Advertisement
Published: September 4th 2008
How much fun is a road trip? Yes, this is a rhetorical question. Carissa and I have just spent the last week making our way over land (and water) to the great south land - TASSIE. Having made our way down to Melbourne in plenty of time, we decided to venture a little further south to check out the Mornington Peninsula. We made our way via Mornington around the bay to Sorrento, where we biked our way through the national park to point Nepean (the Eastern point at the mouth of Port Phillip Bay). The results are in: huge surf, absolutely freezing, but all in all another spectacular part of Australia occupied by huge mansions that looked like weekender's for Melbourne's upper crust. Oh, and really good wood fire pizza.
Wandering back to Melbourne we just happened to find our way (Carissa threatened to leave me) to Bridge Road, a famous Melbourne shopping haunt in Richmond. It should be noted that I actually spent more than she did...I'm not proud of this. Having lugged the bikes all this way it was only fitting we spent the afternoon biking up and down the Yarra through the trendy Melboune CBD. We rounded out
the day with some world famous linguine marinara on Lygon Street before making our way through the maddening post MCG AFL traffic to The Spirit of Tasmania, which was to whisk us across the Bass Strait to Devonport.
Unfortunately, Tasmania greeted us with rather bleak weather, not to mention the temperature had also plummeted another 5 degrees. However, nothing could distract us from the shear beauty of the 'natural state'.
We soon made way west across the top of Tasmania to Smithton, which is where Carissa and I will be working for the next six weeks. It is a relatively small primary industry town located in the North-West corner of Tasmania. We were introduced to our digs, a small self-contained unit located on the pharmacy owner's acreage approx 5km out of Smithton, and affectionately referred to as 'The Shed.'
At this point I set out to find work and was rewarded soon after with the prestigious honour of being Tasmania's newest oyster farmer. Yes, the accolades continue to roll in - what do I know about oyster farming you might ask? The answer is nothing - I start Monday so I'll be sure to keep you posted.
We have returned
home briefly for the weekend to attend my sister's wedding, but on the way to Launceston airport we made a detour and visited Cradle Mountain National Park.
I could continue to throw superlatives out there to try and describe the pristine beauty of this place, but I genuinely don't think I could really do it justice. Carissa and I arrived at Dove Lake and were greeted with blue skies, not a breath of wind, and the sun was shining on the fresh snow that had fallen overnight. Cradle Mountain is usually heaving with tourists during the summer months, however as it was off season and midweek we enjoyed the relative solitude. We hiked to Marion's lookout and were rewarded with some of the most stunning natural beauty I believe Australia has to offer. I only hope the photos help convey just how extraordinary this little pocket of the world really is.
We return to Tassie in a few days where Carissa will provide an overworked pharmacist with a much needed break and my fledgling career as an oyster farmer is about to take off (well for six weeks anyway).
Until next time
Hoo Roo
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 58; dbt: 0.051s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Camilla
non-member comment
Wow!
Those shots are amazing guys! Enjoying the updates and very excited for you. Keep enjoying it. Love Camilla xx