Hobart

After Bruny we felt the need for a place with hot showers and a laundry so we ended up in the Treasure Island van park north of Hobart.

What can I say about this place? Oh yeah, it had a lot of rabbits.

Seriously, the place is over run with the furry critters but it is fun watching then sort out their little hierarchies as they dodge around the ducks.

We did, of course, do the obligatory trip up Mt Wellington and were rewarded with a glorious day of blue skies and a great view out over Hobart.

Hobart city has a lovely feel to it and a heap of nice pubs too! We paid a visit to a couple of them the next day and on top of that we visited the Lark Distillery where I was treated to a whisky tasting.

Karen drove "home" after that.  :)

Tomorrow we head south to the Huon Valley.

Bruny Island 4

We decided to have a quiet day today. It may have been something to do with the beer consumed when chatting to Bob and Narelle last night, but I will deny that forever!

So we decided to take a look at North Bruny and see what happens up there.

First stop was the lookout on the Neck.

This is the view south and it shows the narrow strip of land. There is a Little Penguin colony here (we're not allowed to call them Fairy Penguins now - stupid political correctness) and you can see how slim it is.

There is a monument to Truganini who wasn't the last Tasmanian aboriginal (they some others somewhere apparently) and it seems she has a pretty traumatic life at first. Look it up - you will be horrified.

The view north - a little wider than the southern strip of land, but still narrow enough.

The water views - sigh

We continued on our loop of the north, bumping into some interesting people as we traveled. This pic is of Point Dennes and I was trying to get an arty photo again.

Thoughts?

On our way back home we stopped off at the Bruny Island Smoke House and after sampling we bought some delicately smoked salmon. A glass of wine at $12 a glass was enough to stop us from lingering too long!

We also called in on the Bruny Cheese Factor and enjoyed a cheese platter and a glass of the local chardonnay. Just magic!

Bruny Island 3

Today we decided to tour around the southern end of the island. This is pretty much as ar south as you can get and still stay in Australia.

We also supped a beer at the Bruny Hotel (Australia's southern most pub) after walking around the lighthouse and then the Labatierre peninsula.

Tired legs needed a little resuscitation.

And so, on to the pictures.

Are you getting the idea that Tassie, and Bruny in particular, is a paradise of beautiful places yet?

This is the lighthouse at the bottom of Cape Bruny. Built in 1838 by convicts. A sunny day, but it was WINDY. I lost count of the number of brown dogs trailing short lengths of chain that whipped past us!

On our walk we came across another echidna who was busily digging himself down and out of our sight.

Time for a rest!

The track took us onto a couple of beaches that were just perfect examples of the sort of thing that is all too common down here - perfect beach, perfect solitude, perfect peace.

Back at the car park we found some amazingly blue/purple berries, but it was just a chance for me to get a photo of Karen.  :)

We headed home, via the pub, to another pleasant evening chatting with Bob and Narelle.

Does life get any better than this?

Bruny Island 2

Our second day on Bruny - we did the tourist thing and booked ourselves on a "cruise" around to the south of the island. I say "cruise" because it was done on a very fast boat and it wasn't a gentle chug along - more of a whizz and the bang bang of the hull smashing the waves.

To give you an idea, they fed everyone a couple of anti-seasickness pills before we left and then gave everyone a sort of orange full body condom to protect us from the spray.

Didn't we look so cool in them?

The trip out took us around a host of fascinating places and sight. I won't bore you wit everything, but here are some of the images that hit home with us the most.

The headland - as you an see, it was a gorgeous day.

We saw a number of caves, but this one was especially beautiful.

Much of the sea cliffs were made of this sort of very hard stone that displayed this sort of fluted appearance.

A fun little cave - as the swell rose and fell it compressed the air in the cave and it either sucked in or blew out quite dramatically.

One of my arty photo attempts - the cave goes right through and there is a small rock on the far side.

Despite it being a nice day and still summer, once we rounded the point that took us into the Great Southern Ocean we just FROZE. This is KAren struggling to keep the condom closed so she can retain some body heat.

What is raucous, stinks like an open sewer used by a population of unwashed people with dysentery, but is fascinating at the same time?

Yep - a fur seal colony. Take a look at the pics and if you want more then just let me know because I have dozens!

This was one playful seal who liked jumping out of the water!

Reminds me of a magistrate I once faced!

Any bird watchers out there? Well we also came across some millions (and I do not exaggerate) of mutton birds (short tailed shearwaters) out there.

After that sort of day we needed to take a walk to both warm up and to work out the kinks that sitting in a bouncing boat for three hours in the freezing cold can give you.

