Tasmania compared to South Island of New zealand

[hamar31]

Hi there

I have Been in the fortunate position to spent a lot of time tramping and living in Christchurch and done a lot of tramping in the south island. I belong to several tramping clubs here and have found the company in these clubs extraordinary welcoming and I still am grateful to be in this part of the world as the people in nz are very friendly and the country is very peaceful.

I still get tears in my eyes when I stand on top of some of the mountains in New Zealand, as this place suits my nature,but personal circumstances may force me to live in Australia.

Is anyone willing who lives in Tasmania and who might belong to a bushwalking club there ( and who might have also been to new Zealand) willing to share their experience of living and bushwalking in Tasmania?

How do you find the people in Tasmania and what is your experience with bushwalking there?

Thank you very much for sharing anything about this

AM

I am considering moving to Tasmania, probably Hobart

[Liamy77]

did you move to QLD?.... seems you missed the turn off for Tassie?

[JamesMc]

I don't live in Tasmania, I just walk there, but I'll have a go.

Tas is muddy, NZ is not muddy.

Tas has leeches, NZ has sand flys.

Tas does not have significant objective dangers from snow & ice to anywhere near NZ's degree.

The mountains in Tasmania are small, the mountains in NZ are big.

The rock on Tas mountains is generally sound, unlike the greywacke in NZ.

The scrub in Tas is very thick, in the places I've walked in NZ (eg Nelson, Otago) there is no scrub, except for the sub alpine stuff.

Tas has very few huts and a culture of not depending on them. ie. it is frowned upon if you arrive at a hut and NEED to use it because you didn't bring a tent. This will seem bizzare to a kiwi.

Tas Parks & Wildlife Service discourage walking anywhere other than on a few tracks. They will not provide information about routes, and they lean on guide book writers to not publish information on wilderness routes. This web site has a policy of not publishing information on untracked areas, reflecting PWS's view. (For the info of Tasmanians, New Zealand Dept of Conservation encourage off-track walkers to write reports of their trips. These reports are kept in a folder in the local National Park Office for anyone to look at. If you ask them about some wilderness route, they'll hand you the folder.)

Away from major walking routes, there are no bridges - given that crossing some Tasmanian rivers is serious, this is another way to make access difficult.

Lighting camp fires is generally prohibited in most of Tasmania's good walking country. This prohibition is generally complied with.

In some places Tas Parks & Wildlife Service have let tracks dissapear, either by actively obscuring them or by just not maintaining them (even prohibiting others like walking clubs from maintaining them).

I find most Tasmanian walkers very friendly. A few are reluctant to share "their" places with outsiders. This is because they see some of their favorite walking venues "over-run" by outsiders, mostly mainland Australians like me.

You are unlikely to meet people with guns in the Tasmanian National Parks.

Many Tasmanian walkers like to record all the peaks they climb, and track them against various pubished lists. Some will walk for a week just to climb a minor peak that's on a list. Outsiders will wonder why they bother.

JamesMc

[dancier]

I don't live in Tassie but I find it's one of those places in the world that hasn't been destroyed by the tourist dollar to any great extent, maybe the overland track is the exception, the good exchange rate makes NZ a tourist haven.

I haven't walked in NZ but have cycled there. I spent a night at Makarora with lots of walkers who were waiting for the rain to stop, much the same as myself. Some were waiting for the jet boat to take them to the start of there walk and one guy said he's even taken a chopper a few times. The next day while taking cover from the rain at an undercover roadside stop near Haast I was chatting to a local from Christchurch and said they need more of these undercover roadside stops. He agreed but said the money's being spent on huts for the European tourists, they've got 3000 of them. The other thing that I noticed is Mountain bike riding is virtually a national sport, those guys are all over the place.

Summing it up, Tasmania is similar to the south island of New Zealand minus the huts, jet boats, tourists, helicopters, wind and mountain bike riders but at least they don't have snakes and that's a selling point to some tourists.

[eggs]

It seems that no Tassie-ites have responded yet.
I am an another inter-stater who has been on 9 visits to Tas and has recently done a tourist run of NZ.
So - I can't answer your most important questions about walking clubs,
but - as a curious observation, it appears that the alpine gardens of Tas are much more rich and extensive than anything we saw in NZ.
I did not do a great walk and I know from research for the trip that there are huge number of walking tracks in NZ with a great variety of landscapes.
But both myself and a friend who did the Kepler track went almost straight from NZ to Mt Anne/Mt Field, and we both concluded the transition from rich forest to bare rock/ice is quite abrupt in NZ, whereas in Tas there are vast areas of rich gardens - eg the Pandani Shelf and the fields of Richea at Mt Field.

I am sure I would love to do more walking in NZ, but Tas is rather unique and very special.

[hamar31]

Hi James Mc

Thank you very much for your post. YOu have enlightened me a lot. I live in Brisbane but spent about 4-5 months in the South Island of NZ.

