We're in Launceston today, seeing the sights. Launceston is located in the northern portion of Tasmania about 35 miles from the northern coast. It's a city of just over 100,000 and is located on the Esk River. We had a few things to see here in the city and started with Cataract Gorge, a city park on the Esk River. The park is very nice and offers hiking, swimming, playgrounds, a skyway over the river, and a bridge that is over the cataracts themselves, along a restaurant and a cafe. Here is a shot of the cataracts themselves taken from the skyway:
Here's an overall view of the park. It was nice to see so many families with kids here on a sunny Saturday morning:
Here you can see another shot of the park from the cableway:
I rode the skyway across the river and at the other end, I met the lift operator's assistant:
After Cataract Gorge, we headed over to the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. It was housed in a beautiful old building, something that Launceston seems to have a lot of:
As in several other museums we've been through, we couldn't take pictures in the actual galleries, but we were able to take this one just outside one of the exhibits:
As you might expect, the museum was very well presented. Following this, we headed across town to the Launceston Tramway Museum, which was also very interesting. The Museum was founded in 1998 and has restored several of the old streetcars that were removed from service when the streetcars were eliminated in 1953. They had one running through the museum area and two others being refurbished:
We also visited the other half of the Queen Victoria Museum, which dealt with early settlement in Tasmania. It was also very well presented and was very interesting, but, again...no pics...
After that, I headed over to the National Automobile Museum of Tasmania. Somehow or other, Pat just wasn't interested. For a small city, this was a very nice museum, with a lot of cars that were unique to Australia and a lot of cars that I could remember being from England. You can see a number of the cars in this pic:
A couple cars caught my eye:
This is what I think is the most beautiful car ever produced...a Jaguar XK-E.
And this has to be one of the top 10. It's a 1960's Austin-Healey:
Anyway, we had a nice time in Launceston today. We leave at 6:00 am tomorrow for Christchurch, New Zealand and leave Australia behind. More tomorrow!
Pat's Paragraph...... One of the items we saw at the Queen Victoria Museum (not the car museum) was an original 1923 Austin Healey. It is the only one in the world with the original stainless steel body. It was an amazing looking car but again, sorry, no pictures.
Driving up from Hobart yesterday, we were in wide open valleys that went on for mile after mile. Huge open pastures and fields, some with woods, some with streams, but that entire drive of over 200 miles, we didn't see one wallaby or kangaroo. Today leaving the gorge, as we were driving through the parking lot, what ran out in front of us but a little wallaby. All these cars, streets and people, close to homes and buildings, and here we see a wallaby in the Gorge Preserve. Can you believe it? Maybe he was here visiting the operator's 'assistant'.
