Oatlands is the place we chose to catch up with our mates at Not Grey Nomads. Another travelling couple in there 40’s, who like us, travel full time around Australia. We were heading back to the mainland in a couple days and had only spent a few hours with them in Tasmania. It was so great to actually spend some quality time with them. Oatlands is 84Km north of Hobart.
Photo: Meet The “Not Grey Nomads”
Oatlands Camp
You have a choice between two areas to camp. The first one is by lake Dulverton, it had very little water at this time. This is a small area that can fit around eight or so vans depending on size. In this area is a water tap, fire pit, picnic bench and some cool Topiary. A donation box is also here. A BBQ area and toilets are a minute or two walk away.
Photo: The Lower CampPhoto: Fire Pit
Photo: Water Tap
The
second area is the largest and will fit any size van. This is a large
grassed area surrounded by old brick walls. This used to be the old
sheep stock yards and still has some of the old fencing and history.
Toilets are also a two minute walk away showers are a couple of
minutes in the other direction at the back of the radio station.
Top CampPhoto: The Top Camp
Photo: Heaps Of Room
Photo: Top Camp
Outside Oatlands Camp
On
the other side of the wall from the camp is a playground, part of
which has carved out wooden animals on an old tree. A big undercover
BBQ area with a tap and more history from the stock yard days is also
in this area. The windmill is also a lovely feature to look at from
your van.
Photos: Toilets & BBqsPhotos: Playground & Old Sheep yard EquipmentPhoto: Bella From Not Grey Nomads
Oatlands History
Oatlands
is a pretty town with so many old sandstone buildings. A short stroll
from the camp and you will find the stocks outside the court house?
And there is the old jail, both of which have a key symbol on the
door but we were not sure where you get them from? The jail has all
the information on hangings and it’s odd to see the layout of the
old jail, the woman’s part is now the local swimming pool. They would
never imagined what would be there now.
Photos: The Old Jail & Hangman’s NoosePhotos: Old Stairs Tell A story & Sue In The Stocks
Walk In To Town
A two minute walk and you are in Oatlands main street. They seem to close on Monday and Tuesday’s as with a lot of small towns who’s busy days are on the weekend. You will find cafe’s, bakery, IGA and antique shops.
Photos: Cafe’s & IGA A Short Walk Away
Photo: Pancakes & Crepes In Town
We headed to the RSL on two nights with Frannie and Crispy fromNot Grey Nomads for dinner. This is the friendliest town we have visited while in Tasmania. From the lady in the chicken shop to all the staff at the RSL and the local who messaged us after seeing our sign on the ute. He messaged to see if we were liking our stay. Even the guy servicing the local dump point was helpful and friendly.
Photos: Dinner At The Local RSL
Photo: Dinner and drinks at RSL Oaklands
Have A Drive
Oatlands is a central location so you can drive to Hobart in 1 hour, Launceston is 1 hour 20 minutes and if you don’t mind a bit of a road trip from this great location both “The Wall” at Derwent Bridge and Wineglass Bay are both 2 hours away.
We
definitely recommend this camp and this town. Base yourself here so
you can see the town and the surrounding areas.
Campbell Town has a lovely camp called Blackburn Park Rest Area. Set next to the Elizabeth river with local tourist attraction “The Red Bridge”. It’s a short walk to town which is so handy in this historical town.
Campbell Town Camping
This camp is a huge grassed area that will fit many rigs of all sizes. Camping is for 48 hours and for self- contained vans. You do have to obtain a permit, which is free. I’ll add the details at the end of the post.
A couple of bins are here and when they get emptied all the ducks come running over from the river. They may also come and visit you if you have food. Over the bridge from the camp is a BBQ area and seating as well as a playground and wooden sculptures.
Wood Sculptures
BBQ & Playground
The Red Bridge is also here. Built in 1838 it’s the oldest surviving brick arch bridge in Australia.