This was the view from the end of the walk - yes, another stunning Tassie water view.

We also came across this wallaby suckling a near full grown young 'un.

We returned home to light another fire and sit round it with some new friends, Bob and Narelle, after dinner to tell stories and chat.

Bruny Island 1

The ferry across to Bruny was nice and easy and reasonably cheap at $63 return for both the Patrol and the HTC. Everyone was unhurried but efficient and we set tyre on the island just 15 minutes later.

Bruny is two distinct islands connected by "The Neck" which is a narrow spit of land with a road on top of it and we decided to set up camp at a Game Reserve just on the southern end of the Neck.

We made our way down through the north island, admiring the views (tall trees and water everywhere) and found ourselves a nice spot in this reserve.

Here are a couple of views of our camp spot - sheltered and very pleasant.

We had a beach within seconds of the camp spot too, and as you can see, it was not terribly crowded.  Yep, another beautiful Tassie beach.

Karen risked losing her toes to frostbite by going for a paddle!  OK, the water temperature is apparently around 17 degrees at the moment so it isn't TOO bad.

Once we'd set up and had our walk up and down the beach we lit a camp fire and settled into dinner.

A fun day indeed.

Bruny Island

Our trip down the East coast of Tassie has been a revelation - all those gorgeous, stunning, beautiful little bays with turquoise water, white sand and that endearing crescent shape with the morning sun glistening on the water have been enough to make anyone want to stay here.  Seriously.

I mean, we are used to not being able to go into the water. Back in Darwin it was because of the crocs and stingers while here it is because of the freezing cold water, but at least here you could don a wet suit.

Hmmm - Karen and me in wet suits. That would be a sight to see!

The point of that little love poem to the beauties of Tassie is that Bruny Island is all of that and more. A truly wonderful place.

Still, before we got there we had to leave the joys of Freycinet and trundle down the highway to the ferry at Kettering. We aimed south and chugged along. We stopped in Triabunna where we had mixed fortunes. The local butcher seemed very friendly and amazingly cheap. Sadly, the porterhouse steaks he sold us were tough and hard to swallow. Rather like the posters he had on the walls celebrating the last flag that Hawthorn won against the Cats in 2008. A friendly place though and they made us feel wanted. For anyone travelling that way I am told that you can camp out n the paddock behind the pub (the Spring Bay Hotel) and use the pub's toilets for free. They would expect you to buy a beer of course, but that's no hardship.

We stocked up at the local IGA (very nice people who sold us a sack of firewood for $6) and then had a coffee at the place across the road. Zero points for coffee quality, decor, cakes and atmosphere, but they got a few back for having cheap secondhand books on sale.

Leaving Triabunna, we continued on. We decided not the stress ourselves and we stopped for the night at Sorell, just twenty odd klms out of Hobart.

We left Sorell with few regrets. The overnight stop provided by the council was welcome, but it lacked charm although the diamond little RSL club close by made up for that in spades. A great little club with typical country town RSL prices, home grown veggies up for sale (tasty!) at a cheap price and a set of very friendly people. We didn't take advantage of it, but they also had both Coles and Woolies supermarkets so it would make a good restocking stop.

Freycinet 2

Well, as we were her on the Freycinet peninsula we thought we'd better check out the key drawcard, Wineglass Bay.

The plan was to walk up to the lookout and then walk down to the beach before returning the same way.

Well here are the pics of the bay from the lookout and, despite it being an overcast day, it is a beautiful sight.

This one shows Karen resting (we were both stuffed) at the lookout itself. As you can see, we weren't alone.

Where are the pics from the beach? Well, the trek UP to the lookout involved some eleventy billion steps (which had to be negotiated on the way down as well) and there was no way my knees were going to be in the game when it involved a further eleventy billion steps DOWN to the beach before coming back, so I cried halt and we made our way back to the carpark. Wimp? Probably, but those steps were a killer even if the view was worth it.

On a positive note, the track was well maintained and you can see where they have spent the mney they get from the access fees.

Back at the carpark we had a sandwich and a coffee and Karen made a friend of a local padmelon. This little beast was so tame you could stroke it as long as it thought it might get some food. No joy with us on that count though.

 We trundled back up the track and stopped off at Honeymoon Bay. No idea why it is called that, but it is a beaut spot.

Can you see the sunshine on the OTHER side of the bay?

We ended our tourist approach with a visit to the Bicheno blow hole. Quite an impressive sight and it would have been even funnier if I had managed to capture "Terry" who was just out of shot on the left but who got soaked by the spray.

The day closed with a beer in the Bicheno Beachfront Hotel (lovely) and then a couple more back at theHTC.