We started in Hobart and were there for 2 days. Our first day there we just walked around and got acquainted with the city and instantly fell in love with it. It reminded us both of Kingston. It was right on the water, with a downtown market, cool little shops and restaurants and lots to see and do. Our next day we took a shuttle bus through our hostel (The Pickled Frog...and it was painted bright green!) up Mt Wellington. It looked like a beautiful day to start out, but the weather quickly turned on us! For those of you who were jealous that we were missing winter and snow, we weren't. It was snowing by the time we got to the top of Mt Wellington and it was freezing! The worst part was that you couldn't see a thing because of all the clouds. By the time we made it back down the mountain it was just raining - cold rain, but no snow. We walked to the local Brewery, the Cascade Brewery for a tour and a tasting that afternoon. It was a pretty cool brewery - a beautiful old building that they converted into the brewery, and the beer was pretty tasty too!
The next day we picked up our new home for the rest of our trip. We had rented a camper van from Tassie Motor Shacks. It was small, but it was very convenient to have your house and your car with you all the time (it made napping in the day very easy:). We started our drive to the south east to a town called Port Arthur. Well, we thought it was a town until we got there. It is a former penitentiary/town that they have turned into a historic tourist attraction. This is where they shipped most of the worst convicts because of how secluded the community was. The grounds were surprisingly beautiful and they have upkept some of the cottages and buildings for tourism purposes. It was a neat place but definitely not what we were expecting.
The next day we made our way back into Hobart for the morning because every Saturday morning there is a huge market in Salamanca Square. It was highly recommended to us so we thought we would check it out. I am really glad we did because there was a booth there for the Tannery in Australia and I was able to buy a sheep skin rug. I grew up with a rug exactly like it on the back of the rocking chair in my living room and I have always wanted one of my own. Success!
(Our actual van - worse outside, better inside)
The next day we did a bit of a bigger hike through more of the national park. It took us by Wineglass Bay again, through to Hazards Bay and then we looped around to the beginning again. We got to see lots of wallabies and different kinds of birds. The only unfortunate part, in true Dave and Steph style, was it rain, windy and cool for most of the hike. It did clear up and warm up a bit later that day while we checked out some of the other sites around the area. We found ourselves in a little town called Bicheno by the afternoon and stumbled upon "the blowhole". We didn't think much of it at first, but we ended up spending about 3 hours there just watching the water. The waves in the area are huge and when they hit the shore at this one particular place their is a gap in the rock that creates a blowhole effect causing huge bursts of water up into the air. It was a really cool spot actually. Once we were all blowholed-out we made our way to the Bicheno penguin tours. It leaves after dark and takes you to a nearby penguin rookery where you can watch the fairy penguins (the smallest known species of penguin) return back to shore with food for their babies. They are so cute and tiny! And there were so many of them....hundreds of penguins all coming back to their homes for a quick sleep before the next days journey.
Unfortunately, we didn't end our night on a high note that night. We had to drive about 20 minutes back to our campsite for the night after the penguin tour...and they tell you not to drive between dusk and dawn on major roads...and now we know why...we killed a wallaby!!! Neither Dave nor I have ever hit any animal with a car before, and apparently we decided to go big with our first road kill. Honestly, neither of us saw this thing coming!! We could see a bunch of wallabies and possums on the side of the road so we slowed down and we were keeping our eyes open, but then this flash of something came out from the left side and before we knew it, BANG! The only good thing was that it didn't cause any damage to our rental car because we hit it right on the license plate. But the poor wallaby....We made a promise to ourselves that we would never drive from dusk to dawn again, and that is a promise I intend to keep!
After the trauma of the wallaby we decided to take it easy the next day. We did some driving up the east coast and stopped along the way at some different lookouts. The best was probably the "Bay of FIres", which is a large bay along the east coast where algae has stained a lot of the rocks along the shore with a red/orange colour. It wasn't as exciting as I had hoped t would be, but it was neat to see the red on the rocks. But too cold to swim in the water and really enjoy the many beaches along the bay.
