As part of the 10 Days on the Island, an art exhibition has meant it is possible to get inside one of the buildings at Willow Court, and old convict and asylum site older than Port Arthur. It’s fallen into disrepair and unfortunately is now often the victim of vandals, so it’s not usually possible for law abiding citizens to even walk amongst the buildings. So although I wasn’t all that interested in the exhibit, Worry Dolls, I was keen to go. I enjoyed seeing the buildings and of course took lots of photos. I liked the art better than I thought I would. The artist is technically brilliant, however the who exhibit was supposed to be more of a ‘graphic’ novel. The ‘plot’ of the story was written on the walls around the drawings, but personally I thought they detracted from the drawings too much. Each one was so beautifully done, but you tended to just read the text and run your eye over the drawing.
On the way there, we quickly found two drive-by caches, but after I wanted to go to two caches of Dippedidooda. They were fantastic! I went on a bit in my logs, so won’t say more here, but if you can go and do these!
I’m on a terribly internet connection so haven’t uploaded many photos to Flickr, however I’ve put up just a few as a taster; they follow my logs. More photos will go up on Flickr when I’m on a faster internet connection.
Cache Details
GC1N61X by scotty&lochie
S 42° 46.990 E 147° 04.663
Difficulty is 1.5 and Terrain is 1.5
Cache type is Traditional
Container size is Small
It was hidden on: 1/03/2009
Jardry found it on: 11/04/2009 |
12:23 Quick traditional drive-by. |
Cache Details
GC1NKH7 by nnscouts
S 42° 46.474 E 147° 03.218
Difficulty is 1.5 and Terrain is 1.5
Cache type is Traditional
Container size is Micro
It was hidden on: 12/03/2009
Jardry found it on: 11/04/2009 |
12:28 pm Found before heading to Willow Court to see the ‘Worry Dolls’ exhibition (but really want to go there just so I could see inside part of Willow Court!). The pine trees smell lovely here.
Thank you for the cache. |
Cache Details
GC1B61M by Dippedidooda
S 42° 52.105 E 147° 01.778
Difficulty is 1.5 and Terrain is 2.5
Cache type is Traditional
Container size is Regular
It was hidden on: 13/04/2008
Jardry found it on: 11/04/2009 |
14:33 LOVED this one! I have to admit we had quite a time following the directions to the parking spot. We wound up having a visit up Jefferies Track, turning in the driveway of some very friendly dogs, and in the end just giving up and going where the GPSr was pointing. We soon saw the red shed that was described and parked there; the cacheWagon has NO clearance and we don’t mind an extra 900m of walking. From here the directions were flawless and we were soon fording the stream and had the cache in hand. Lottie did great job fording stream! And then onwards to the next cache. . .
Thank you so much for the cache Dippedy!! |
Cache Details
GC1B61W by Dippedidooda
S 42° 52.432 E 147° 01.856
Difficulty is 2 and Terrain is 3
Cache type is Traditional
Container size is Regular
It was hidden on: 13/04/2008
Jardry found it on: 11/04/2009 |
15:13 Why haven’t more people done these two caches? They’re not far from Hobart, easy walks, and just stunning! I’ve wanted to do them for ages, however when they were first published we hadn’t had Lottie for long and she wasn’t yet very good at fording streams or leaping over logs. She is now! She had a fantastic time on the walk to and from this cache, as did Scott and I as well. Each photo I took seemed to be the typical ‘Discover Tasmania’ shot – cascading water, man ferns, moss, etc. It was a cool and lovely walk.
On the way back to the cacheWagon we met up with the owner of the property. Yes, it’s private property, however they only bought it as it was going so cheaply at the time and they wanted to ensure it stayed available for bushwalkers to enjoy. When they bought it, the ‘clearing’ at the high point had been a raspberry farm. He says the previous owners stopped farming raspberries there probably around 1955. The track we walk up to it that is slowly being overcome with trees was originally for horse drawn carts and later for a small tractor to bring the raspberries down the hill.
On the way back to the car we stopped at S42 51.856 E147 01.653, where you can still see the remains of a retaining wall. Go up here an you’ll see the start of what was a track to turnip fields. Again, they stopped farming turnips there around 1955. Not too much further you’ll see a Telstra (or Telecom) pole cut off at around knee level. In the 60s ‘Gully Sue’ lived not far from where Cascades at Black Glenn is. When she became pregnant, she asked Telecom to put in a phone line so she wouldn’t be so isolate; they did, but she moved on 3 months later. I wished I had a few caches with me to point these things out, but alas I’d left them in the cacheWagon!
We enjoyed our walk back to the car with Jack, and of course had our Tasmanian moment when we knew the same people and their dogs.
Thank you so much for the cache, Dippedy! Beautiful walk, and an interesting chat with the owner as well! |
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