Tag: tasmania

Total Miles Traveled: 56,577

Cradle Mountain is a hikers mecca and is home to the Overland Track, one of the world’s best multi-day (80km / 50 mi) walks.  We didn’t do the Overland Track, but there are plenty of beautiful day hikes in the area, like the one around Dove Lake (2 hrs)… see above and below.

We also hiked along a forest… it reminded Tony of the forests featured in Lord of the Rings.

The favorite part of our stay in Cradle Mountain was seeing the wildlife.  Check out this shy wombat…

We didn’t see any wallabies in Bonorong Wildlife Park, so we very excited to see them in the wild.  Wallabies are basically Kangaroos with smaller ears.  This guy looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

On our second day, we did a 4 hour hike across Lake Lilla and Wombat Falls…. quite a cloudy morning.

Picture perfect sunset / moonrise…

After two days of hiking, we drove to Launceston in the north central coast of Tasmania to stay a night before we started our journey to New Zealand.  We discovered a fantastic restaurant that you must try if you go: Stillwater Cafe.  The tasting menu is awesome and worth every penny of the steep price.

Here’s our raw, locally grown oyster dish.  We chose to have it 3 ways:  au naturale, “Thai style” with herbs (coriander, lemongrass, hot chili slices), and a shooter which had cucumber, mint, fresh-ground Tasmanian wasabi, rice vinegar.  Fantastic!

Well that’s it for Tasmania!  We loved out week here and we had barely scratched the surface.  Definitely lots to see and worth a visit if you have the time.

Check out all out pics from Cradle Mountain:

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Total Miles Traveled: 56,392

Coles Bay is next to the Freycinet National Park on the east coast of Tasmania.  It’s where the famed Wineglass Bay is, purportedly one of the world’s top 10 beaches.  The drive from Hobart is pretty spectacular, with jaw-dropping scenery, blueblue water and some nice wineries reminiscent of California vineyards (try visiting Freycinet, Coombend and Kelvedon (appt only) for their Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs).  The area also boasts a marine farm where they grow oysters (yum) that are reminiscent of kumamotos.

The sunset at the Edge of the Bay restaurant, is worth a try if you are staying in the area:

We hiked to the lookout to Wineglass Bay (30 minute medium effort uphill) but it was quite overcast and started raining.  It’s probably a beautiful beach when it’s clear, but we didn’t go down to find out so the jury’s still out on the top 10 beach reputation.  I’m not convinced!

Interesting rock formation…  (who’s that hiding?  It’s an egg, it’s a headless man… NO!  It’s an Egg Head)

Interesting pine cones:

Interesting tree bark:

Looking down a steep cliff:

Here’s another bay in the national park – the orange stuff are lichens growing on the rock.

Tide pools with seaweed:

Anyway, we definitely recommend a drive up the east coast of Tasmania.  Worth spending a couple of days in Coles Bay and not rush it like we ended up doing.  Have a look at all of our photos from Coles Bay below:

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Total Miles Traveled: 56,296

If you were born before the 80s, chances are you’ve heard of the Tasmanian Devil (or Taz) who is a loveable – if not slightly crazy – cartoon character by Looney Toons.

We were very excited to see the actual Tasmanian Devils, who are not nearly so crazy (they actually sleep 18 hours a day), but who are equally lovable.

Taz                                                                                                Real Tasmanian Devil

The story of the Devil is actually quite sad.  The species is dying.  Since the late 1990s, devil facial tumour disease has drastically reduced the devil population and now threatens the survival of the species, which in May 2009 was declared to be endangered.  This type of cancer is viral and so there are programs in place to keep those not infected from becoming infected.  Bonorong is actively engaged in getting Taz off the endangered list, so we wanted to support the park and see the little devils in person.  In addition to the devils, they also have other native animals.

This evil looking creature is an emu.  This bird emits a deep guttural sound – similar to slapping the end of a PVC pipe – and has teeth-like ridges on its beak… sharp ones too!  This emu reminded me of one of the evil dinosaurs from Jurassic Park!   I think this one is thinking “I’ll get you my pretty!”

We were very excited to see Kangaroos – or Roos – and we even more thrilled that we got to feed them.  We loved interacting with these marsupials!  Here’s Tony, and his new friend.  Look at the way the Roo cups Tony’s hand.

Here’s a little Roo inside her mom’s pouch!

Check out the long claws…

This little cutie is called an echidna (or, as I call them, ‘enchilada’) yet another marsupial.  They have very sharp spikes to fend off prey.

We were surprised how much we loved the wombat – Morris is the baby wombat pictured below.   They too sleep about 18 hours a day.  Check out the mouth.  Later during our trip in Tassie, we got to see the wombat in the wild.  They’re adorable!!

One cool thing about the wombat is that they have a “hard butt.”  What does that mean?  They’ve adapted such that when a predator tries to attack the wombat in its burrow, it turns around and shows its butt.   Why?  Because the butt is hardened cartilage that when you hit it with your knuckles, it sounds like you’re hitting hard plastic!  Neat!

Here’s a frog-mouthed owl awake during the day.  He’s a bit cross-eyed.

A koala bear awake – which is rare – since they sleep 20 hours a day.

This koala came out and started groaning repeatedly, which we were told is a way to show dominance over other koalas in the area.  He owns this tree, we are merely visitors.

We had a lot of fun with the roos.  This baby roo was adorable but quite skittish. I had to coax her to eat from my hand.

After a while, the little roo had enough and wanted to jump back into mom’s pouch.

Final photos of the Devil…  we hope that all the programs underway will help bring them back from the being endangered!

To see all our photos, check out our slideshow:

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Total Miles Traveled: 56,279

Bruny Island is a fantastic day trip from Hobart where you can go hiking, kayaking, find your own beach to hang out on, and/or go on a nice boat cruise.

We definitely recommend doing the cruise – it gives you a lot of beautiful vistas you wouldn’t see just driving or hiking.  If you do the cruise, you likely won’t have time to do anything else on the island, so look in to staying overnight.

The boats are super powerful/fast so they issue you wind and waterproof gear because being wet and cold isn’t fun.

You’ll see huge, dramatic cliff faces…

Interesting rock formations caused by erosion…

There’s a male fur seal colony which is fun to observe, not so nice to smell though.   These guys are like the dogs of the sea.

Some huge wave action washing over the kelp…

We were visited by a pod of dolphins that played in the wake of the boat’s bow:

The island is oddly shaped with a skinny isthmus connecting two big chunks of land, and as you can see, the two sides are very different.   Both are saltwater, but the right side is more of a lagoon, facing out to the Tasmania mainland, and the other faces out to the Tasman Sea.

Another look at the lagoon at low tide:

If you haven’t noticed already, the water is almost unnaturally blue.  Beautiful.

And this beach you see here, there’s no one on it.  That means, you could have it all to yourself!

So, Bruny Island is worth a visit, especially if you like the outdoors, beaches, and fantastic views.  If you go, try the Hothouse Cafe for lunch – their burger is massive and very tasty.  There’s also a local oyster farm that serves up freshly shucked oysters, just north of the isthmus… very nice.

Here’s a look at all of our photos:

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