We decided to go out for dinner and walked along shops and cafes located in Salmanca Place. Looking at the menus and not really having anything in mind as to what we wanted to eat, we decided on an Italian Restaurant, surprise, surprise. But the great part of this Italian Restaurant was that it wasn't typical Italian fare.
The Maldini Italian Cafe Restaurant is said to have
“Intelligent, well-crafted Italian cuisine, focusing on Tasmanian ingredients”Well, we couldn't agree more! We started off sharing an appetizer of local Tasmanian mussels, scallops & prawns poached in a white wine, garlic & chili broth, along with some wonderful homemade bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Wonderful start! We were dipping the bread into the white wine, garlic and chili broth!
The Australian
October 2009
Noreen ordered the Spaghetti alla marinara – mussels, prawns, fish and calamari in a garlic & white wine sauce. I ordered off the daily special list. I had baked squid stuffed with prawns and shallots and a garlic, chili risotto and garnished with rocket (arugula) in a marinara sauce. We topped off the meal with a bottle of Tasmanian wine; Pipers Brook Estate Pino Gris 2008. All I can say is that if you ever get the chance, eat at this Cafe! The food was wonderful, the service great and the ambiance with the historic stone fronted warehouse look beyond belief. We're looking to go to the Pipers Brook Vineyard in our tour because the wine was so good.
The next day we got up and started the 300 + kilometer drive to Strahan. (By the way, the correct pronunciation of the name of the city is Strawn.) This is a beautiful seaside village located on the west coast of Tasmania. The drive from Hobart to Strahan is anything but beautiful! I've never in my life seen more switch backs on a road. Unbelievable! When these people tell you that the speed limit is reduced to a certain speed, I guarantee it isn't a suggestion! Slow down for the curve and hope that you can keep control through the entire curve. The weather didn't help either. It was raining and raining and raining. Wet, curvy roads and driving on the left side of the road to boot. No wonder I called this an adventure! (To be really honest, I loved it! It really was fun and I didn't worry for a minute about falling asleep.)
The scenery along the route looked vaguely familiar to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. In fact this entire state reminds me of BC. When I told the proprietor of the cottage we have in Strahan about my views, she told me that another Canadian told her that if there were beavers and pine beetle damage to the trees here, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. Well they may not have beavers, but they do have the platypus and of course, the Tasmanian Devil. I haven't seen the Devil as yet, but there was a platypus sighting on the Gordon River Cruise we took today.
We got up at the break of dawn and headed to the harbour for an exciting day of cruising in the Lady Jane Franklin II, a 32 metre catamaran that was built in Hobart especially for use in the natural environment that is the World Heritage Rain Forest area.
The ship is beautiful. Again the weather wasn't co-operating. It was windy and the sea was rough, but the Lady Jane ran smooth out to the entrance of the Macquarie Harbour, known as Hell's Gate. Again, there is a similarity to BC. But the name Hell's Gate here has a different meaning than the one in BC. The BC Hell's Gate refers to the rough waters that run down the Fraser River and it's an area used for running the rapids. This Hell's Gate was named by the prisoners who populated the penal island named Sarah Island, just off the shores of Strahan. They said that the entrance to the harbour was the Gates of Hell, because Sarah Island was Hell. More about that in a moment.
The entrance to Macquarie Harbour is incredibly narrow. In fact, it is so narrow and shallow that ships had great problems in getting through it to the Harbour.
You can see that the entrance is very narrow. The channel was dredged and a breakwater was built to allow larger ships to navigate the entrance to what is a harbour that is quite a bit larger than than the harbour at Sydney.
In any case, we traveled out of the harbour into the open seas of the Southern Ocean, then turned around and headed back into the harbour and toward our first stop at Heritage Landing. At Heritage Landing, we disembarked and walked along the elevated walkway through this rain forest. The walk itself was short, only about 1/2 a kilometer, but the scenery fantastic. There is a tree there that is over 2000 years old. It has fallen down, but it is still rooted and alive!
What followed was lunch. It was a buffet lunch, very typical lunch and nothing to write home about, but I just did. Anyway the highlight was the salmon. They served locally caught and smoked Atlantic salmon and it was great. On that issue, they farm salmon and rainbow trout in the waters of Mcquarie Harbour. What happens here is that fresh water and salt water are mixed. The fresh water is lighter than salt water and floats atop the salt water. The fish farms use this to farm fish that can live in both environments. The trout cannot be called rainbow trout so they call them ocean trout. Again, in BC, we'd call them steelhead trout.
The structure you see above is a trout/salmon farm area. The boat is spraying food pellets into the area where the fry are being farmed. In Australia "tucker" is a word used to mean a place where you can get food. The boat you see above is refered to as a "Fish Tucker Chucker". (I thought it was funny.)
After this we headed for Sarah Island. As many of us know, much of Australia was originally a penal colony. Tasmania was no exception. But what do you do with what we would call today a repeat offender or a criminal that commits another crime while in custody? In the late 1800's, the Australians sent those uncontrollable criminals to Sarah Island.
We did a very interesting tour around the island and had a very good guide who brought history to life. The conditions were amazing.
Can you imagine hundreds of criminals held on this island? All I can say about the tour and the facts about Sarah island is that if you ever have the opportunity to visit this part of the world, a visit to this island and the tour is a must!
Well, it's getting late and I have to drive to Cradle Mountain tomorrow. This is my first attempt at a blog, so bear with me. Hope you enjoy and see you tomorrow or maybe the next day or the day after that. Take care..............
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