The next day was a much lazier and tastier day! We started it off with a trip to a lavender farm. It was beautiful to see row after row after row of lavender almost ready to be farmed. And the smell was amazing! From there we stumbled upon a dairy farm that had non-homogenized milk and cheese tasting. YUM! Of course we had to do the cheese tasting, and man was it delicious. They even have the gold medal winning cheddar cheese in all of Australia 2 years running. We bought a block and enjoyed it for the rest of our trip and we also got some milk for Dave! We continued from there and did a little wine tasting. We hit about 5 different wineries and got to sample tons of different wine. The main types of the region are sparkling, pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot gris. We found out that Dave really likes chardonnay wines! And I just love them all :)
At the caravan park we stayed at that night we met a few different couples and exchanged ideas of what to do and see while in Tassie. We had just finished the east coast and they had just come from the west coast so it was nice to hear what was in store for us. One of the things that they said was a highlight of their trip was the Beaconsfield Mining Museum, so made sure to start our next day with a trip to Beaconsfield. The town has been a mining town for hundreds of years until recently. On April 25, 2006 there was an earthquake that caused the mine to collapse. At the time, there were 17 people working the mine. 14 made it out unharmed, one was killed by the collapse and two remained trapped almost a kilometer under the surface. The were found alive 3 days after the collapse and through an amazing rescue attempt they were freed on May 9, 2006. It was wild to see video footage, newspaper articles, stories and actually memorabilia about the collapse. They even recreated the cage that they 2 men were trapped in so you could see how tiny it was and imagine how cramped they would have been for the days they were down there. It truly was a miracle that they were able to get them out of the mine alive!
From Beaconsfield we made our way over to Cradle mountain National Park. This is definitely one of the main outdoor attractions in all of Tasmania, with tons of hikes and outdoor adventure activities. We did a few short walks when we got there but saved the big hike for the next day. The Cradle Mountain Caravan Park had one of the nicest camp kitchens we have ever seen. All brick and wood with wood burning fireplaces...a great place to spend a cold, rainy and even snowy night! And, unfortunately, in true Steph and Dave style, it continued to rain all the next day on our hike. The worst part of that was we couldn't even see Cradle mountain, which is supposed to be a beautiful site, especially when it reflects onto the lake at the base of it. We have seen some beautiful pictures of it since, but sadly, not in person!
We figured we better warm ourselves up the next day with a trip to the Nant Whiskey Distillery nearby. It is a cute little place in the middle of a bunch of fields that actually distills its own single malt whiskey right on site. It is a fairly new distillery, I think it only started production in 2005, but it has started to be recognized internationally recently and even won a gold at a recent Whiskey competition in China. Neither Dave or I knew much about Whiskey and how it was made (sorry to disappoint you Dader) so it was really neat to walk around the distillery and get a tour after our tasting. It was really interesting doing a whiskey tasting also - they give you portions almost the same as wine and they expect you to drink it pretty quickly also. Needless to say I was a little tipsy by the end of it. It was cool how different whiskey could taste based on the cask it was in - bourbon, port, sherry, etc.
I know this is getting long, but bare with me, I'm almost done! From the Nant Distillery we went to Mount Fields National Park and did another hike there. We spent the night there as well because they have glow worms! It is one of the only areas in the world where glow worms live outside of a cave. So, we got all bundled up late that night and went for a walk in the forest and saw some glow worms. It was pretty neat. The next day we drove down to the south west of Tasmania. We didn't spend too much time there because we had to return the camper van the next day We picked one tourist attraction to go visit...terrible choice! It was the Tahune Airwalk and it was totally over rated and not that exciting. We spent a few more hours in Hobart and I had my first oysters ever, then we made our way to our last caravan park before we had to head home to Brisbane. We stayed at a place called 7 Mile Beach and it was actually a nice day so Dave finally got to go swimming in the ocean. The beach was also right beside the airport so you could walk down to the end of it and watch planes landing right over top of your head. That was pretty neat.
We returned our camper the next day and headed to the airport and back to Brisbane. But we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Tasmania!
Thanks for sticking it out and reading to the end :)
xoxo
Loving the blog and the posts. Tasmania sounds great but bed you will also love New Zealand....cannot wait to hear about it!
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