Campbell Town
From your camp you can walk the five or so minutes to the main street. Apart from the bridge the other main tourist attraction is the convict brick trail. Park on ether side of the street and you will find a long row of red bricks. All have the names, age, crime, and how long they served. Back then steeling a handkerchief meant jail time. The main street has toilets as well as cafe’s, bakery, pub and other basic shops.
Convict Brick
Have A Drive
Ross – Just 10 minutes away is this lovely little town with more free tourist attractions. We visited here previously when camping at The Pondering Frog Cafe in Bechino. Ross, has a Female factory you can walk around as well as the Tasmanian Wool Center. We liked the red phone box where you can dial a number and listen to the stories of old residents.
It’s very easy to spend the 48 hours allowed here whether you are just relaxing by the river or checking out the town. Blackburn Park Rest Area in Campbell Town is one we would recommend.
This Berry Patch was so good we stayed twice 😀 Located only 15 minutes from the Spirit of Tasmania this is a perfect first or last camp when heading to or from the SOT. You can pick your own berries as well as enjoy everything the onsite cafe has to offer. At the moment this great camp is *Free which might change to low cost once they have set it up properly.
The Berry Patch Camp
Camping here is in a large grassed fenced paddock. Sheep wander on the other side of the fence near the start of the Berry Patch. They have planted new trees around the border and water taps have been placed around the sites for you to fill your tanks (not to connect to) At the moment camping is free to self contained vans but it is $2 to fill your tank.
Once established this will be a lovely site, not that it isn’t already. Most size rigs will fit and there are some drive through sites.
Berry Patch Cafe
A short stroll down the lane and you are at the onsite “Turners Berry Patch Cafe”. This is a fantastic cafe that serves great coffee, breakfast, stunning cakes and dinner on a Friday night. Oh and lets not forget the best ice cream .. no really!
The cafe garden has some fun things for kids and this is a licensed cafe if you want a wine or two before you walk back to your van.
In the other direction from the camp is a dead end. You can continue walking to the river/sea inlet and maybe do some fishing off the bridge.
A Short Drive Or Walk
Turners Beach is around a 20 minute walk or take your bike. This is a huge sandy beach with a BBQ area down one end.
Location Location
Penguin 10 minutes away
Molle Creek 1 hour away
If you’re about to jump on the SOT to the mainland don’t forget to Berry before you ferry 🙂 it’s a short drive away.
NOTE: We had a message from Central Coast Council, Tasmania, stating that this camp is closed for site rehabilitation. Depending on the weather, it will reopen prior to summer 2023.
Sulphur Creek camp is located about 5 minutes from Penguin on the north west coast. It was also a short 20 minute drive from our last free camp at Cooee Point.
There’s defiantly no need to drive far in Tasmania to get to a great free camp. In fact we thought we had missed this camp at first as we had driven passed a camp virtually the same location. That one was actually called Hall Point Sulphur Creek and ours was Midway Point Sulphur Creek. Both share the same beach! Oh and Preservation Bay camp is less than 5 minutes away.
Sulphur
Creek Campground
Like the other two camps nearby, Sulphur Creek overlooks the ocean. It’s a large grassed area that many vans can park on. Large vans will fit to but it would be hard to turn around if it was full as it’s a dead end.
If you’re heading from west to east you can see from the road if there is room. Between the camp and the water is a train line. Only a couple of trains passed when we stayed and none at night so no worries there.
You’re At The Beach
At the end of the Sulphur Creek Campground is a lovely beach and some rocks that locals were fishing from. There are no amenities here so you do have to be self-contained. The nearest dump point is in Penguin or at Cooee point free camp which also has drinking water.
Cooee Point is a great place to camp by the ocean and is conveniently located just outside Burnie.
NOTE: 30th April 2026: This site will be for development in the coming months.
Cooee Point Camping
Any size rig will fit here and most people park parallel to the water so most get a sea view. It’s a windy location and quite cool with it but well worth stopping at.
View from the water
If you get here early and don’t get a spot over looking the water, park opposite for a while till someone leaves as they always do. On the flip side don’t arrive to late as it gets busy but most will still find a spot.
