Our welcome on arrival by the charming young Natalie was in the true spirit of Tasmanian hospitality. As is usual with us, we arrived after 6.00PM in the dark and it was wonderful to walk into the shop with its very welcoming log fire. We should mention at this point that this is only a snack type shop with a bar. If you intend staying a few days you can either eat in the excellent restaurant or arrive with adequate food. Wildlife is in abundance and yes we got our first hand, up close and personal, look at a Tasmanian Devil. These little critters are a delight to watch and are not at all frightened when placed in the spotlight.

Two types of camping are available. Basic camping at the special CMCA rate of $5.00 PVPN - use of toilets and water. Powered sites at $12.00 entitles you to use of showers (very clean with good hot water), power etc. At present there are no washing machines/dryers, however there are a couple of Hills Hoists. The power poles are very neat and water taps are built into the base as well as provision for easy sullage disposal. At present there is no dump point.

Walking activities are quite good and the lookout behind the shop has views to die for and during our visit the autumn leaves were in abundance. You can look straight down the massive hydro pipes - makes for interesting photos. Talking of photos we particularly liked the wonderful display of historic photos dating back to the start of the hydro scheme. These are in a dedicated building and it is totally free. We were quite taken by a series of photos taken by the Prep 4 students when they revisited their birth place a year after it had been partly dismantled. The photo below left is of the lovely chapel used for weddings with a difference - a lovely touch.

It is a bit hard to get your head around this place! It truly is a complete town converted to a camping area plus cottages etc. It has a huge football field, tennis courts, squash courts, a massive hall, golf course and a myriad of other miscellaneous buildings. Whilst this is all fantastic, it could in the future backfire as it will be extremely difficult to maintain all these buildings. Already there are problems with rubbish removal. On our visit the dump bin was overflowing, with rubbish blowing all over the escarpment. With the best of CMCA intentions we couldn't fix this. However, it's early days yet and this may well be just a teething problem. Opportunities have been lost in the way that the powered sites have been laid out. Unlike the state of the art CMCA Village at Casino, there are no garden like dividers between sites, and despite loads of room being available, the sites are all on top of one another with zero privacy and shade. Most motorhomers are not herd animals and dislike trying to live on top of each other. Again this could well change, as there is a heck of a lot of water available to nurture gardens, so much so that the impressive town fountain uses mains water that just runs into a drain. The shot below right shows the non-powered area - fairly level and well grassed. This was where we first spied the Tassie Devil! There is a very nice BBQ nearby in this area, however rather oddly there is no water tap at all. No problem though - just drive over to the powered area.

Normal caravanners are asked to pay $20.00. We thought this was OK until we went 15 minutes down the road to a beautiful lakeside park at Wayatinah - the charge just $12.00. This quaint little mountain top village has a shop, post office and servo. It is also a hydro town but it is in full operation with schools etc. Tarraleah makes a great base for exploring the surrounding area. Now it does snow up here in winter so you may have to time your visit for summertime. Fuel is available, however we found it to be the dearest between Strachan and Tarraleah at an horrific $1.09 per litre, bearing in mind that it is only a couple of hours away from Hobart.

Bob Eustace

Hema 52 D 7