To be fair, it didn’t rain the whole time we were out on the Gordon River Cruise. No, part of the time it was hailing.

Okay, okay, there were (brief) breaks in the precipitation, and even a couple of five-minute breaks of actual sunshine. But a cold, hard rain was the order of the day. Which was expected, and fine.

Left: what the brochures look like. Right: what it looked like for the first half of our cruise.

Would have been even more fine if the crew had managed to get the cabin heat running before we were on our downriver return leg. Because as it was, we were bundled up in the warmest we’d brought along, and constantly swabbing the fogged windows with soaked paper towels to try and peer through the rain outside to whatever it was that our narrator was directing us to contemplate off the starboard side of the ship.

Mind you, the cabin crew were doing their dogged best. Their dogged best to keep the narration running while simultaneously scrambling to swab the windows, debug the heating and attend to those on “the premium deck” who had abandoned the attempt to see anything outside in favor of consoling themselves with complimentary champagne and canapes. But the cabin crew? “A” for effort.

As I said, the weather did break a couple of times, if only to lure us into a false sense of safety. It dried up nicely when we made Heritage Landing, and stayed dry(ish) until halfway around the loop, when Boom. And again on Sarah Island: glorious sunshine for a couple of minutes until we were fully disembarked and halfway across the island. Then, Boom – down came the hail with a vengeance.

Overall, still a win, especially once the sun did come out for good, and they got the heat working.

That being said, once we were back ashore and somewhat dried up and warm, there wasn’t much more keeping us in Strahan. We needed to be back in Hobart the day after next, so we decided to saddle up, head east, and see what chance brought us.

Plan A had been to spend the night at Lake St. Clair National Park, where I’d wandered many a happy mile during my previous visit. But the temperatures had already dropped drastically from the 90-degree-plus heatwave of the previous days, and was forecast for the mid-40’s ahead. There was talk of snow at the Park so, after second-guessing our second-guesses, we continued on.

About an hour past the turnoff from the park we came to a pair of absolutely massive steel pipes stretching out to the horizon and following a side road with a sign that said “Tarraleah Estates – restaurant, cabins, camping, golf.” The next “official” campground was still another hour off; I was ready for dinner, and Devon was ready to be done for the day. Besides – those pipes.

It turns out that Tarraleah (Aboriginal for “brush kangaroo,” not some aspirational English manor), was built by the Tasmanian Hydroelectric Commission in the the 1930s to house workers on the pioneering hydro power plant. But once it was built and online, the need to house an entire small town mostly evaporated, and the Commission hunted for a way to amortize their investment. Which they did by pivoting to become an Estate, a venue hosting budget and luxury travelers for romantic getaways, corporate events and the like. While continuing to churn out about 5% of the whole island’s electrical needs (Note: over 80% of Tasmania’s electricity is provided by hydroelectric power).

The sign at Reception directed us to check in for at the Pub, so we wandered in , paid for camping, tried our luck with the establishment’s entirely adequate fare, then maneuvered the van in the approximate direction of the lawn that the nice lady told us was for “unpowered camping.” 

There was frost on the windshield first thing in the morning. But by the time D and I had managed ourselves upright, dressed and primed with tea and hot cocoa respectively, the low sun had already begun to steam heat into the land. Half a dozen wallabies hopped, nibbled, hopped, nibbled the lawn around us. (There was practically a perimeter of wallaby poop close around the van, making it hard to avoid the inference that we’d been cased during the night).

The new plan we’d settled on last night was to take Ann and Jack (Launceston friends) up on their invitation to visit them at a place on the east coast where they tend to spend weekends. A chance to see the fabled beaches, and dip our toes into the Tasman Sea, if we can handle the temperatures. But we couldn’t leave the Central Highlands without ducking into the bush at least a little.

Tarraleah afforded a couple of options starting right from the campground, including “The Quoll Track.” While again we failed to see any of the squirrel-like marsupials (I struggled not to refer to Bonarong as “an un-quoll-ified success” – there, I said it), we did find a lush, gorgeous hour’s stroll through grassland, ferns and dense mixed old-new-growth eucalyptus forest.

Then east. But I should wrap up, as we’re now at Ann and Jack’s, and there’s talk of a quick swim in the ocean. Yes, it’s 56 degrees out. But it is midsummer here, and Ann and Jack are Tasmanian, so we’re trying to just roll with it.

As always, I’ll keep you posted…