Meeting Kate and heading to Tassie

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I leave Christchurch on a flight due for Melbourne via a stopover in Sydney. I land at 6pm and make my way over to see Kate at her university halls. I catch a shuttle bus from the airport to town, followed by a train out to the suburbs and then a bus to the Monash University campus. This takes about 90mins but im so excited about seeing Kate that its worth it. To those of you that don't know, Kate is one of my best friends, we met through the surf club at university in Liverpool and she is currently studying for a semester at university in Melbourne. Kate is currently on a half term break so we meet up to travel Australia together. We catch up in the evening and the next day are due to fly to Tasmania for a week.

Tasmania is an island south of the eastern part of Australia and is roughly the size of Scotland. We fly to Launceston which is a city on the north of the island and we make our way over to our hostel which is an old colonial building near the city centre. I think Kate picked up every leaflet that Tasmania had to offer which we spread over the floor and chose the best looking ones to formulate a plan of where to go and what to see.

The following morning a man collected us and took us to the car rental site where we had organised to rent a campervan for the week. We were presented with a Toyota Hi-ace camper and made our way to the supermarket to stock up on food. When we got back in the van we saw a large church nearby that was holding mass. Being that Kate is Irish catholic and today was easter sunday we went inside for the service.

After returning to the van we looked at a map and saw that just north of town there were sunday markets going on. Unfortunately we arrived just as they were ending but managed to buy some cassettes for the van. We picked up some golden oldies- things like Swinging 1950's, Johnny Cash, Spin Doctors and Sun & Fun collection. We then headed out to the west of Launceston where there are lots of wineries and a zoo. The zoo was just about to shut so we planned to camp nearby and go first thing the next day. That evening we parked up at the side of the road and settled for dinner and bed. The campervan has everything you need for a trip:

-Running water from an onboard tank
-Fridge
-Table and seats for dining that then turns into a double bed
-A single bed above
-Radio
-Gas hob
-Grill
-Microwave
-Plates and cutlery
-Storage space

We had a stir fry and sat out with a beer to watch the stars (since theres no light pollution around). The following morning we went back to the zoo which had many birds, kangaroos, wild dogs, koalas and Tasmanian Devils. The devils are really cool creatures, like a little black dog with a white stripe under its neck, they are docile creatures and are most active at night so during the day they sleep in huddled groups or wander around. The tasmanian devil is native to tasmania and found nowhere else in the world. They are called Devils because when the first explorers came to Tasmania they sat around a camp fire and out of the bushes crept the devils, the light from the fire lit up their pointed ears to make them look like red horns.

That afternoon we drove back towards Launceston and did a boat cruise up the Tamar River and alongside Cataract Gorge. The weather was really nice and there were some beautiful colonial houses along the banks, as well as pubs that had been there around 200 years. The river banks were also lined with wineries that export around the world as well as Australia.

In the evening we drove the van towards a lavender farm so that we could get up early and see it first thing next morning. The evening drive was really fun because the road turned into a dirt track with loads of animals out and about. We saw kangaroos and wallabies hopping across the road in and out of the bush. Being that it was a dirt road in the middle of nowhere we weren't sure where to stay so we came up to a junction and a farmer drove past and stopped to ask if we needed any help. He told us we could stay on his farm and park up next to a river, it was a really nice setting to camp for the night.

The lavender farm the next morning was a bit dissappointing as the lavender wasnt blooming and covering the fields in a purple carpet. We did, however, stop over for lavender tea and lavender fudge which was really tasty. We left the farm to head eastwards to the coast. En route we stopped at a cheese farm that did 'Devils'Cheese'- it was matured cheddar with chillis and spices; I loved it and bought some. We set off further east and came across the little town of St. Helens, one of the many places we found that had the same name as places back in England. Further south was the Bay of Fires- stretches of beautiful unspoiled beaches with white sand and turquoise waters.
We stayed at a campsite that night so as to charge up the van's battery and refill the water tank. To get away from cooking for a night we ate at a nearby restaurant which did amazing chocolate cake for dessert.

