Tasmanian Trip

I've been too busy to blog about my Tassie trip from 5 - 11 October with Johanna, Moses and Charis.

It was great apart from a few days of bad weather.

Just a quick summary...

We landed at Hobart and travelled to a wildlife park in Tasman Peninsular to visit the Tasmanian Devil, a strange kind of marsupial only found in that region.

There were also some kangaroos there, and the surprising thing is there were not separated from the visitors, meaning we could get really close to them.



The wildlife park also housed other Australian animals and birds, such as possums, a huge eagle, parrots and kookaburra.

The second day we went around Hobart, first to the Cadbury chocolate factory then to the top of Mount Wellington to get a good view of the whole city. Unfortunately, it started snowing on our way up. By the time we got to the summit, the whole place was so foggy that we couldn't see anything.



Our next stop was Cascade Brewery, one of the oldest breweries in Tasmania. Of course, the session wouldn't be complete without tasting the products.



We spent the rest of the evening touring Salamanca Place in Hobart - a historic area with art markets, cafes, restaurants.

The next day we started driving to the West part of Tasmania. The roads were quite windy. On the way we could see some snow-capped mountains. However, it started pouring when we arrived at Strahan. There was nothing much to see there - quite a disappointment after a long drive.

On the 4th day we drove to Cradle Mountain. It is supposed to be one of the most scenic places in Tasmania, with lakes and snow-capped mountains in the background. However, the weather was really bad. Once again the fog prevented us from getting a good view. Disappointed, we left for Devonport after that. Deprived of Asian food for the first 3 days, all of us were happy to ate at a Chinese restaurant that evening. After dinner, we went to a small beach to look at penguins coming ashore.



The next day, we visited another chocolate factory - this time a small one called House of Anvers. Then we drove to Beauty Point to visit the Seahorse World and Platypus House. Seahorse World is a place dedicated to seahorse preservation and conservation. They also housed some other sea creatures. The memorable part for me is getting clamped by a big hermit crab, ouch! On top of platypus, the Platypus House also has Echidnas, a porcupine look-a-like animal.

We drove to Bridport after lunch. Bridport is a very small town with a nice beach.



The next day, we drove to Launceston, the second largest city in Tasmania after Hobart. Launceston is a beautiful town with a lot of heritage buildings. We visited the popular Cataract Gorge and took a cruise along the Tamar River. That sort of rounded up the trip as we flew back to Melbourne the next morning.





More photos at my Flickr