|
IF you can get clear weather, there are plenty of dark places and quite a few really dark places less than an hour from a major centre. Bruny Island is a great place in general and dark sites plentiful with little driving.A couple of really dark places:- the Crotty road off the Lyell highway should be very dark but is just about the furthest placer from civilization you will find. The west coast should get you heaps of dark places without huge amounts of driving. You will need to be staying at Stachan , Queenstown or Zeehan or it will be a very long drive. I dare say there are some retreats on the road to Cradle Mountain that may not be very dark, but would be comfortable.If you do not mind the odd passing car lights, the road from Cradle Mountain to the west coast is in some wild country. East coast between villages will have satisfactorily dark skies, once again with the odd passing car. If you do not mind a bit of a walk and some camping, Freycinet national park will be dark. The hut at Lake Dobson at Mount Field national Park although a long dirt road will give you a dark sky at respectable altitude without driving a long way(have not been there for 30 years)
Last but not least, if you do not mind the ghosts ,Port Arthur could be an easy access but a bit of light pollution spot. I guess it now boils down to what other things you want to do and if you do not mind sleeping in a tent. Just thought of another couple of spots.The Great Lakes region and the road up to Walls of Jerusalem National Park. When I was there, I had not discovered astronomy yet and we were usually tired after a day's walking, so tended to crash out. Modern cameras with their high ISO ratings could get some interesting full sky with interesting landscapes with a bit of lunar light shots. Pity I am probably too old to get back in to the walking in the deep Tassie wilderness like in my younger days.The good old days with film(Kodachrome 25 professional, tech pan) cameras, a bag of lenses and a tripod. Once took a 6 x 9 camera to the Mount Anne region for some panorama shots in Tech pan off the beaten track. Unfortunately, someone in the camera club did not wash the spiral properly and the negatives were ruined. Luckily no one else was around to hear the obscenities-not happy Jan.
Last trip to Tassie 5 years ago we stayed in a place on Bruny Island facing south, hoping to score an aurora. Good view of the Milky way though. In the evenings, we went on slow wildlife drives spotting the numerous animals.
Jealous.
|