As per pretty much every night in the van we would stay up talking all night. Kate and I hadnt seen in other in two months so we had lots to catch up on, but mostly waffling on about nothing much lol.

So we started in Launceston which is central north of Tasmania and made our way clockwise around the island starting on the east coast. We arrived at Port Arthur which is the south eastern point of Tassie. Its an old colonial prison; back in the 1800s when the english sent convicts to Australia they were sent to prisons like this one to farm the land and build settlements. The best thing however was that Kate struggled to pronounce "Port Arthur", with her irish lilt she called it "Porth Arter"- i found it hilarious.

Near Port Arthur was a national park with a picturesque bay known as Wineglass Bay for its shape, again lovely white sand and turquoise waters. We now made our way towards Hobart, the capital of Tasmania and largest city. The drive towards Hobart was funny, Kate noticed that whenever i wanted to ask her something or explain something i would drop my speed to do so. She is a psychology student and so notices lots of my little idiosyncrasies, such as the way i drink tea, things i say or the way i go about things.
Kate fell asleep on the drive to Hobart and i was looking out for our turnoff when she woke all of a sudden and said "turn off here" haha, just in time for the junction. We had been on the road away from facilities for a few days now so stopped at a campsite and had our first shower in 3 days. Kate unfortunately had to share her shower with a rather large green grasshopper.
To pass some time that evening Kate wanted to draw portraits of each other, this worried me because as my family knows from games of Pictionary i'm terrible at drawing (see pic).

The following morning i awoke around 8am and nudged Kate, she wearily opened her eyes and out of the blue asked me "Did you get the money?" haha, a funny question to start the day with. Hobart was still some miles away so we stopped at a chocolate factory on the way, a very small business that had been making chocolate for around 50 years with traditional methods.

We arrived in Hobart at lunch time and did some shopping, it felt strange being back in civilisation after the week on the road driving through remote towns. We returned to the van to find a parking fine and then later my camera decided to delete all the pictures we had taken over the past week. So that was an annoying evening (hence why no pics of things ive been talking about). We drowned our sorrows with a cuppa tea and went to the cinema.

The following morning we did a downhill cycle tour in Hobart, this was a definite highlight of the trip. Mount Wellington stands at 4,000 feet overlooking Hobart, we got a bus to the top and cycled at high speeds to the bottom, mostly on road but with some offroad sections. Along the way the guide told us some history and we ended up cycling past the Cascade brewery, which is another beautiful old colonial style building.

We had lunch and made the long drive back to Launceston to catch our flight the following day. En route we stopped at Mole Creek for the night singing the golden oldie tunes as we went!
On our last day we went to some caves in Mole Creek. We arrived late to the tour and when asked where we were from, Kate said "Im from Ireland" which made people laugh. For some reason people find it such a novelty. Anyways the caves were amazing, we saw massive stalagmites and stalagtites and glow worms lighting up the dark ceilings.

Before returning to the car rental place we wanted to make one more stop en route, Cataract Gorge. We had seen this from a distance on our boat cruise but this time we took the chair lift up to the top and saw the magnificent views of the gorge and surrounding green areas. After the chair lift back down we returned to the car for lunch. Kate took the keys and opened the door... and it snapped in half, which i didnt find funny at the time but Kate nervously did. We phoned the rental place which was luckily only a few miles away and got a replacement key. As if snapping the key wasnt enough i accidentally sat on Kate's sunglasses...ooops lol.

We refilled the gas and petrol and returned the van, then caught our flight back to Melbourne. Ideally we would have liked another 3 or 4 days in Tasmania because we missed out the west coast but overall it was an amazing place, i wish i still had all the pictures we took! Hopefully the next blog will be up tonight too, sorry this one took forever ive been too busy these past 2 months! (as you shall see).

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