Stanley – Arthur River

Got a late start again after another rocky windy night. It was quite overcast today. Headed down to the Breakfast Bar for breaky. It was packed. It was also the cheapest place we’d seen in a long time. Enjoyed a nice breaky before walking up the street. Passed the Art Knot Lawyers shop, which if you look closely to the letters you can see they were pulled down and it previously said Stanley Art Works. Quite funny! But what a shop! There was no recession happening in here. With $4,000 blanket boxes, and $9,000 dining room tables – I didn’t even ask how much the chairs were – and they were sold! Awaiting collection. Amazingly beautiful handcrafted pieces of Tasmanian timber artwork. The blanket boxes were stunning. There was also painting, jewellery, hand woven woollen scarves, glass, pottery and all just lovely.

Oh by the by… The VDL Co still owns about 50,000 acres in the north western most corner of Tassie. They’ve fenced the lot off and only let people in who’ve paid lots of money. It appears its just as strange now as it was back in the 1800s! Not sure who owns it these days, but there is no mention made of it in town, as if they’ve disappeared. Very strange.

Up the road further were lovely artisans crafting cheese boards, jewellery boxes, pepper mills and many other great bowls and such. It was busy and bustling with tourists galore.

Decided we should move on to Smithton, just 15kms up the road. Stopping along the way at a lovely timber workshop; we were amazed at the fabulous timber collection on this massive rural property with the largest shed I’d seen in ages chock-a-block with timbers of all sorts!

Smithton was not as pretty as Stanley. Home to Gunns – need we say more, and also McCains, and other multinationals. It was factory city and not very appealing. Although they did have a nice waterfront area. We did hear from people in Stanley that they picked up some freshly caught and shucked oysters for $10/doz! We found out where they were but were closed by the time we got there.

Headed off down the road further to Greens Beach. We could see across the bay the fabulous wind farm that had been installed at the most West point of the state. Of course, it too, was windy. It was actually quite a distance on a dirt road, so we didn’t drive out, but found it peaceful and tranquil watching the blades slowly turn from this side of the bay.

sunset @ Greens Beach

We then headed down to Arthur River where we’d heard there was another great boat trip to be had.

Stayed in the State Park run stopping spot as there was no where else to pull up. The car ferry crosses every day from 9am till 5pm. Only other way across was the pedestrian walk way or boat!