Under Down Under

Welcome to Tasmania!

Our 4-day trip was incredible. We saw heaps of wildlife, had some great hikes, saw plenty of outstanding scenery, and enjoyed some nice B&B's. All around it was a really great trip.

We flew Sydney to Hobart Friday morning (i.e. my birthday). The flight was really quick - only an hour and a half. We even saw Wollongong from the air!

After we picked up our car from the airport we made for "Something Wild" a wildlife sanctuary West of Hobart. This is where we saw our first koala, tasmanian devil, platypus, wombat, wallaby... The only wild animals were actually the platypuses which live outside the sanctuary in the river nearby.

After snapping some great pics, we headed out towards Queenstown (an old gold mining town in the West). However the drive... not so much fun. First off, we drove through a national park (actually classified a World Heritage Site) where the posted speed limit was 100 km/h on a very narrow two-lane road. Only this road was through mountains, and you know what that means: lots of tight winds and steep uphills and downhills. Oh, and these tight turns mean that there are posted signs for turns saying to slow down to as low as 25 km/h (in a 100 zone!). And, to my delight (note the sarcasm) a storm passed over that was dropping sheets of rain. Now, as if this weren't bad enough, let's bring on nightfall. Which is bad enough as it is until we see signs to slow down to 55 from dusk till dawn due to nocturnal animals!?!? Yep, as if on cue, shortly thereafter we narrowly miss a wallaby that darted across the road. So now we've reduced our speed to 40... in the rain. Oh, and did I mention that I was also driving standard on the wrong side of the road? lol... what can I say. At least it's over now. But no need to fear or worry we got through it ok.

But let's move on to the more fun parts of the trip. We got up Saturday morning to find we were surrounded by some very nice scenery. So we went for a little bit of a drive and got some great early morning pictures. Then we drove down to the West coast to Stahan for breakfast. After a quick bite (where Liz had "Heaven in a Bag") we headed for Cradle Mountain National Park.

There were lots of stops along the way for so many photo ops (it was THAT gorgeous). Actually it was so gorgeous that we coined a new term. Tasmania is a gorgeosity. I won't bother describing Cradle Mountain too much because you can see how nice it is in the photos. Although we did see heaps of wallabies there. AND our first wild wombat!

Saturday night we stayed in an incredible B&B called the Granary just North of Cradle Mountain. In the morning when I got up to take stuff out to the car there were two wallabies right by our door! I scared them tho... :(

Sunday we first drove to the little town of Penguin on the North coast of Tassie. Alas there were no real penguins there. Instead we went to the market and headed out of town. That's when our first Aussie mini-golf experience happened. We saw a course by the side of the road in Devonport. Obviously had to stop (Side note: Greg, it was a really challenging course. You and I should play it sometime.)



Next we were off to the East coast to the town of Bicheno where we actually saw REAL LIVE PENGUINS! Incredible. I can't say enough how cute these little guys were. We went on a tour where they take you right close to where they come ashore at nightfall. One little guy was just inches from Liz and I. Great experience.

We stayed in a place in Swansea Sunday night. Monday we went to Freycinet National Park to see the famous Wineglass Bay. It's been voted best beach in the world or something. Clearly really nice. It's a 2 hour hike to the beach, so of course we decided to do the 11 km loop that takes 4 hours. It was a long hard walk, but had the most amazing views ever.



After our walk we had a nice lunch/dinner in Swansea and then headed back to Hobart to the airport to fly home! It was a fantastic trip and one of the best parts was the weather was perfect. Which was even better because it was supposed to rain for 4 days. Hope you enjoyed the pics... wait till you see the penguin VIDEOS when we get back to Canada.

Grant & Liz

PS - Aisling, we're thinking about you and hope the move went well!