Couchsurfing and roadtrip in Tasmania

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Tasmania was an excellent destination and totally exceeded my expectations. Even though I stayed for less than I had initially intended and got to see just a little bit of it, the stay there was well balanced between sightseeing and socializing.



I arrived in Tasmania without much plans at all. When I got off the plane in the small airport, I saw a shuttle that could take me to the city. I had seen a few backpacker hostels online the day before, so I opted to go to the Brusnwick Hotel and book a single room. After I settled in, I grabbed my cameras and went out for a walk around the city.



Hobart is the smallest State Capital in Australia and it has a “small town ambience”. There are a lot of buildings with façades from the 1800’s and it’s especially nice in the waterfront. I had some fish and chips there while being harrassed by seagulls trying to get a bite to eat.



In the evening I was invited to the house of Paulina Illanes, a Chilean girl who had seen a post I wrote in the Couchsurfing website and when she realized I was a “fellow Chilean” she invited me over. I met her and her boyfriend Stefan and had a very good time with them. They live in probably the best location in Hobart, right in Salamanca Place, the city’s most iconic place. It’s where the bars and restaurants are and right by the waterfront as well.



Paulina used to work in CNN Chile and we have a common friend that still works there. During the night we had beer tasting, as Stefan makes home brewed beer and has a lot of different varieties. We were also joined by Bruce, another Couchsurfer from Hobart and Kurt, an American photographer that has been traveling for 4 years and also a Couchsurfer who was staying with Paulina and Stefan. The 6 degrees of separation theory: Bruce, Kurt and myself had met Laurent Humbert, a very friendly, bad mouthed crazy French guy. I met him diving in Port Douglas, Bruce had hosted him in Hobart and Kurt had traveled with him through the west coast of Australia. The three of us took a photo and sent it to him in Facebook.



The next morning I rented a car, checked out of the hotel and the idea was to travel for 4 or 5 days along the east and south coast of Tasmania, sleeping in the car and eating supermarket food. At first I was going to go by myself, but Bruce told me he was hosting two French girls and that he would ask them if they wanted to join me. Sure enough, the next day I got a text message from them asking if they could go with me. I told them I would pick them up after getting the rental car.

I’ve got to admit that the first minutes driving after I picked up the car, I wasn’t feeling very comfortable driving on the left side of the road, but I got the gist. I went to Bruce’s house and met Julliet (22) and Elodie (20), the French girls.

Bruce lent us a couple of tents, plates, silverware and a couple of flashlights and we set off to the Royal Botanical Gardens to meet some Swedish girls that had one of the tents. After that we finally headed to the Eastern coast of Tasmania with a rough plan of what to do.



There are several small towns along the Tasmanian Highway and the landscape is mostly farmlands. There were numerous fires in January all over Tasmania and there were several burned forests along the way as well, which gave a big contrast in brown, red and black color patches against untouched forests and farmlands. After passing a town called Tribunna we reached the coast and continued following it to the north. The Tasmanian waters are pristine and a lot of beaches have white sand. If it wasn’t for the water temperature (cold), they could very well be located in any tropical paradise destination.

I wanted to go to Freycinet National Park, but realized I needed a State Park pass that was only sold in the park’s office and it was closed when we got there, so instead I looked for a nearby camping site. Free campsites will often have a toilet and that’s it for facilities. No potable water anywhere.

Because I was traveling with no camp gear, I had cold food. That day I ate canned chicken and tomato sandwiches that weren’t bad at all. The girls also had canned food and we had a beer as well. We had a 2 person tent and a solo tent, but the solo tent didn’t have the extendable poles to put it up, so I was back to the initial plan of sleeping in the car, which didn’t turn out to be so bad, considering the small Hyundai Getz I-20 I was in. There wasn’t much to do after sunset, so we all went to sleep early.



The next morning it was an early start at around 7am and we headed out to the park. Freycinet itself is very nice, with some good walking treks (not difficult) and there are longer ones that go over night. We decided to do a 4-5 hour trek that goes to Wineglass Bay and it returns to the starting point by doing a loop through the “Hazards”. Wineglass Bay is one of the most famous beaches in Tasmania and it’s certainly a nice sight. We stopped in the beach to have some lunch (almost the same as the previous night) and while we were eating, a couple of wallabies approached us waiting to be fed, which the girls did and we had a good photo session with them.

After lunch we continued and as I walked a lot faster than the girls, I decided to just leave them behind and got back to the car about 45 minutes before, which gave me time to have a much needed short nap.



After leaving Freycinet Park, we continued our way up north towards the famous “Bay of Fires”. It was named by English navigator Tobias Furneaux in 1773 when he saw fires of the aboriginals along the beach.