All Size Rigs
Water & Dump Point
Cooee Point Reserve has potable water so you can fill your tanks before you park up or before you leave. The nearest dump point is now at The Esplanade South Burnie.
Dump Point
Location Location Location
Cooee Point campground is in Cooee 😉 of so many of Tassie’s north west coastal towns. Stanley is only 1 hour away, Devonport is 40 minutes and Penguin is around 20 minutes away.
Cradle Mountain
You can even head inland to Cradle Mountain which is what we did. It’s around a 1.5 hours drive.
This is a 48 hour free camp for self-contained vehicles. A permit is required. If you have wickicamps you can easily follow the link to book it. I’ll add the link in the information below so you can see it.
Tall Timbers is a camp many people had recommended on our journey around Tassie. After our stop in Arthur River we decided to give it a go. Wow, we are so glad we did!
Camp With The Ducks
The
huge green grassed area is located next to a little river. A
beautiful little area with weeping willows and the friendliest ducks
who will follow you around.
Loads Of Room
The
actual camp has no facilities so you do have to be self-contained but
there is so much at your door (Not just the ducks) Any size rig will
fit here it was so large.
Beautiful Location
Tall Timbers
This
is not just a free camp but also a Bar, Bistro, bottle shop and
accommodation to name just a few. If you come and stay at the camp
you can stroll across to the bar for a drink and a game of pool or
lunch. Head to the Bistro for dinner or grab a take out for happy
hour at the bottle shop.
Bonus
For Campers
Tall Timbers allows you, at a small cost, to use the indoor pool, tennis courts, BBQ and washing machines which are only $2 (the cheapest we have ever seen for a wash)
So Many Bonus’s
Go
For A Drive
To be honest we didn’t do to much when we stayed at Tall Timbers. We liked it so much we spent most days at home by the water with the ducks. We did have a drive to Stanley for a drive and to the lookout. This look out over “The Nut” you will also find some convict ruins nearby. We also headed in to Smithton a couple of times for a gas bottle refill, food and to the dump point, which also has a water tap by the way.
Historic Convict Ruins
A couple Of Nuts
From Smithton you can also drive to Trowutta Arch which we did from our camp at Arthur River but Smithton is nearer.
Sink Hole
Trowutta Arch
Like all the other travellers who recommended Tall Timbers we do to! It might well be our best camp in Tassie yet.
Our stop at Arthur River was at the low cost Manuka Campground. This camp is close to The Arthur River cruises, The Edge of the World and Trowutta Arch to name but a few.
Manuka
Campground
Arthur River has a few campsites to choose from, Manuka is close to the rangers station and a small cafe. The camp is a lot bigger than you initially see with gravel roads taking you to smaller more cosier camps.
The
main campsite is large and will fit many rigs of all sizes. Sites are
numbered and you have plenty of room to put your awning out. You will
find a couple of water taps but it says you have to boil the water
first, toilets are located in this camp area.
Smaller
camping areas look great for camper trailers and tents. These areas
also have toilets and water and the odd firepit.
Toilets
Water
Arthur
River
The Rangers Station is a short walk from here. Which is where we headed to pay the $13 per night. The ranger is super friendly and helpful. Head here for all your local information. Peppermint Campground is another camp located right by the rangers station.
The
Cafe is opposite the Ranger Station. It’s tiny but has hot food to
take away and some essential groceries.
Arthur River Cruises are just down the road and although we didn’t end up doing it, other people have highly recommended them.
Have
A Drive
The
Edge Of The World
The
sea west of Tasmania has the longest uninterrupted span of sea on the
planet, next stop Argentina. It’s a cold windy place and is
probably best seen on its high tide with big winds so you get to see
it looking like the edge of the earth.
Logs that have floated down Arthur River have stopped here and are piled high, showing how fearce mother nature can be. On a side note, the dump point is also here.
Trowutta
Arch – Sinkhole
This is a lovely short 30 minutes return walk through the rain forest. As you walk through you might see huge fungi on the trees and along the meandering pathway. At the end are two sinkholes one filled with water the other not. The water filled one is the one you want to look at.
