We move to Wynyard in the North

A late night following the trip to Strahan for the day has well and truly taken its toll today and this afternoon I hit the wall big time. I've just re-surfaced after a couple of hours sleeping to have dinner. We are presently watching Magical Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald while sitting under a blanket at the foot of the air-conditioner draught. You forget how cold it can be on the Coast and what a different cold it is to the cold of the mountains. It is a little 'damper' As though the cold air is carried on the droplets of the air.

Snippets of the show 'The Ship That Never Was" last night come back unbidden. I swear I will never look at a vegetable steamer the same way again - it became a jellyfish flittering open and closed and when directed to sit, the audience cast member with the steamer became a box jellyfish. Get it? Sit. On a box. Box Jellyfish!

This play at one glance is full of fun and nonsense, but in reality, it is so much more. There is so much wit, social comment and references to current and past opinions, stances and stories that you really need to hold Richard Davey (the writer) and his actor daughter, Kiah is quite some esteem. I would have loved to spend some time with her after the play, but the light was fading fast and Gen wanted to be closer to our accommodation in Queenstown 45 minutes away before dark hit. It still feels a little strange that at after 7pm it is still light - daylight saving finishes here on Sunday, so we can take advantage of that extra hour for more sleep!

Our stay at the Gold Rush Inn has been unexpectedly comfortable. At the time of booking, we were having so much trouble finding accommodation that we took their last room, which just happened to be the Executive Suite. To be honest, it was a little more expensive than what we were hoping to pay, but believe me, it was worth every penny. We get the feeling that it must have, at one time, been the manager's residence. It is adjacent to the Reception and is the only room with undercover parking. There was a king-sized bed, a full lounge with a smart TV (and streaming service access!!) plus a full-sized kitchen with full-sized fridge, microwave, stove (not that we needed it) and a pod coffee machine! The table and chairs comfortably sat 4mpeople. We have had the space to bring e v e r y t h i n g out of the car to try to sort out what is being posted home, and what we will continue to carry, knowing full well that we will probably buy more souvenirs!

After checking out we head into town to have a look around Queenstown. The Mining Museum is very comprehensive. Its like the Military Museum back home, while the title refers predominantly to the mining activity and history, the Museum also has an amazing collection of the social past of Queenstown. There are surely a number of people here who have collected every little item that relates to the living of lives in Queenstown - there are rooms and rooms and rooms devoted to it!

Some displays are indeed very unique - there is a whole room dedicated to the Mining Disaster of 1912 where a fire broke out, killing 42 men. Amongst all the memorabilia was a list of the miners, their personal status (single, married, family man etc) and what compensation was paid. While the average appeared to be around 200 pound, some were as low as 10 pound and the largest was 700 pound. It seems that where a bereaved widow with children to support negotiated, she was taken advantage of, whilst the lawyer father of another single miner negotiated that highest figure. Seems that enterprise has changed little over the years, with the powerful taking advantage of those with less or no power.

We walked through the 7 rooms on the ground floor and there are another 16 floors on the two stories above us. There is no lift, and when I asked Gen if she wanted to go and take a look, she said no, that museums are not really her 'thing'. "Why then did we come here?," I asked to which she said, "I know you  like them!" Ain't that love!! She did however, find some of their geology collection of crystal specimens quite interesting.

From here we drive into the Town Centre sand walk the couple of blocks. Oh good, there is the Post Office - we buy post bags and boxes to pack for home. And although is cost a tidy sum, it is still cheaper than excess baggage fees will be! And it gives us a chance to take a photo of the orange shop. It is not open, and with black plastic dropsheets hiding everything behind the window display, we will never know if in fact it every traded. It is bizarre and quaint and unusual and quirky all at once.

We are headed back over the mountain ranges through to the north coast. In readiness for our side trip to King Island on Monday, we have decided to stay in Wynyard for the next couple of days, and do a few day trips from here. We have a cabin at the LeisureVille Caravan Park, on the Old Bass Highway here in Wynyard, right across the from Freestone Cove looking out across the bay and the mouth of the Inglis River to Table Cape - an imposing plateau jutting into the waters of the Tasman Strait. It is nice to have beach views again after all those majestic mountains.

The drive over began in the mountains and I think that Gen is well and truly over the hairpins and ups and downs for the minute. One minute we are looking skywards at the dominant Dolerite Crags, the next we are travelling though dark tree'd tunnels through the rainforests. As I peer deep into the blackness, there are occasional shafts of light piercing the dense foliage and illuminating a single tree or fern, or at best, a glade. The closer we get to the coast, the thinner the trees become. No longer are they the lush growth of the ages, but are now the ordered, geometric, linear plantings of hardwood forests. No matter how clever man might be in growing timber for use, we can never match the beauty and mighty strength of mother nature with her trees of immense girth and ageless wisdom. 

