Our last day at Cradle Mountain National Park. We had high hopes for the day and really wanted to go to Hanson's Peak and Lake Rodway.However, when we took the shuttle bus down to Dove Lake the weather was really crappy, so we just decided to do the Dove Lake Circuit instead. Doing a longer hike, which was on a steep uphill slope in the rain did not appeal and we thought it could be a little dangerous. I think our bodies were still recovering from past exertions, too. A definite sign I am getting old. The weather was pretty miserable, but we hadn't come all this way to sit in the hostel, and we hadn't really spent much time at Dove Lake when we had been there a couple of days earlier. We started by ... read more

We were up early to head to the transit centre to take the bus to Cradle Mountain. The walk was quite slow going as we were like a couple of pack horses with all the food we had bought. We had stocked up in the local supermarkets as options in Cradle Mountain would be limited and very expensive. The bus journey took around three hours and we passed through a few small towns on the way. We were deposited outside the Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre and it was just a short walk across the road to our accommodation. We had a private room, I think we had just booked out a dorm room to ourselves, but I can't quite remember. We dumped our stuff and headed to the shared kitchen with all our food and made ... read more

Happy Australia Day! We set off early after a quick breakfast, following the route we had taken the day before. We planned to do quite a long hike today as it would get back in the saddle for our multi-day hike in the Three Capes at the end of our trip. We came to the beach and the national park office area and then headed along the road to main part of the park. We weren't so lucky today and no one stopped to offer us a lift, so we had to do the whole walk, the uphill parts were a bit tough and it added at least another hour on to our hike. Not what we wanted when we had a long day ahead of us. I really wished that there was a shuttle bus ... read more

The flight from Melbourne to Launceston was very quick, only around 55 minutes. I was very thankful for this as the small child sitting behind me spent the duration of the flight kicking the back of my seat. We took the airport shuttle bus into Launceston. Since our bus to Bicheno wasn't leaving until the afternoon, we had a few hours to walk around and take a look at Launceston. We were able to leave our bags at the transit centre with the bus company that we would be using to get to Bicheno. It was a gorgeous day as we set out for a stroll. I decided that I would definitely need a hat for our trip, especially when we would be hiking the Three Capes later in the trip. We came across the Boag's ... read more

We headed back into the city today. We walked to the downtown area and since I had forgotten to eat breakfast I grabbed a samosa at a convenience store, delicious! As we were walking towards to the main station, we saw some intriguing looking alleyways. So, we took a detour to explore them. Hoiser Lane is a small street filled with graffiti art. I loved looking around all the little alleys that were connected admiring the different artworks, even the bins are covered with graffiti. It was pretty busy with other tourists and we saw some on a walking tour. I wish that if we'd had more time in Melbourne that we could have done a walking our of the city. I definitely need to get back to this city to explore more. We took the ... read more