It was already too late to tour much of the area, but I went as north as possible, all the way to a place called “The Gardens”, took a look at a small town there and then went to look for another camping site, much like the one we stayed at the previous night. Again, light dinner; in my case I had to eat cold-canned ravioli that I had with a beer and the girls had their own canned food. After that, back to the car. It started to rain quite heavily and I’ve got to say I was enjoying my stay in the car, listening to music and reading a book called “Don’t tell my mom I work in the oil rigs, she thinks I’m a piano player in a whore house”, that was written, as can be imagined, by a guy who works in the oil rigs. The book was a very fun read; I actually laughed out loud as I read the stories this guy describes. I read it in maybe 3 days. Meanwhile the girls were getting wet in their tent.



In the morning though, the sun was shining and we had a great day ahead of us. We went to a small beach nearby in Binalong Bay and it’s by far the one I liked the most in Tasmania. White sand and crystal clear water with a yacht anchored in the bay. We spent a few hours in the beach, reading, taking photos, getting in the water (in my case) and then I decided to go back to Hobart (it was Friday and I wanted to go out). Paulina had agreed to host me a few nights, so accommodation was taken care of. I got to her apartment at around 7pm and a few hours later I got together with Bruce and Kurt, we had a few drinks there and then went out to have a few more in the bars in Salamanca Place, not even a 5 minute walk from where I was staying. We went out pretty late, so I called it a night after a few hours.



Saturday is Market Day in Salamanca Place, so after I managed to wake up, I went to look at the market which was bigger than I expected. It was a more or less typical market with everything from food, manufactured objects, clothes, used books and vintage products, street performers, etc. I spent around 2 hours wandering around and had a really good time. I then went to the public library (free internet connection) and then went back to the apartment because Paulina and Stefan had organized an event called “Melvin” (“MELon & VINo” or Melon & wine). It’s a “Chilean-bogan” way to drink cheap wine (which in the case of Australia is wine in a bag or “goon”). Everyone gets a melon (can even be a watermelon), they hollow it (mainly getting all the seeds out) and then fill it with wine and drink it with a straw. Paulina and Stefan invited other Couchsurfers and friends of theirs and at the end about 20 people showed up. We ended up having a really good time, drinking until late, swapping travel stories and one of the girls tried to get everyone to dance salsa, which was a funny thing to watch. We went out after that, but again, pretty late and everyone was tired, so we had a few beers and that was it.



On Sunday, it was my last day to have the car, so I decided to go to Port Arthur, an “experimental” prison that functioned from 1830 to 1877 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur,_Tasmania). Convicts from all over Australia were sent to this place for committing consecutive felonies. That day, Johanna, a Finish girl that was at the “Melvin event” joined me for the trip. She’s an accountant who quit her job and has been traveling for a few months. She’s carrying a small reindeer toy called “Paavo Hirvi” that has a FB page of its own and “helps” her with writing her travel blog.

We arrived in Port Arthur at around 3:30pm and spent a good 3 or 4 hours in the place. I really wanted to do a ghost tour there (it’s supposed to be one of the most haunted places in Australia), but it started too late and if I had done it I would’ve arrived late at night and I really wanted to get a decent night’s sleep at least once.



Monday was my last day in Australia after a year and before I left Hobart, I wanted to go to “MONA” (Museum of Old and New Art) which I had heard was really good. I had to return the car that morning, go to the library to sort out a few things before leaving the country; including renewing travel insurance and then took a bus to MONA, again accompanied by Johanna. MONA was founded by a Tasmanian mathematical genius who made his fortune through gambling (http://www.mona.net.au/).



After MONA, it was just a short time to get back to the house, pack my bag, get something to eat and get the shuttle bus to the airport to fly to Melbourne and from there straight to my next destination: Auckland.

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Comments

[Andres]

Hola Daniel, que interesante el viaje a Tasmania. Nosotros llegamos de la carretra austarl despues de 3 semanas. primero pasamos por Talcahuano donde vimos al Cucho y Paula. Despues pasamos una noche por mancera con martin y Jacqui en Puerto Montt tomamos el ferry a Pto Cahcabuco. Estuvimos un par de dias en Coyhaique en casa de Guilermo Schwarzenberg y despues nos fuimos a Puerto Rio Tranquilo. Eso nos encantó. Hicimos ahi una caminata y escalada en el glaciar exploradores con los niños que duró 9 horas. Fue espectacular. Despues nos fuimos a Chile Chico, Puerto Cisnes, Queulat, Puyuhaupi, La Junta, Marin Balmaceda, Chaiten Chiloe y Puerto Montt y sus alrdedores. Gozamos las vacaciones. Asuncion llego el 7 de febrero desde Cancun por lo que ya estamos todos juntos nuevamente. un fuerte abrazo Andres Monica y niños