On the Road Again

Kelvedon Beach to Freycinet


Tasman Bridge and Mt Wellington


Binalong Rocks


Goshen Fields


Hobart Botanical Garden Boy
 
It seems hard to believe that our six weeks are over in Tasmania!  Where has the time gone.  We’ve been busy traveling around the state and eating and drinking well.  Let me do a recap of what we have done since I last wrote on Boxing Day.
 
Boxing Day was a quiet day for us, we phoned home to wish everyone Merry Christmas, dined on fresh local oysters that are excellent, and a good local grown steak as well as an excellent Tasmanian wine.  Australia closes down for the week between Christmas and the New Year.  There are the after-holidays sales, but nothing like what we are used to.  It was only the larger chains that were open, everything else is shut up tight for the week.  Hard to  wrap our heads around and get used to coming from a shopaholic nation. 
 
Hobart hosts a seven day Taste Festival that focus’s on Tasmania's best cheese, wine, beer, fruit, and food.  It is a free function, and a great way to try the various wines.  You can try the wines, buy a glass or buy a bottle, try many of the restaurants and enjoy the fine, for once, fine Tasmanian weather.
 
New Years in was at home, watching the fireworks from the deck of the house.  It was nice because the city does a 9:30 fireworks show for the kids, then a midnight show for the grownups, or those still awake.  Both shows were excellent, but nothing could be as good as the show that Sydney had that we saw on TV.  It was just amazing!  The harbor had 4 barges with fireworks, then the bridge is also used.  Like I said, it was amazing.  That is the place to be to welcome in the New Year.
 
The next day we traveled up the east coast using Swansea as our base, going back to the Freycinet Peninsula and hiking up to the lookout to see Wineglass Bay in the sunshine.  It is as beautiful as the pictures show.   The next day we drive up the coast to St Helens, Binalong Bay which is the beginning of the famous Bay of Fires.  This area has the bright orange lichen covered rocks, the most pristine white sandy beaches and the most  aqua blue water that we have seen in Australia.  And hardly anyone was there!  We had the beach to ourselves.   From St Helens, we head inland stopping for lunch at Pub in the Paddock, along with everyone else.  We were disappointed, maybe being there on a Sunday during the holidays with everyone had something to do with it.  We were driving through some of the most beautiful dairy county, then up the mountains, down the mountains, up the mountains and down the mountains, finally out at Launceston.  Phew.  Then onto Campbell Town taking the back way to Swansea and home the next day.
 
We decided to get a new cell phone provider.  We found that the only places that we could get coverage in Tasmania was Devonport, Launceston and Hobart.  The rest on the state, nada.  I know, we are leaving Tasmania, but we are heading west tomorrow eventually crossing the Nullarbor Plain to Western Australia, and we thought that having a cell phone that would work would be good.  Day one of the experience was the store was closed because it was two days after New Years and so a holiday.  The next day, we got a bum sim card, but finally, day three, we have service.
 
On our last full day was asked ourselves what hadn’t we done, that we would like to do while we are still here.  We took a Peppermint Bay cruise.  We traveled down the harbor, looking at the harbor side towns, to the D'entrecasteau channel, where we hovered alongside the rocks edge.  The crew dropped a camera over the side of the boat so we could see the life under us.  It was amazing.  The camera was 13 meters down, and we saw sharks, little harmless sharks, fish, different seaweeds and all of this without added light.  The water was so clean and clear, a pride of Tasmania. 
 
Now we are on the Spirit of Tasmania II, sailing towards Melbourne, for part four of our adventure.