Advertisement
Published: January 14th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Morning
As we drove in the morning, we kept seeing all these silhouette of animals and pioneers along the road. Day 2 of our Tasmania tour started, as usual, with a bit of driving. We stopped in a small town called Ross, where much like our first day we got to see an old bridge. This one had an interesting story though. As with the majority of Tasmania’s infrastructure at the time, the bridge was built with convict labour. However, the people who commissioned the bridge were supposedly so pleased with the bridge’s detailing, that the convicts were able to have their sentences shortened! How about that for a reward.
We then made our way to Wineglass Bay. This involved a bit of a hike between two mountains to get over to the sheltered bay. Halfway there was the lookout, where we got a great view of the bay. After the lookout, we climbed down towards the water. It was a long walk and the only thing we could think was how long it was going to be climbing back up. Haha Once down at the bottom, we were surprised by how large the individual grains of sand were. It wasn’t fine at all. After a bit of a break (and seeing some of the local wallabies), we went back
Bridge
Taking a shot with this fancy bridge. up the long climb to where we started.
That afternoon we toured around a bit more along the coast seeing lookouts and lighthouses. Very nice scenery. By late afternoon we checked into our hostel in Bicheno. As usual, the evenings were ours to do with as we wished so we chatted with our tour mates and started to get to know each other fairly well. Once it was dark, we all went searching for penguins! We were told that Bicheno housed a small colony of Little Penguins, so we went down to the beach to see if we could spot any. No cameras allowed, but we did see a few! They’re not easy to find, but I’m sure that’s the point.
Friday morning started with seeing some of the sights around Bicheno. We saw the shoreline, and then made our way up to the lookout to see where the whalers used to spot whales from. Afterwards we visited Nature World. This was fun because we got to see Tasmanian Devils up close and personal! The keeper there had been raising these devils for years now, and they’ve gotten very close to him. He was even able to pick
Bridge - 2
The story behind this bridge is that the people who commissioned the bridge were so impressed with the ornamentation that the convicts who built it had their sentences shortened! them up which allowed us to pet them. Cute. Nature World was also where Hillary learned much about the Tiger Snake. They had these pits where the snakes were kept. Hill wasn’t too keen on leaning over the edge in order to see them. Like she said, she would feel a lot more comfortable if there was a big sheet of glass between them and her!
After lunch we checked out the Bay of Fires. Not quite sure how it got it’s name, but it was a nice little walk. Next we walked through the forest to see St Columba Falls. But the real attraction wasn’t the falls themselves! As we walked down to the falls, there was a snake lying in the middle of the path. Since Hillary and I were at the back of the group, we could see our tour mates slowly walking around it while snapping a few pictures. When it was our turn, Hill froze. She turns to me and says “I think that’s a Tiger Snake”. After seeing so many of them just that morning, I wasn’t about to doubt her. We stepped slowly, and as we got closer it scrambled away down
Bridge - 3
A close up of the ornamentation. off the path. Got to be careful. Australia really does have poisonous animals everywhere!
That evening we checked into Launceston. As a group, we walked over to a food court and all got our favourites. We even considered going to a movie, but the times just didn’t suit. Instead we all dropped by the bottle shop and picked up a few beers. We headed back to the hostel and just chilled out in the back telling stories about our travels so far. Suffice to say that this far into our adventures Hill and I had plenty to talk about; whether it be bus encounters with drunken strangers or diving on both the east and west coasts.
Kevin
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0398s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb