Tasmania 2024

It's been great touring Tasmania but the time has finally come to set off for home. We packed up, loaded the car and headed for the car hire place. With a leisurely 12:20 pm departure time we had some time up our sleeve so, on the advice of the Motel lady, we made a detour to Richmond for a coffee. This is where they have an iconic stone bridge which helped open up the farmland around Hobart. Once again, this was built by convict labour. We returned the car and I calculated we had driven just on 2,000 km in the last couple of weeks. Being a hybrid, it really was fuel efficient. My rough calculation showed us getting around 4.8l/100 km. Our Forester shows a cumulative figure (after 90,000 km) of 7.8l/100km. Once at the airport we had to do the annoying security checks twice! The first time was getting though the domestic security. Miriam had to take her shoes off and me, my belt. Then my bag had to go through the scanning machine three times because they could see some scissors in t...

The morning dawned overcast but fairly warm so a good day for sightseeing. We headed for Bonorong through morning rush hour traffic but got there by 9:45am. This is a not a zoo but more a recovery facility for animals rescued or orphaned by car or other incidents. Many of the joeys of the wombats and wallabies have been rescued from the pouches of mums killed by a car. The entry fee includes a 30 minute guided tour with the guide giving us plenty of information about the animals. Some are in the pens but most were not visible because they hadn't actually woken up for the day. We did get a good look at some Tasmanian Devils and Wombats plus a glimpse of an Spotted Quoll. More of a family thing but we did enjoy it. Except, that is, for the tasteless and inedible Chocolate and Raspberry muffin. It was probably gluten free which explains everything! Next stop was the Cascade Brewery. We decided to skip the brewery tour and instead had a nice lunch in their café washed down with a tasti...

Today we explored Bruny Island. With a return crossing on the Sealink ferry paid for on-line, all we had to do was drive 40 minutes to Kettering and get in the queue. The ferry runs about every 20-30 minutes and you just drive on one end and then off at the other end 15 minutes later! Too easy. First stop was the Truganini Lookout at The Neck. This a Short Tailed Shearwater and Fairy Penguin (aka our Little Blue Penguin) rookery area. The sand hills are covered in shearwater burrows but all the birds were out at sea fishing. A pity we aren't at these places at dusk to see them coming home. The Neck is a very narrow spit of land connecting the northern and southern parts of Bruny Island. We then took a detour left (in the photo above) to Adventure Bay where we had a coffee and visited the Bligh Museum. This is a very quaint brick building with lots of information about Bligh and other early explorers of the area (including James Cook and Joseph Banks). There is a walk out to Fluted ...

With the glad rags duly ironed and feeling a bit tiddly after our bottle of bubbly, we headed off to to Aloft via Uber. While they might pay their drivers a pittance, the service from Uber is quite amazing (at least in big cities). As long as you have an internet connection that is! Since we are traveling around Tasmania with our phones in Flight Mode, this could be an issue. Luckily, everywhere we go we have had good Wi-Fi in our accommodation plus the Tasmanian Government has free Wi-Fi available at almost any public place. The meal at Aloft was everything we wanted it to be. Plus we sat looking into the kitchen so our chef (Max) could talk us through each dish as he presented it to us. The menu was as follows: First up was an oyster, some Wallaby tartare on a nasturtium leaf and a lamb rib accompanied by an off-dry Riesling. I wasn't taken by the Wallaby - I have seen too many road kills of these guys to get excited about eating one. Because it was our special occasion, they als...

No driving today so we slept in a little and had bacon and scrambled eggs in our motel unit. The Salamanca Market is a huge street market which runs every Saturday from 8am till early afternoon. We walked the 10 minutes or so there and tried to peruse every stall. It is like the Martinborough Fair on steroids. The former is only on two days a year but the Salamanca Market is every Saturday! Quite an amazing thing to see. We sampled various wares and got tempted by some Nougat, a small bottle of Hellfire Salted Caramel Coffee Liqueur (for taking home) and lots of lovely food. Starting with a Persian Ricotta & Feta puff pastry pie we then had a skewer with about 10 scallops interspersed with sweet potato - delicious. We then walked back through the Battery Point area admiring some of the wonderful old houses. Tonight we dine in style at Aloft (as previously mentioned). Currently, we are relaxing in our Motel unit enjoying the bottle of bubbly we bought a few days ago from Moores Hill...

We are getting close to the end of the trip so we headed back to Hobart today. This was the longest driving day with just over 300km to travel. Around 4 1/2 hours. First stop was Molly's for a bacon and egg sandwich for breakfast and then onto the hilly road to Queenstown. They have an amazing steam-engine railway here and also at Strahan but they are currently not connected. The steepest bit req uires a rack-and-pinion climb/descent so you can only travel from either end a certain distance and then back again. The engine was gathering steam so we took a photo and, after buying some bread for lunch, pushed on. The road climbs steeply out of Queenstown and the views back and also over the old open cast mine workings are spectacular. They mined copper and gold amongst other minerals around here so it was very important for the Tasmanian economy. The area has an incredible set of Mountain Biking trails now. Check out the track down the steep ridge on the left of the following photo. I...

Another beautiful day so just the right conditions for our Gordon River Cruise on board the Spirit of the Wild. Like our Toyota hire car, this vessel is a hybrid. It runs on diesel engines when out in the open water and silently cruises on electric motors in the Gordon River itself. We boarded at 8:30m and headed off into Macquarie Harbour. Apparently this is the second largest harbour in Australia (after Port Phillip Bay - sorry Sydney yours is a tiddler in comparison). First highlight was exiting the harbour at the Hells Gates entrance at Macquarie Heads. This is a very narrow gap and not to be taken lightly. Just a narrow 120 m wide shallow channel. We had very calm conditions but it would be very challenging in a storm. We then headed off for the Gordon River mouth past many fish farms set-up in the middle of the harbour. The conditions are right for this activity with fresh Gordon River water on top of sea water. They breed Salmon and Ocean Trout. The Ocean Trout is what we call K...

Another cool morning here at Cradle Mountain but the sky is clear again so we had a quick breakfast, packed the car and headed back to the Visitor Centre. The trip up the road was crowded (being the first bus away) but we were only going to the first stop about 2km up the road. We spent just over an hour walking a couple of the short walks near the Peppers resort. The light and temperature was perfect for walk in the bush walks and the waterfalls impressive. We didn't see any Platypuses but the stream looked perfect for them. The photo below is Pencil Pine Falls. Can you spot the Wallaby in the next photo? Once back at the Visitor Centre, we popped in to their café for a coffee and ham and cheese Croissant for second breakfast. Then hit the road heading for Strahan. Along the way we diverted to the Tullabardine Dam on Lake Mackintosh. This is a hydro lake with camping and boating options. We drove to one of the campsites and talked to a family who were there to celebrate their son...

When we arrived here yesterday the weather was bleak to say the least. The temperature was probably around 3C but the wind chill made it feel like 10 below. This morning the temperature outside was -1C at 7 am but the weather was fine and clear. The forecast was for a high of around 15C so we seem to have picked the right day for a long walk. We boiled some eggs for egg mayo and packed the ham and bread from yesterday's shop and loaded up our bags with warm tops and rain coats (just in case). We only had Miriam's small backpack which can hold her raincoat and a bottle of water. I chose the colourful Woolworths reusable shopping bag for the lunch and my other clothes. Very stylish but Miriam thought I looked like Roy Cropper! They no longer allow cars (except by special permit) into the park proper and run about 8 shuttle buses along the very narrow 20 minute drive from the Visitor Centre to Lake Dove from 9am till 5:30pm. We took the bus to the top and walked the circuit of Lak...

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs in our room (rather than paying $25.00 each for a fancy continental breakfast from our host) we loaded up the car again and headed west along the coast. There are some lovely beaches in this part of the island but the wind made it too cold to even think about a swim! We detoured off the main road and descended to Boat Harbour Beach. It has a beautiful white beach so we wandered around a bit and took some photos. After a coffee in the Surf Club Café we carried on towards Stanley. Stanley is on a small peninsula culminating in what is called 'The Nut'. This is an ancient lava lake solidified into a Basalt plug with the surrounding volcano eroded away. It is a large flat rocky headland about 170 m tall and 2km around the perimeter. While there is a chairlift to take you to the top, this was not running due to high winds. The alternative is a three stage zig-zag path which is quite a steep climb of about 80m over a 430 m of path. I chose to do th...