Matt Down Under

Sleeping in the farmhouse wasn’t such a great idea after all, I didn’t get much sleep thanks to constant scratching and moving from possums around and under the house, and the many mosquitoes. So I was glad when I saw the sunrise. I ate the rest of my cake and my food planning worked out excellent this time, there was nothing left except lunch and a meal for dinner. For the next day I had booked the morning ferry, so I wouldn’t need breakfast - I was looking forward to an extensive breakfast at the Triabunna bakehouse upon my return.

The weather looked rather unpredictable but I decided to push my luck and go checking out Robey’s Farm. I had a list of all the stuff I wanted to see on Maria Island, and Robey’s Farm was the last remaining item. So I packed up my stuff, stored my big pack in the house and walked to Robey’s Farm. It takes about an hour to cross the isthmus, then an hour to walk to the farmhouse, so in the end I was back at lunch time 4 hours later. I saw another wombat on my way there.

Robey’s farm is interesting if you are interested in history - otherwise it is simply an old house with a lot of junk around it. I went inside the house and found a visitor’s book and an article that described the history and life of John Robey, who used to live there. The most interesting part was probably that when he abandoned the property to move back to South Africa, he left everything as it is. Apparently the table was still prepared for dinner and he even left a rice pudding in the oven. Today there is not much left, the house and the surroundings are exposed to the weather and rotting. Looks like there was once a shed that already broke down.

I think it would be worth restoring the building, but signs were indicating there is asbestos present in the building, so there’s probably more needed than the help of volunteers to keep it in good shape. Anyway, I spent some time there, walking around the house and the surroundings, checking out the remains of the flower garden and the old equipment that is found inside and around the house.

On my way back I walked along the beach at Riedle Bay, great waves there. When I moved over to Shoal Bay, all the yachts except 2 or 3 were gone, Easter was clearly over. I sat down on the veranda at French’s Farm to have lunch, it was another great sunny day, I was really looking forward to walk back to Darlington, even after the 4h exercise I already had.

Walking to Darlington was quite tiring, my feet were killing me. Two hours later, near the Painted Cliffs, I spotted some unusual activity on the water in the Mercury Passage. I wasn’t able to recogise what it was, so I used my camera to take a photo with full zoom, then looked at the photo again and zoomed in even more. It was a group of dolphins swimming up the passage towards Darlington!! I was really amazed now, exactly the motivation push I needed to keep on walking to Darlington. I tried to walk faster, hoping the dolphins would maybe stay at the small bay at Hopground Beach, but sadly I didn’t see them again.

In Darlington I was really stuffed, but I looked back to a fantastic time on Maria Island. I quickly set up my camp, then went to have a hot shower. The camp site was almost empty, all the students were gone, only a handful of tents left. While I cooked dinner at the barbecue area another wombat walked straight across the campsite. I followed, trying to finally get a good wombat photo, but the moment he saw me, he ran away. It was funny to see a wombat taking the bridge though.

After I finished cooking I sat down at the fire - the last night on the island, a nice fireplace, a great holiday. Later I found out I managed to place my tent between two trees that were extremely popular among possums, I could hear them walking around the tent and rattling the trees all night.

Back to Hobart

The following day I packed up my luggage and waited for the morning ferry. I went for another short walk to explore the surroundings of Darlington and spotted a lot of kangaroos. The weather became worse and it seems like I just left the island in time, the rest of the day was rain.

Back in Triabunna I had breakfast at the bakehouse with 4 different types of cake. After a week of dehydrated food fresh cake really tastes fantastic. I wasn’t in a hurry, had to wait until 2pm for the Tassielink bus back to Hobart.

After all I’m extremely happy that everything went so well. I was well organised with my luggage, food planning was perfect, public transport worked well, the weather was excellent and I managed to see all the sights I wanted to see. I’m sure I will be back, Maria Island is fantastic.