We take a side detour to visit Zeehan - how many towns in Australia can claim to begin with a 'Z'? Dr Google (using the Austpost site) tells me there are 11! There are a number of small disparate museums here, and we again run into the hot rod cars towing vintage caravans that we saw at The Wall the other day. However, you could only buy a combined ticket at $25 per person - that explains why people were looking over the colourbond fence at the Railway museum. They would do better to offer a ticket to a single museum and discount tickets to multiple museums, so they did not lose all funds. I mean $50 for two of us to see the one museum we wanted to visi?! Nope. Not wanting to leave without spending any money, we stopped at the coffee cart outside the museum and bought coffees and pies - they are really good here.  

Back to the main road, we pass through Rosebery where there is supposed to be a good bakery - well, there might have been one. Not any more, it is closed and the shop marked For Sale in the window. There is an IGA with a post office franchise. Every other shop in the town is closed. This is an area in serious economic decline. I guess that even mining has an end-date.

So we push on. Closer to the coast, we now return to those idyllic pastoral scenes - cattle being fatted in green fields, hay stock-piled for the winter, wrapped tightly in green or lilac wrappings. And the roadwork. Yep, kilometres and kilometres at 40 kph. we pass over newly laid bitumen and the smell takes me back to memories of my father-in-law who carried bitupave for the last of his working years. High above Burnie, we again see the sea as diamonds sparkling in the afternoon sun. Its a sight for tired eyes.

In recognition of our return to the coast, we decide on Fish 'n' Chips for dinner. Needing milk, once we check in we head into the town centre, passing a seafood outlet - right on the beach! Gen will come back later for our order. Turns out seafood is expensive all over the country - they have Trevalla for $50/kg fresh and as a meal combo, it is $23 per serve which turns out to be battered. However, that batter was so light - think tempura batter - and the fish so fresh, so white. It is a truly delicious dinner.

A quiet night in watching some telly (supposed we really should go out late to try to see the Aurora Australis, but seriously we are too tired). Night all. we plan a sleep in tomorrow before a trip over to Stanley 45 minutes away so Gen can show me The Nut! Hope the chairlift is working - that'll be the only way I will be going up it!!

Hope you are all well. Avagoodweekend as the saying goes. 

The Transfagarasan Road - a huge heart in my throat kind of day - for all sorts of reasons.

We had arrived at the Complex Europa Transfagarasanwith the intention of driving the Transfagarasan Road down to Bucharest.  This is the road that Top Gear has stated as the world's best road to drive!

We arrived late on Sunday with the sun behind us from another warm summer's day and with clouds rolling in over the Carpathian Mountains.  There is a little stream trickling along behind our hostel styled accommodation where we actually have a two bedroom 'suite'.
Just as I finished uploading the blog last night, the storm that had been thundering down the mountains hit.  Had to find the wet weather jacket just to get to dinner!
The Hotel is full and as we sit having dinner they turned away no less than eight groups of people who seek solace from the rain and turn up on speck. No Joseph, there is no room at this inn - try down the road 4 kms!

Dinner was an interesting affair. Nothing fancy, nothing flash. Just down to earth good traditional food. We began with soup - tripe (shudder) for Michael and Vegetable for me (and Michael!). We both had pork - Michael's a flattened grilled rib steak and mine Schnitzeled - both with mashed potato.

An hour later we return to our room in the top of the cabin to find that babbling brook has risen two feet and become a boiling angry raging monster! You would not believe how much it has changed. And by the morning, it had lost its anger and was again, a happy little tumbling stream. How quickly things change in the mountains.

Despite the rain stopping, the clouds hang low over the Carpathians this morning, with the mist so heavy that it might as well have been raining. Its in this weather that we head up the most spectacular drive in Europe, if not the world. We share the road with crazy cyclists (what is it about riding up ridiculously steep slopes??), lots of motorbikes and plenty of cars.

Warnings abound about falling rocks, rough surfaces and accident zones. The speed limit on the Transfagarasan is 40 kpm and I wonder how many people stick to that?

We leave with 240 kms worth of fuel to travel 97 kms from near Cartisoara in the north to Curtea des Arges in the south. And there is a reason I tell you this now!

Its such a pity that the fog and mist are so heavy - for much of the trip, we look out into white as we crawl our way up the mountain in traffic. 40 kph is barely  doable - if not for the traffic, then for the condition of the road - can't say we weren't warned! We pass through a series of snow tunnels - not sure why they would bother with them as the road is closed in the winter - in fact it is usually open for only a few months a year - which might explain the intense interest at this time of the year!

After about an hour, we reach the access point to the first of two glacial lakes - the Cascade Lake, an the inevitable souvenir and refuelling stop. Amazing here is the cured meats hanging in the open, the cheeses, potatoes and corn roasting in coals and the bric-a-brac that people seem to want to collect.  Michael takes off to walk to the lake, but returns when he sees the condition of the cascade crossings - can't say I blame him!

