Our Final Day in Tassie

Yesterday, we only had a short trip of less than 100 kilometres from Launceston to Devonport where we would catch the ferry back to the mainland. We took advantage of the time that would have on this short driving day to see some last minute sights and visit some friends.

My old mate Leon or ‘Rattles’ has moved to a new home and we paid a visit to him and his wife, Trish. We generally only get to see each other at unit reunions,so it was good to catch up with them. Unfortunately, Rattles is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease but he seems to be doing well with mobility and his attitude.

Near Launceston is the old Entally House property. It was built in 1819 as a simple single-storey building to house Thomas Reibey and his growing young family. They started their Estate, using a Government Loan Gang of one hundred convicts in its construction. These convicts were locked in an underground cellar overnight to prevent them escaping – this cellar still exists, underneath the double-storey Governor’s Wing on the northern side of the main House as it is now.

Over the next 200 years, additions were added when needed, outbuildings were built, alterations were made, and the small cottage turned into a grand, sprawling brick house as it is known today.

The two-storey main House is set within several acres of parkland, with views towards the distant hills, overlooking the well-tended gardens & cricket pitch, and surrounded by various double- and single-storey brick outbuildings. Such a humble residence!

Unfortunately, it was closed and all we could see was the front gate and an old gate house in some disrepair.

Just up the road was Carrick, another little town with a few dozen Georgian buildings. Central and Northern Tasmania is full of towns like this. I tried to take a photo of one of the more interesting buildings but someone had parked a semi trailer laden with bins of cabbages right outside it. I found a plaque that might have told me something about the building, but it only said ‘This property is classified by the National Trust.

The place that I really wanted to see during the day was Liffey Falls. They are set in the Great Western Tiers.

Unfortunately, we took a back road to the falls that took us through many kilometres of winding single lane forest road. Our drive wasn’t helped by me missing the turn off and travelling about twenty kilometres more than we needed to on the dirt roads in the mountains. Fortunately when we left, we found that there were only a couple of kilometres between the falls road and the highway.

The falls are a series of four distinct tiered cascade waterfalls on the Liffey River.  They are probably best viewed towards the end of winter through to early spring (July – October) due to the heavier rainfall months. The last few months have been quite dry in this region so only a small amount of water was flowing over the cascades.

The falls are a significant massacre site where 30–60 Aboriginal people were murdered in a reprisal killing for the killing of the stockman William Knight by Aboriginal people.

We reached Devonport late in the afternoon and had a comfortable night at the Novotel hotel. We had, probably, the prettiest view out the window of any of the hotels that we have stayed in on this trip – a nicely landscaped park and some old civic buildings.

This morning, we were up early to check in for our ferry departure but it didn’t arrive into Devonport until almost the scheduled departure time. At the moment, we are half way across Bass Strait and expecting to be almost two hours late into Geelong where we will start tonight.