Not encouraging walkers to go out in the bush is the same in Queensland, very disappointing isn't it?

The tracks in TAsmania must be a lot muddier than in NZ. Of course the South of the South ISland like the Dusky track and Stewart ISland is also very muddy.

In New Zealand you can also do a lot of "tramping" (NZ version of bushwalking) on farmland. I do this a lot with my tramping club. They are generally happy to give access. IT would appear this does not happen in Tasmania.......

NOt taking a tent is certainly not an issue in NZ, generally the culture is to share the space in the hut, although I have found that some tourist on the "great walks" from certain countries like think they own the place. I heard from someone that 40-50 years ago trampers used to leave food for the next party..... The network of huts definitely adds to the atmosphere and ability to tramp. There are a huge number in the South ISland. SOme don't even get visited much because they are so remote. DOC (department of Conservation) really looks after the Tracks well in general.

Yes, I will be missing the high mountains on the South Island. The south island also has a much gentler and softer feeling than Australia. I find it a lot more peaceful than Australia and this is also reflected in the people who live here I find. They are genuinely interested in you. It is not as materialistic as Australia.

Thanks again James for taking the time to share your views.

Liamy 77, did you have anything to share?

Dancier, thanks it sounds like the South ISland is much more commercialed and busier than Tasmania. I guess as Tasmania does not have an international airport (hope I have got that right), perhaps it is seen to be not as accessible as NZ......

Eggs, funny that isn't it that no bushwalking club member has made any comments yet, surely there must be bushwalkers in a Tasmanian club that go the South ISland, you would think...... When you say TAsmania is rather unique and special what did you mean by that, did you notice any difference in the nature of the place or the people?

Thanks all for sharing, hopefully to be continued

AM

[Liamy77]

Your right i should contribute-I had better be constructive i guess...
well i'm not sure i would say that tassie doesn't have the wind.... there's nothing between us and antarctica either - the sw can cope a blow or two - have a look at shelf camp near Mt Anne.... i find tassie is Less materialistic tha West Aus though (for eg.)
i married a kiwi but i havnt walked there yet so i am a bit hamstrung with the comparison..... we have snakes n they have boiling mud and mac pac?!- i don't mean that to sound bad for mac pac - my olympus lasted 2 generations was passed to me from dad and only finally died about 2 years ago....

[eggs]

When you say Tasmania is rather unique and special what did you mean by that, did you notice any difference in the nature of the place or the people?

I cannot really comment on the people as all my visits have been short of focussed on bushwalking, though both attract a lot of travellers from elsewhere.

James Mc noted:

The rock on Tas mountains is generally sound, unlike the greywacke in NZ.

This is very true and impacts the type of landforms. The dolerite which covers a huge area of Tas consists of columns of rock leading to high vertical cliffs.
The white quartzite leads to very craggy and picturesque ranges - and I cannot think of anything that would compare to the Western Arthurs http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=576&p=14266&hilit=December+by+eggs#p14266
You will also find some interesting areas of conglomerate (west coast) and granite (Freycinet).

I should also note a bunch of really cute animals that are totally absent from NZ - kangaroos, wallabies and paddymelons, wombats, spotted cats & tassie devils, some of which are often seen.

But my main contrast was with the fact that Tas has large and frequent areas of alpine gardens.
Now I really do have limited experience with NZ, but it appears that it transitions fairly abruptly from forest to a snow grass/heath and then to bare rock and ice. Most impressive, but not the same.
These are a few shots from NZ to demonstrate the type:

Rob Roy when just out of the tree line becomes heath/snow grass, and then rock & ice.

There were some nice plants and flowers on the way up, but Sealy Tarns and up from there was grass

There were small patches of alpine plants / cushion plant near Muellers Hut, but all tiny and wedged between rocks

[eggs]

By way of contrast - Tas has a vast central plateau with thousands of small lakes and tarns.
Much of it is rich alpine gardens.
Not as dramatic in scale as NZ, but extremely pretty in a unique way.
These are 3 example shots:

Hillside of large cushion plants and scoparia

Typical alpine pond ringed by spagnum moss and heath

Continuous maze of alpine heath and tarns sprinkled with pencil pine forests - this is at Long Tarns

[eggs]

But these alpine gardens are found in other parts as well

Pigsty Ponds in the Southern Ranges

And part of this unique charm is the special colour of autumn when the deciduous beech turns

Fagus [Deciduous Beech] and Pencil Pine around Twisted Lakes below Cradle Mountain

And just after NZ we visited the Pandani Shelf off Mt Anne

Small section of the Pandani shelf covered in pools, cushion plant, pandanis and pineapple grass (which happened to be in flower)

[Liamy77]

Hey blacksheep.... where's your 2c worth you might have something to add??

[north-north-west]

Lovely shot of Twisted Lakes there, eggs.