Western Tassie Pt II

Making our way from the West coast down to Hobart Town, we went South from Balfour, across the single-car river ferry in Corinna (this ferry felt like the classic game Oregon Trail, only we did not die of dysentery), to see the second highest waterfall on the island, Montezuma Falls.

Montezuma Falls has a cool cable suspension bridge that runs across it, and we were excited to check it out, despite it being a dreary afternoon. All we had to do was make it there. Down a simple 4x4 track, it would take just a short while to arrive there by car, or so a blog claimed. Google agreed: "28 minutes away!"

As we started down the track, we passed a not so small sign declaring "DO NOT ATTEMPT IN RAIN." That was totally not a concern for us, since the skies were only very dark. Not rainy. After a few minutes, the road turned from rough, to barely passable. We had traversed a couple of very off camber, steep, narrow, and rutted sections, so when we decided that we better turn around, it wasn't an option. The horrible rear departure angle of the truck meant we could not reverse out, and there was no room to maneuver even the tightest 31-point turn. Right, onward, then. As we continued on to the waterfall, we looked for places to turn around while the sky darkened further, then it started to rain. As the road filled with water, Ethan stopped periodically to get out to walk the "road" to determine the path of least likelihood-of-getting-stuck-or-totaling-the-truck. Google maps insisted: "28 minutes away."

After a hard bash here and a bad scrape there, we finally got to a point in the road where we could turn around. It was still rainy, and now it was getting dark. Unfortunately, all the excitement for the waterfall had been drained by the nerve wracking drive. After unsuccessfully searching the web and maps apps for alternative routes out (no cell service) we decided to just head back the way we came. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. And this devil took us 2 hours 20 minutes to slog the 8 miles to the turn around point.

We won't bore you with the details getting back to the highway, just know that it was filled with rock stacking, water and rut depth checks, etc. After another 2 hours 20 minutes we were back on the main road! Google still insisted it was an easy 28 minutes (clearly not), and after regaining cell service, we noticed that the blog post that claimed it was a good track was from 2016. Yep, a lot changed. While we were a bit stressed after it, and had a new to-do list of un-bending our exhaust pipe and straightening out the running boards, it was both a good lesson learned and a "Type 2 Fun" memory.

With a rather unfortunate ending to the afternoon, we decided to end on a good note and grab the nicest dinner in the tiny nearby port town of Strahan (later learned pronounced Strawn--we definitely sounded like idiots saying Stray Han), which actually turned out to be quite a nice Italian restaurant.

The next day we toured around the Strahan rail museum (can't keep Tori away from trains!) then headed to Queenstown where we looked at... more trains. We also visited the local mining museum, which comprised two stories. Being a small town, the community had built the museum themselves and seems that everyone contributed some items to it. They were obviously proud. The bottom of the museum was dense with local mining history and had a working player piano which Ethan operated, much to his amusement. The second floor was also dense--with stuff. Let's just say it hadn't quite been curated yet, and Mary's roller blades (generously donated, a note added) clearly from the late 1990s or 2000s perhaps didn't belong. Still, there was a charming aspect to the place.

Afterwards, we watched as a steam train left the station then piled into the ute to see The Iron Blow, which is basically a lake in the bottom of a mine that is stained an artificial bright blue color from the mine tailings. With images of roller blades, trains and mining equipment dancing in our heads, we bombed down the road for Hobart.