At the time we visited the water was topped with a bright green algae, which looks cool in it’s own right. There is also another sinkhole in the area which we didn’t stop at but believe you can see it from the road. This place is shorter to visit from Smithton, however its only a hour or so away from Arthur River.
Sumac
Lookout
This
is one of the many lookouts in the area. Sumac looks out over the
Arthur River in the distance.
Manuka
Campground at Arthur River is a good place to base yourself to
explore the north west coast of Tasmania.
We were in Brady’s lake Tasmania soaking up the sun with over 34C temperatures. This was in the start of February 2020. The following day we went to camp at the Derwent Bridge hotel, which was from memory about 32 odd km away. The temperatures got down to 1 degree at night and sleet during the day. BIG difference.
Never Fear The Diesel Heater Is Near
The first night it rained all day and got down to 2C. So we turned on the diesel heater and run it for several hours no problem. The second day as I say it was sleet and 1 degree at night so before getting out of bed that morning I asked SNIPS ( our offline voice assistant I made… post coming on this one day ) to turn the heater on. Again working great for several hours until Sue noticed diesel smoke starting to fill up the inside of our van.
A quick trip outside in the cold and I could see smoke was pouring out of the exhaust. So no heater for the rest of the day/night. On the upside this then lead us to being Ummmm, forced to stand around the fire at the pub all night and drink beer 🙂 ( oh the sacrifices we have to do )
What was wrong ?
This also happened to us a couple of years ago but that was due to bad diesel that had been sitting in the tank un-used for over a year. So first step was to drain and put fresh fuel in just in case we got a dose of rain that day in the fuel. Unfortunately that didn’t help. However working through the system I did find many faults.
Fuel filter had a orange coating on the strainer (A by product of the old diesel) which was restricting the fuel flow. Cleaned it out and re assembled it. The plastic fuel filter housing was brittle so when re assembling it the top cracked. *sigh* so went and bought a new filter near our camp in Queenstown.
2. Inlet and outlet pipes of the fuel pump restricted. Poked a drill down the pipes to break away the orange coating that was restricting the flow. Blew it out and all’s good now as far as fuel flow goes.
3. Sadly still had a large volume of smoke from the exhaust and very little heat.
4. Removed the muffler and a heap of carbon fell out. *Yayy* discovered the main problem. A blocked exhaust which was restricting the exhaust gases causing breathing issues and a back pressure in the heater and therefore smoke to find another exit …. into our van.
5. Filled the muffler up with a few decent sprays of brake cleaner and set it a light. This burnt off all the junk causing the blockage and allowed the muffler to do its job again.
6. The exhaust pipe from the heater body to muffler however was also filled with carbon. So that meant one thing to me… the heater chamber will also be blocked. Again, time for another deep sigh.
7. Removed the heater from the van and stripped it down until I got access to where all the action is. It was filled with a heap of carbon so next job was to clean that out.
Heater Dismantling
Burner housing
combustion Chamber
The diesel heaters themselves are actually not that hard to pull apart once out of the van. You slip the fan off, unscrew the electronic module then undo a few allen keys to remove the burner and TA DA, it’s all apart. I cleaned it manually IE: without assistance from aerosols etc. It was messy but preferred to do it that way so there wasn’t any fumes that would go boom once back in the van.
Dirty burner tube
Zoom in to see why exhaust port was blocked
Overall removing the heater, dismantling and re assembling took about 3 hours and we now have a good working heater which we haven’t had to use since, *rolls eyes*. An added bonus now though is, the heat doesn’t have to try and penetrate through layers of carbon so the heater is nice and hot again now 🙂
Thoughts
Our Unit is a Chinese brand and works well when it’s going. The manual state’s checking connections and similar but nothing about periodic internal maintenance. I’ve read some of the German brands etc do. About every 500 hours I think from memory ?. I can see there’s contributing factors to ours blocking up
I haven’t serviced it in over 2 years
We had a stage of dirty fuel a while ago which took a lot of clearing out of the system.