Parking is haphazard and anywhere you can squeeze in. Some people - especially those in expensive cars - porsche, audi, bmw, mercedes - seem to give little regard for their cars or for the safety of passing motorists - they just nose in, leaving their rears exposed to being hit, so long as they can park close to where they want to be!

So up again we head. We get the very occasional glimpse of the road above us as we twist and turn through hairpin after hairpin after hairpin. The switchbacks are so close that often, the cars on the next stretch are literally right above us.

Despite the weather still being very close, there are a number of people heading off to walk in the mountains. They are certainly very awe-inspiring and evocative.

The road continues to challenge - it is quite tiring driving it.  Safety rails are not in all places, not a problem given that we are averaging well less than the stipulated 40 kph - in some places we are down to 20! And after about another hour or travel, we reach the peak and the site of the Blue Lake - not a hope of stopping here - the parking is even worse, and the local Police are on hand milking the cash cow that are parking infringers! They must make a financial killing for the few months that the road is open. Once we pass the peak, we get our first glimpse of the famous road switches as we look over towards the southern road. O.M.G. how stunning is this - too bad the day is not clear and sunny - the view must be absolutely jaw-dropping!
Now, I have been watching the fuel gauge with interest and a wee bit of concern. We have reached the top with now just over 100 kms worth of fuel left. Much of the ascent has been in 2nd gear, albeit not very fast.

The views are stunning - there is something about being in high mountains and looking down on the work of mother nature - something that you just can't fathom.  Locals and tourists seem to appreciate it as there are plenty (and I mean plenty) of people out read to take serious walks in this mountainous terrain.  We pass the Mountain Rescue base, complete with Fire Brigade, Ambulance and rescue vehicles and I just wonder how often they are called to the rescue of some foolhardy person/s who have misjudged the conditions, their preparedness or the gravity of their jaunt!


Life goes on pretty much as normal here on the southern side. A flock of sheep grazes on the side of the road with a foolhardy few dashing to greener pasture on the other side of the road, leaving motorists to brake even more suddenly.  A group of bikers conglomerate at the base of one of the climbs - of course, the road speed limit doesn't apply to them as they defy gravity on some of the corners - today they can have it - does not appeal to me one little bit in this weather!

And we are heading down down down - with me coasting where I can - my trip meter is no longer telling me how much fuel I have left, and the fuel light has come on.  Tell Michael who says "Oh well, not much we can do about it". F***, me, I'm starting to quietly panic.

Still we press on - there are not so many uphills now (which is good, given our circumstances) and I watch the road markers that we pass every km with hope and dread - we are still a lot further from Curtea des Arges than I am comfortable with.

The road continues to twist and turn, travelling alongside the Arges River as it works its way to Lake Vidrarul - a man made dam that feeds a hydro electric scheme. The road crosses at the dam wall and again, the police have their hands full trying to keep the traffic moving, and those blastered parkers off the roadside.

Still travelling close to empty, but as the last reading was at 80km of fuel, and we had less than that to reach the southern destination, I am hopeful that we will get there.  We pass a number of small hamlets and tourist resorts, though none with fuel. Finally we come in to Căpățânenii Pământeni and lo and behold - there is a serv

ice station - doing a very brisk trade. Whew. We have never been so pleased to see a dirty, grungy little establishment!!!!  The lack of care when it comes to disposing of rubbish is disheartening - people just throw their litter from cars and abandon water bottles and trash wherever they are. Roadside stops are always filled with overflowing bins and heaps of rubbish piled beside them. It is such a pity in such pristine conditions.

So we reach Curtea des Arges and make the turn for Bucharest. Pears, garlic and tomato sellers line the road, the farmers are busy on their drays and they hay is in the barns drying out.

The main national freeway cuts in from here and today, I am happy to take it, getting up to speeds of 130 kph to make up for the almost 5 hours it took to travel the first 90 kms today. We are a little over an hour for the capital and I can't wait to get there.

We enter into Bucuresti proper, and with it, into the traffic chaos that is a capital city. Horns, sirens and screeching, along with trams and trolley buses and those infernal tram lines to cross and travel along. We arrive at the location of the office of the Bucharest Apartments, but can't see it straight away, so I slip into a side street, park illegally as Michael makes a phone call (on international roam) to the office. We are literally just around the corner and Marcus eventually comes down to find us - Michael gets out to meet him as he is having trouble seeing us.

Finally he returns to the car - the apartment is just behind us, parking at the rear. Old he says, but clean enough and literally a 10 minute walk in to the Old Town. Marcus told him we have the perfect location - turn left at the intersection for the new town, turn right for the old town!

 Yes, the exterior of the block is something from the communist era, but inside we are comfortable. There is a washing machine too - so we pt everything through a wash. A pizza store provided dinner and a patisserie downstairs gives coffee and pastries for later.

We manage to make contact with Diana - Lorena has been holidaying in Greece and we plan to meet for dinner tomorrow night. Hopefully Lorena will be back in time to join us.

I'm off to bed after a very full, eventful and exhausting drive today.  See you on the morrow!