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Published: November 18th 2005
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For those of you who have been keeping up with our blog entries, you know that in the last entry from Melbourne we said we were off to Tasmania and didn't know what to expect. Well, this is another one of those places where we were soooooo glad that we did because we both loved it!
We rented a car for a week and decided just to drive around and stop at places that looked good to us. We made it a whopping 15 minutes outside of Hobart before we stopped for the night in a town called Sorrell. We got the spa room in a place called The Barracks, which you can guess by the name what it used to be, but is now a quaint B&B. I think it was built in 1829. A funny thing happened when we checked in. The landlady told us to help ourselves to the movie selection because there was only one good bar in town and it would probably close by 9. We saw the box for Ned Kelly (reference the Melbourne entry for more info on this). In case anyone is interested, it was made in 2003 and stars Heath Ledger.
We saw the first part of it and thought it was pretty neat that we had just heard the story a couple of days earlier.
Based on the landlady's recommendation, we walked down to the pub and had a few. We were now in James Boag's beer territory, so Mary was very, very happy. We had a friendly, young barmaid who talked with us and more importantly, filled our glasses as soon as they were empty. That was the best bar service we had received in Australia to date.
After drinks we walked over to the Blue Bell Inn for dinner. This was another recommendation from our landlady and was she right. This is both Doug and my favorite place to eat of the entire trip!!! Memo to everyone reading this -- if in Tasmania, have dinner here. It also has accommodations, in case anyone is interested. We arrived for dinner about the same time as the other two dinner guests, Mike and Kim from Queensland. We were seated in the same room (think of a renovated, old house where every room was available for eating in) as them and started to have some great conversation. They were
both bright and funny, just like us, so we had a really nice evening. They invited us to share a cheese plate for dessert too. Dinner specifics will come later in the entry, but I wanted to mention that the chef was a lady of Polish descent. You should be able to guess what is coming in the food review.
The next day we took off up the east coast. In case you don't know, most of Tasmania is uninhabited by humans and I don't know the exact number, but from looking at the map and asking a few people, it seems that about 75% is a national park or protected area. We planned to hit a few of the parks in different parts of the state to see if there were any differences in terrain, wildlife, etc. I think we made it to five of the national parks, which represented all regions of the state except for the southwest, which is really only accessible on foot. From the photos we posted, you can see the vast differences in terrain and colors. At times it reminded us of Ireland, Hawaii, Mexico and Scotland. And of course, there was the
stuff that was uniquely Tasmania. As I eluded to earlier, this is a place with vast amounts of national parks. It is a hiker's (they call them bushwalkers) paradise. If you have any interest in hiking, go to Tasmania.
We pretty much spent the next five days driving around, stopping at the parks and then finding a place to eat and sleep. Most of the time this meant staying in a small town, which we enjoyed. Our favorite place was in a town called Tullah. We stayed in one of the two rooms behind the Tullah Tavern. We actually drove by it and went to the other place to stay in town, but it was fully booked, so we went back to "the cabin". It must have been fate. The owners were very accommodating and the bar staff was great. They chatted with us and also kept our drinks filled. This was the one time so far where I stayed out and Doug went to bed early. The locals were very friendly and a lot of fun to talk to. The owner also had a fantastic CD player with 60 CD's in it. Everything from Frank and Deano to
The Doors to Barry White and Cliff Richard. I could have stayed in there for hours.....literally. I was told there was a law that as long as a person was staying at the pub, the owner had to keep it open between 5:30 am and 3:30 am the following day. I didn't impose that much, but if given another opportunity......
We also stayed at the Hamilton Inn in Hamilton. It is an old, colonial building from the late 1800's that had been recently renovated. We had a nice dinner there and a few drinks in the bar. We talked for a bit with a couple from Victoria. He was pretty drunk and was telling us what Americans think and believe, most of which was news to us. His poor wife was trying to shut him up, but had some problems doing that, so we took some beer to the room and called it an evening. We stayed in the loft and the beds were some of the most comfortable we've had.
Once back in Hobart we took a Sunday drive after church down to Port Arthur. This is an old penal colony town which still has many remnants
of the prison and other building from that town. It was interesting to walk through and hear the stories of those who were sent there as well as what the conditions were like. We did get some great flower shots from the garden that has always been there.
After leaving Port Arthur, we drove a few miles down to the Tasman National Park. Boy are we glad we did! As you can see, this was some of the most beautiful scenery we encountered. Unfortunately, we didn't see any Tasmanian devils at any time on the trip. We did see a lot of echidnas, wallabies and a few wombats on the side of the road.
As for the food and beverage review, we give both A's. The Blue Bell Inn gets an A+. We got a lot of seafood, especially at the Blue Skies where we had the seafood platter. We also went back to the Blue Bell Inn to have our last dinner in Tasmania. Between the two of us, we had the following at this restaurant: venison rolls, seafood chowder, lamb loin, salmon in puffed pastry, cheescake (with homemade cheese), quail, pheasant pierogi, venison, Scotch fillet, strawberry
ice cream with fresh strawberries and mixed fresh berries with blackberry cheesecake ice cream. I think 'nuf said there. The chef's name is Marlene. We felt that Marlene was very attentive to us - especially on our second visit. She visited our table after each course and asked our opinion. She also discussed the ingredients, the preparation, and even where she sourced them. We really liked the fact that she took the time to both explain things to us as well as listen to our feedback. We don't get that in the States and surely never expected to find that in Tasmania!
Plus you saw the chocolate and banana pancakes (we call them crepes) from Mt. Elephant Pancakes. Those were also A+. The place was decorated in a lot of signs that had cute messages on them. We especially liked the one about keeping your children in their seats, lest they be fed to the elephants out back.
I got my James Boag's so I was happy with the beer. Doug continued on his variety kick of trying a different beer each time, but there weren't any new ones to report.
So to wrap things up on
Tasmania, this is another recommendation from us. We would both come back in a heartbeat and we think you should try to get here too!
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Diane
non-member comment
Tasmania
Sounds like a great place to visit with such a wide variety of flora, fauna and food. Loved the pictures of the flowers. Such vibrant colors. Just one question....... Did you eat the entire seafood piggy platter in one sitting???? Oink, oink!! Too bad you couldn't find an all-inclusive resort there.