Minor on/off usage for the first 1.5 years
We haven’t previously run it on high for 10 minutes before turning it off. We might do that from now on to help burn excess carbon.
Some people have been known to run the heater on kero once and a while to help clean out the system. Kero runs hotter and cleaner than diesel which will also help.
If available, I’m going to buy a spare 12v glow plug ( they call it a ignitor in the manual) for my own stock as I can see one day that is probably the first thing to actually fail mechanically/electrically on the diesel heater we have. Doubt they are very expensive so probably handy to have on board as a spare. The above photo shows the glow plug if you zoom in to the middle of the picture. There’s only a small hole that exposes the glow plug to the burner tube. We got our 2kw diesel heater from Pinnacle Wholesalers.
Running a 80/20 mix of diesel and kero sounds like a good plan that we might look into in the future. One of our FB followers also mentioned they use this Decarboniser product.
Caravan RV Camping have a variety of heaters to choose from. Use our exclusive code and Save $30 when you spend over $500. Use the code “FULLTIME“ at the checkout to receive your discount!
Queenstown Football Ground is located in the heart of Queenstown so you can walk in to town or & to the famous the steam train railway.
Camping At Queenstown Football Ground
The camping area is around the football oval and can fit many vans of all sizes. Don’t worry if you keep driving to the end you can still turn around.
We noticed a long motorhome parked up at the end, so have a look around and see where is best for you.
We parked at the start on gravel near the donation box but there is a grass area with a little bridge going to the road and in to town. and conveniently to the dump point.
TIP: The grass area gets the most sun, if you’re thinking about solar. The camp has bins around the oval but no toilets or shower so you do have to be self-contained in that aspect.
Dump Point
Conveniently the dump point at Queenstown is over the small bridge. You can also drive around to the road if you prefer.
Queenstown
A short walk from Queenstown Football Ground are shops, cafes and pubs. One pub in particular, the Empire Hotel, built in 1901 with a National Trust Listed Staircase. You will also find The West Coast Wilderness Railway here. A steam train journey you can do for a half or full day.
Queenstown Steam Train
We did the half day train trip, unfortunately we thought we would see more views, so were a little disappointed. The full day tour you see more apparently. You stop at a few stops for things like gold panning, walking and whisky tasting. This is definitely for the train enthusiast. You can also see the train turned around by hand at the station while having coffee at the cafe.
Have A Drive
We left the van at Queenstown Football Ground and drove to Zeehan and Strahan as we were not to sure on the roads going to these areas, or if it was worth towing the van to either. A near by drive will take you to the Horsetail falls where you get to walk along a board walk along the edge of a cliff and Iron Blow Lookout. Also there is Nelson falls 30km before Queenstown which is a nice easy waterfall walk worth doing.
Horsetail Falls
Nelson Falls
Iron Blow Lookout
Zeehan
This is a small town with not to much going on. If you like golf and out of the way places you might like it. They do have an old railway tunnel which has glow worms. Obviously looking in the day time we didn’t see any but the old tunnel was nice and you can go for a walk around. Diesel was also cheap which was great 😀
Strahan
The river front has some old pretty buildings along the water and a lovely cafe called View 42o which overlooks the water and town. You can get the Gordon River Cruise from here which we have been told is worth the trip.
You will also find a lovely easy walk to Hogarth Falls which is well worth having a look at.
Hogarth Falls
Water Hill Tower Lookout
You can see this lookout from the Football Ground. It’s a bit of a walk to get up there once you have parked but you can see the whole town and surrounds once there.
Queenstown Football Ground is a great place to base yourself to see lots of the west coast of Tasmania and for a low cost. Remember to leave a donation
Are you planning a trip around Tasmania ? Wondering what the road conditions in Tasmania are like ? Have heard stories the west has heaps of hills ? well lets touch on a few of those and more subjects below.
Before vanning around Tassie we were told by several people things like ” the roads are steep and windy”, “our mirrors almost touch passing cars”. We even had one guy that said he tried navigating a hill in Tassie where his wheels were spinning the whole way so had to back down the hill with the van on.
