Today we left for the long 6-hour drive from Strahan back to Hobart which gave us some different scenery as we passed through the mining town of Queenstown surrounded by dramatic hills and mountains - it was once the world's richest mining town (copper). We drove up a scenic spiralling road which Heather read afterwards has over 90 bends - not her favourite type of driving! Having got used to driving through beautiful rainforest, Queenstown confronted us with a moonscape produced by cutting the forests down to fuel the copper smelters. The acid rain and erosion stripped the hills of their soil and a man-made desert was left - and amazingly, a beautiful landscape. Luckily though the trees are starting to grow back and the forests will return.

We had a stop off at a tiny town called Derwent Bridge to see the stunning sculpture called The Wall in the Wilderness. The Wall is carved from 3-metre high wooden panels and tells the story of Tasmanian history in the central highlands. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed so no pictures.

We continued past lakes and lagoons, many man-made as part of the Hydro Electric Scheme, before coming to the spectacular valley at Tarraleah. We stopped here for coffee and to learn a little about the Hydro Electric power station and looked at the view over the valley and the pipes that carry the water 290 metres down the hillside to the power station.

Continued on our way with the last 30km following the Derwent River in to Hobart and arrived at Kevin and Michelle's landlord, Mal and Mieke. They had very kindly offered to give us dinner, bed and breakfast for our last evening in Tasmania. We were greeted with a very welcome cold beer in true Australian style and settled down to a homecooked meal, some nice wine and conversation before retiring to the sound of lapping waves from our bedroom. After a good night's rest we said our farewells and left at 08.00am for our flight back to Brisbane.