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Published: January 18th 2010
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Spirit of Tasmania
The ferry that we were to board With access to a car (thanks Les) and some camping equipment borrowed from friends (thanks Fox and Sam), we decided to head to Tasmania to see some of Australia’s rugged sights. We set sail on the Spirit of Tasmania, a huge ferry, at 9pm from Melbourne. The journey was to take 9.5 hours so we booked a recliner chair in the hope of getting some sleep and prayed it wouldn’t be too rough as the waters between Australia and Tasmania are notoriously choppy. The crossing was calm and we managed to have a few hours sleep before we disembarked for our Tasmanian adventure.
Our first stop, Launceston, is the second largest town in Tasmania and 80km south of our docking port. Daniel’s cousin, Rob, lives there but he and his family were on holiday on the east coast. We decided to spend a day in Launceston before joining them at their holiday home. We spent the day walking in Cataract Gorge, a large gorge with steep banks lined with woods surrounding a boulder littered river. It was so hot (mid 30’s) we took a swim in one of the many natural rock pools between the smooth boulders.
Rob, Nerada,
Melbourne
View from the ferry. Jack, Josh and Troy were staying in Binalong Bay, a small seaside village on the north east coast of Tasmania. This place is picture postcard beautiful; small coves line the coast, the sand is white, the sea turquoise and woods hug the shoreline. The rocks have a natural reddish-orange stripe through them giving the area the nickname ‘Bay of Fires’.
We spent time playing cricket on the beach and swimming in the lagoon and sea. Daniel and the boys swam in the sea which was too cold for Natalie and Nerada as the Antarctic is only 2000km away giving the sea an icy temperature... or what Dan would call ‘refreshing’. That afternoon we all went fishing in a sea channel and between us managed to catch enough Leatherjackets and Mullet for dinner. Daniel caught a leatherjacket and mullet, but let another slip away between his fingers. Natalie caught two little Ras which were a bit small and thrown back. The fish were gutted and filleted on the rocks and expertly BBQ’d later that night with homemade chips and a few bottles of wine... maybe 3 or 4 too many judging by the dusty heads the next day.
We
Sleepy time
Nat getting ready for bed. also met the local police when we decided to ride to the shop to buy some milk without wearing our helmets. Wearing a helmet is compulsory in Australia but we thought that since we were only going 1km that the likelihood of seeing the ‘helmet police’ in such a remote area was ‘remote’. We jinxed ourselves with this decision and on our return we heard a siren behind us and sure enough it was the police. After using the "we're a Pommy" line we were given a lecture and sent on our way, avoiding the 150$ fine... Daniel is now trying to get his English accent back again!
We left Binalong Bay for Freycinet National Park, home to the famous Wineglass Bay, which is further south along the east coast. Here we were to have our first night of camping at one of the free campsites, with the only facilities being a drop-hole toilet. After pitching the tent we headed into the Park to begin a circular walk which would take us to a number of lookouts of Wineglass Bay and onto the beach. The weather was hot and sunny and we saw a great view of the Bay
Wakey time
Nat in the morn... before descending down for a quick paddle to cool off. Unfortunately it was a very windy day so the water was too choppy to get in and big jellyfish were lurking in the water after being blown in with the waves. We walked across the peninsula to another spectacular beach and then took a swim in one of the calm bays to cool off... and wash since we had no shower at the campsite! We had fish and chips on the foreshore and Natalie had her first taste of flake (shark) which she found to be very tasty.
We survived our first night under canvas and hoped to see more of the National Park the following morning. The next day was forecast to be hot again so unfortunately the park was closed due to the high risk of fire so we headed straight off to Cradle Mountain National Park in the central western area of Tasmania. We had missed our mountains (after our Nepal experience) so decided it was time to climb another one with Cradle Mountain highly recommended at a height of 1542m (one of the highest in Tasmania).
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