It’s comments like these that can make you nervous if you take it as gospel. But it’s effectively just individual peoples interpretation of road conditions and we all have different outlook on these matters.
Post overview
I’m here to add to the gossip and tell you from my view how we ended up finding the road conditions in Tasmania. The below will be in reference to towing a 3 tonne caravan of a decent length with a common 4wd. When I say “road conditions”, for the purpose of this post I’m more focusing on the navigating the steeper hills rather than the actual roads physical condition.
To help clear up what hills I’m going to refer to, I’m talking about the ones that either :
Make you butt cheeks clench when going up or downhill
or the ones I like to call the brake burners.
GPS Navigation
We are currently doing a three month journey around Tasmania and so far covered a fair amount of the common and sometimes not so common roads. In the first week of travelling Tassie you will think your GPS unit is broken. This is normal. Compared to the mainland where you travel 300km before seeing another town, in Tassie there’s a town almost 30 -40km apart from each other.
When you enter the details into your GPS however, sometimes she will tell you that 40km will take you 1.5 hours. After being tempted to throw it out the window because you think it’s broken you’ll soon come to realise…. She was right.
The Main motorways are great, frequently two lanes, wide and caravan friendly. Along the coastal regions however they are often narrow with lots of corners and your everyday rolling hills that generally don’t fall into either of the above two catagories. This slows you down considerably so instead of sitting on 100km you’ll often find yourself sitting on 70km with plenty of 25 – 65 km corners. This of course accounts for the GPS time frame’s. Which is fine as there’s no need to rush.
General Road condition
Tasmainian drivers we found are soooo much more patient than mainland drivers. Possibly because alot of Tasmanians also own caravans themselves. So they understand that towing a 3 tonne caravan around windy roads is never going to be a speedy option. That and the fact the destination for most is only a short one anyway, so perhaps no one is in a big rush.
Tassie is made up of A, B and C class roads like the A10 ( main road through the west. or C132 back road to cradle mountain. Unfortunately from a Caravanners point of view ,all because you’re on a main road like the A10 doesn’t mean it’s wide, flat and user friendly. The A10 for example can change from wide and smooth to something you’d expect in a back street of the country. But for all of that still highly drive-able. Just don’t think because you’re on a “A” road that you can set cruise control and go make a coffee 🙂
Oh and while on the subject of road conditions…….., Dear grader driver on the A2 towards Arthurs river. You had one job….. enough said 🙂
The Mountain Hills
Anyway lets get onto what I wanted to talk about. The mountain hills. The guy that said he had wheels spinning up the hills has me scratching my head. I’m not sure what road he was on, what planet he was on or what he was drinking, but let’s first touch on the roads we recommend NOT taking your van up.
Jacobs ladder ( East coast ) – it’s steep, windy, dirt road and simply isn’t a road you need to take a 3 tonne caravan up so just don’t.
2. Mount Wellington. (In Hobart) – tourist Buses travel up and down here but strongly recommend NOT taking your caravan up here. It’s over 1000m high, tight twisty and constant climb up with no real purpose for having a van at the top other than annoying road users and increasing brake sales to the mechanic at the bottom of the hill 🙂
3. Elephants pass – (East coast below St Mary’s) – Although we didn’t travel it because we were pre warned. Reports we have heard is this is not a road for caravans. Advise taking the coastal road instead.
Ok with that out of the way….. I hear you asking which ones are the butt clenchers ? and which ones are the brake burners ?
The Steep and windy
The ass clencher
For me was the road on the East coast between Derby and Pyengana. Now it’s highly manage-able with a caravan on the back don’t get me wrong. However it is probably the worst hill we went up and down because all at the same time it has … Steepness, sharp corners that almost back onto themselves, very narrow and goes for 6 or so km’s each way ?.
And to top that off there is a dairy farm in Pyengana so milk tankers often go up and down here. For us, we met one on probably the worst corner possible as we were heading downhill. It’s a busy hill so there are frequent vehicles going up and down.
If you’re like me, I don’t like being ” that guy” that holds up traffic. However, in this case the secret is to put that thought to the side. There are some but not many pull over spots and so just take it slow, use your gears ( for us 2nd gear and 40km/h is the sweet sounding spot of our motor when descending) and you’ll be fine.
Most of all watch out for trucks around those tight bends.
Road into Queenstown, didn’t have time to take one of Derby to Pyengana hill
The Brake Burners
The brake burners – These are the hills I refer to as the brake burners. Because if you don’t take it slow and don’t use your gears you’ll have smoking brakes at the end of them. These are the hills that are steep, windy and a long decent, usually in excess of 2km long ( often 6km long). You know the ones… when 3rd gear doesn’t slow you down so you just keep riding the brakes ?.
The two main hills between Hobart and Huon valley. Not hard ones to do it’s just constantly long so don’t rush it. (PS: Hobart itself is a hilly area outside the CBD)
After Hamilton you come to “ouse”. Between ouse and Brady’s lake ( near Derwent Bridge) – There is a steep and windy mountain climb then just after the first power station ( near Terraleah area ) there’s a steep and windy downhill descent and same type but a climb back up again on the other side. Again don’t panic just use your gears.
From Derwent Bridge to Queenstown there is at least 3 decent brake burners if you don’t take it easy. Mostly windy and steep but highly do-able.
Strahan to Queenstown is not really a brake burner although there are a couple of patches. However its 30km of windy roads so just drive to conditions. TIP: from Zeehan to Strahan is a good easy road in.
The B51 from great lake area to Poatina. Steep, windy and long and ummm long 🙂
The road from Cethana across to Miena near cradle mountain
Between Mole Creek and Shiefield
Few of the central roads like Gentle Annie hill ( on the way to cradle mountain from Ulverstone direction) and the A10 to Hellyer gorge, not super brake burners but windy so suggest to be done slower than normal.
Overall thoughts
Overall yes there are some steep hills to navigate. But honestly it’s really just a case of driving to the road conditions. As per above there are those main ones to keep in mind and a handful of other ones like around the great lake, etc but burning tyres going up hill ?. Not unless you’re a clown.. and/or in the ice I guess 🙂
Note: I didn’t really talk about going up the steep hills as that’s just a case of 2nd gear on the steep ones and don’t rush.
For a large part of coastal tTassie roads (especially the East side) they are just narrow in places and windy, nothing to worry about as it’s beautiful scenery and if you go to fast you’ll miss it, and the corner 🙂
Our little secret … shhhh
Ok so I also wanted to mention an advantage we have when travelling around. And it’s not a secret I just wanted you to keep reading :). We have the WiTi wireless trailer interface. You may of heard of it or seen our post on it before ?.
WiTi is a wireless trailer plug, Caravan Alarm and anti theft System, GPS tracker, Electric brake controller and ……. has downhill descent braking mode.
I can confirm after putting this through it’s paces the downhill descent mode works a treat. Especially on some of these steeper road conditions we often come across.
Why is downhill descent needed if I have a brake controller ?
Glad you asked 🙂 … A normal brake controller works proportionally off inertia of the vehicle. When you brake to stop at the traffic lights for example, the inertia of the caravan trying to make its way into your back seat 🙂 causes the electric brakes to come on proportionally.
When going downhill you often just tap the brakes and no real inertia is achieved. Therefore no real assistance is provided causing the tow vehicle to do most the braking.
WiTi does it differently. It detects through electronics that you are heading downhill and applies brakes appropriately. That way the caravan assists with the braking rather than rely on just the tow vehicle.
This is a much safer way of going downhill. The caravan is less likely to try and push the tow vehicle down the hill. Worth getting in my opinion if you can afford to. NOTE: we are not affiliated with WiTi, i just believe in it as a product.
Enjoy your travels and stay safe out there
Larry
Did you find a hill not discussed here that’s worth mentioning ? let us know in the comments.
