Tasmania

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August 12th 2008

Published: October 4th 2008

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drewdle

Devonport Lighthouse

If you look closely, you'll see Del peeping round

Back in July we went across to Tasmania. It was brilliant and definitely one of the highlights of our trip to Ausralia.

The wildlife on Tasmania was incredible, we saw our first platypus within an hour of being on the island and we went to a National Park with more wombats than I ever thought I'd see. There were Tasmanian Devils, of course (although we had to see these in a sanctuary because they're nearly extinct in the wild due to an oral tumour disease) and even a quoll!

Tasmania has a lot of convict history, it was seen as a natural prison and those who'd been sent to Australia were sent to Tasmania if they reoffended. Pretty much everywhere we went there was something to do with the island's convict past. Two of the harshest places were probably Sarah Island in the southwest and Port Arthur in the southeast. We went to Sarah Island with a local historian who gave us a brilliant tour of the place. He really gave us an understanding of the conditions of the place and why it ended up as it did. Port Arthur was a strange place. It looks amazing with all

Chillin'

the handcut sandstone buildings and the setting is really beautiful but all the time you're aware of the cruelty, both physical and psychologiclal, that occurred there. People were placed in tiny cells with no windows and were prevented from any communication with anyone else.

Tasmania is also a walker's dream. There are so many rugged places to explore, including the temperate rainforests, Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair. We were planning to climb cradle mountain but unfortunately the weather was a bit of an issue with the snow etc and not being experienced mountaineers were advised it might be best to give it a miss. We did do a walk in the National Park (in the snow) and got some good views of the mountain, so not all bad.

Being August, and the middle of winter, Tasmania was very cold - it got as cold as -4C in the van on one night, the 5 layers and a sleeping bag weren't enough to keep us warm. Even the washing up liquid in the van froze!! These were testing times!

In Hobart (state capital) we visited Australia's oldest brewery - Cascade Brewery, where we did a tour of

A big tree

the brewery and a tasting at their bar. Ian especially liked this trip!! Also in Hobart, we visited the Cadbury factory (one for me!), the tour and the chocolate over here are not a patch on ours! We did however end up buying a huge box of chomps - they're a little different to the chomps back home as these have wafer in them, and at the time I really liked them but now I've eaten nearly our whole body weight (combined) of them, I'm not so keen!!!

Our culinary skills were at an all time high in Tasmania - we were really getting the hang of one pot meals, with fish pie (using fresh locally caught pink ling bought off the docks), pizza (yes, homemade pizza cooked in the frying pan - sounds weird but trust me, it's really good), Thai green curry to name a few. We also tried the local dish of curried scallop pie (amazing), and also tried lots of local cheese as well as mutton sausage, and we even got an invite to spend christmas at the cheese lady's house in NZ - very random!

The beaches of Tasmania were amazing! In contrast

The 'edge of the world'

Nothing but ocean until Argentina

to the snow we had in the mountains, the weather was actually really good, not like winter at all, though not quite warm enough for a dip! The highlights were definitelty wineglass bay and bay of fires where the sand was white and the sea a nice shade of aqua marine!

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