Deloraine street arts and more churches

Arriving in Deloraine was part of a bigger plan. I wanted to do a lot of sightseeing during a couple of days I meant to spent there. You wanna make God laughing, share your plans with Him. And so it was. I thought I was taking it easy, going with the flow of smaller roads and local towns waiting for me to be discovered (:-)). As it turned out, not quite. Going with the flow - yes of course. But not realizing that I might get stuck due to .... no transportation going on weekend (sic!). Literally nothing going my direction (Cradle Mountain).

My drill for travelling is that wherever I arrive, if I need to meet certain timeline, I immediately check options for travelling further. Better check than be sorry later! This was one of the cases where I had to be on time at Cradle Mountain visitor's centre in order to check-in and collect my pass. Not showing up could result in missing out the trek until there is another free slot..totally not in favour of this option. Deloraine's Great Western Tiers Visitor Centre staff came to my rescue.

Never before had I met so helpful ladies working in a tourist centre. They spent a reasonable amount of time on the phone to explore any possible way of getting me out of Deloraine in time, including also private drivers (!). I too, spent a good amount on the phone trying to do the same, and in the same time trying to understand my options with the Cradle Mountain pass.

After 90 minutes of a small drama I was all set with a new plan. I had to be leaving on the next day. Fortunately I had all the luck to get a free slot at the National Park, so no additional waiting! Brilliant! If not this, I would have to either stay over the weekend and try to fit in the timeline of booking at Cradle Mountain or get the bus back to Launceston and from there through Devonport to my destination. Not convenient, expensive and counterproductive way if you ask me.

The new schedule was alright. One day in Deloraine and then get going to my main purpose of the Tasmanian trip - the Cradle Mountain - Lake St. Clair trek.

And why not to hitch-hike, you may ask me. True, normally I would take my chances. But here there was not enough traffic my feeling was. As it turned out I was right...We were the only car going that road on that day...

my original plan around Deloraine, was to rent a bike and do two daily trips to see local caves and waterfalls. It did not work out quite this time, but I was still happy not to have to reschedule everything.

More street art, sculptures like this one were scattered by the main street. Really nice feeling to it and creating good atmosphere in the town.

Deloraine itself was quite magical. For such a small town to have so many beautiful and well preserved places... and the way they organize their space.. we could learn a lot from that community how to create atmosphere and make people feel good. 

Caravan Park by Meander River.

Walking around Meander River.

I could spend so much more time exploring all the neighbourhood but I had some job to do!

And jobs were involving getting supplies for the coming week of trekking. I was starting to feel anxious and a bit paranoid about the challenge nevertheless I put aside all my worries and decided to get organized and just do it.

Why anxious? Because I was about to set off for a 100 KM trek without much of a backup plan or a company. Entering that trek on one end would mean I have to come out on the other end or... not other option. Well, I could die there or get a helicopter to collect me, which I could not afford anyways  ;). And I had to be smart about it, not to take too much to carry on top of my normal load.

Lazy people get creative. So I figured that the best thing for me would be to post part of my luggage and take with me only the necessary things and food. Posting was a good idea but where would I collect it after coming out from the woods? Then there was another idea of having it transported with the tourist bus and collecting it on the other end, but this plan too had its fault. The drivers were changing and there was no guarantee I would get my stuff back - there would be no one to look after it while I was gone. Finally there was this third option with leaving my loaded rucksack at the visitor's centre and paying for my bus company to collect it and store it in their office in Hobart, where I was planning to go after the trek. Quite a complex plan involving few people on the way, but in the end all was set and agreed.

End of the hill I had to climb each time going back from the town, as you can imagine I limited the number to the minimum, meaning 2 times only

Funny art of local makers, not sure what it represents!

And my supplies for the week?

• 1 full grain bread
• 4 hard boiled eggs
• a box with some ham and some hard cheese
• 2 tomatoes
• 4 bananas
• 2 apples
• 2 bags of chocolate bars
• a bag of nuts 
• tea bags
• 2 bottles of isotonic drink
• 1 small bottle of water

After having packed all this my backpack was really full, weighing around 15 KG altogether. I took off the unnecessary clothes and cosmetics of course - they were going in my small rucksack straight to Hobart. What I call unnecessary here would be otherwise handy in a normal circumstances. Things like small shampoo, conditioner, facial creme etc.. What I took with me was really the minimum of the minimum, to avoid any additional decagrams and grams even. Anyway in the national park you do not have showers and you are not allowed to use detergents.

Why bother then?

And so Deloraine proved to be just a stopover for me and a supply point before my major undertake. Leaving on the next day in the morning was way too soon for me, I would haveloved to hang around more and explore all the beauty I had not chance discovering this time.

I have a sentiment for churches. I like the way they were built and the history behind which usually is a nice communal story. I always take photos of churches as the way they were designed and the way there are now it says a lot about people leaving there.

This church was very high in the local hierarchy, they had a school, a market and they were organizing lots of local events for the local community.

Very small but beautiful church. The kind of one to remember.

I will remember all the hills, the views, friendly people sharing their tomatoes, street art and the feeling of quiet admiration of the surroundings.