensive. We’ve stayed in some motels, but then we can’t cook for ourselves, so for the next four nights while we explore Cradle Mountain National Park and the surrounding area we’ve found a small self-catering studio on a holiday park.
To get there, we head west from Launceston, stopping at Deloraine for some views over the Great Western Tiers. Then we head onto the Central Plateau and pass through several small townships on the way. , each one of which seems to have a theme. We go through Railton, town of topiary where bushes are sculpted into everything from elephants to trains and even the cenotaph has its own range of carefully created bushes. The next town we come to is Sheffield which is the town of murals and very near to where we are staying.
We are pleasantly surprised by the accommodation, a large room with all mod-cons, maybe a little rough around the edges (if you were being really picky), but with amazing views over Mount Roland which in the evenings changes colour as the sun sets. This will do us fine for a few nights while we explore the Central Plateau and the north coast of Tasmania.
