Day 47: Smithton

Today we drove from Cradle Mountain into the NW of Tasmania.  Beautiful coastline, rolling hills, and lots of farmland.  Interesting to learn that one of the big crops in the area is poppies and that Tasmania is the world's largest producer of opium alkaloids for the pharmaceutical market (it produces 50% of the world's concentrated poppy straw for morphine and related opiates).  It's also a big dairy area -- lots of milk processing plants.  Historically, it's also been a big area for forestry -- but I one of the big timber companies went bankrupt -- so many of the timber plants are idle.

We stopped in a couple of small towns along the coast.  The best stop was in Stanley at the base of the "Nut" on Table Cape.  Teeny town (pop:  458) with really nicely restored cottages in a gorgeous location.  The "Nut" is the plug of an extinct volcano -- about 500 ft. high -- and dominates the coastline -- you can see it for miles and miles.  If I were doing a self-drive instead of a tour, I would have stayed in Stanley for a couple of days.

After Stanley we went to this place called the "Dismal Swamp" -- it's a natural blackwood forest sinkhole -- and sounded a lot more interesting than it actually was.  The best part of the stop was going down a giant slide to get into the sinkhole (only 4 of us took the slide -- most walked -- it was a blast -- felt like I was doing the luge).

We spent the night in Smithton -- another small town (around 3,500).  Surprisingly nice place in the middle of nowhere -- we even had entertainment -- a Rolling Stones knock-off band (well it wasn't just for us).

Side note:  I can't believe how horrible internet / wi-fi is in Tasmania -- and I thought New Zealand was bad!

Weather:  mostly sunny, 50 - 70F
Miles Walked:  6
kms Bus:  245

Pic notes:  blackberries are all over the place -- mostly viewed as a week.  I've never seen a bunch of carrots placed out for cows -- kind of amusing.  Bird pic 21:  I think they are Australian Wood Ducks.  Bird pics 22 - 23:  Tasmanian Nativehens (a flightless bird that runs really fast)