November 7th, 2024

After the exciting platypus aquariums at Platypus House in Beauty Point, we were taken into the “Echidna Garden” where we were asked to enter quietly and sit or stand in a circle without moving around so as not to step on any of these cute creatures. Although they look like large hedge hogs or small porcupines, they are related to neither.

Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes (a mammal that lays eggs) living in  both Australia and New Guinea. The diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not closely related to the American true anteaters either. Their young are called puggles and a group of them is called a “parade”.

Echidnas are medium-sized, solitary mammals covered with coarse hair and spines. The spines are modified hairs and are made of keratin, the same fibrous protein that makes up fur, claws, nails, and horn sheaths in animals. Each adult echidna can have up to 1500 spines. The ones found in Tasmania are softer as their hair is thicker for warmth.

Echidnas have short, strong limbs with large claws, and are powerful diggers. Their hind claws are elongated and curved backwards to aid in digging. Echidnas have tiny mouths and toothless jaws, and feed by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and licking off prey with their long, sticky tongues. The ears are slits on the sides of their heads under the spines.

Echidnas do not tolerate extreme temperatures; they shelter from harsh weather in caves and rock crevices. Echidnas are found in forests and woodlands, hiding under vegetation, roots or piles of debris. They sometimes use the burrows (both abandoned and in use) of animals such as rabbits and wombats. Individual echidnas have large, mutually overlapping territories.

The echidnas were each give a bowl of food – there were four in this garden – and then could wander all around us as they pleased. They weren’t very curious about us at all though – just kind of ignored us and went about their business.

We left Platypus House and walked across the wharf to “Sea Horse World” – this was actually a commercial enterprise where they breed sea horses but have added a tourist component. We were booked for the 2pm tour and it last about 50 minutes.

(Keep in mind these photos are taken through glass so they are not the sharpest quality.)

We were first taken into a room with 5 aquariums to observe 7 different species – one had babies in the tank too.

The guide gave us lots of information as we looked around and then took us into the potbellied sea horse breeding house.

A seahorse is any of over 50 species of small marine bony fish  Having a head and neck suggestive of a horse, seahorses also feature segmented bony armour, an upright posture and a curled prehensile tail.   They belong to the same family as pipe-fishes and sea-dragons.

Seahorses are mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate salt water throughout the world, from about 45°S to 45°N. They live in sheltered areas such as sea-grass beds, estuaries, coral reefs and mangroves.

Seahorses swim upright, propelling themselves using the dorsal fin.  The pectoral fins, located on either side of the head behind their eyes, are used for steering. Unusual among fish, a seahorse has a flexible, well-defined neck. It also sports a crown-like spine or horn on its head, termed a “coronet”, which is distinct for each species. Seahorses swim very poorly, rapidly fluttering a dorsal fin and using pectoral fins to steer. The slowest-moving fish in the world is the dwarf seahorse, with a top speed of about 1.5 m / 5’ per hour. Since they are poor swimmers, they are most likely to be found resting with their prehensile tail wound around a stationary object. They have long snouts, which they use to suck up food, and their eyes can move independently of each other like those of a chameleon.

Before breeding, seahorses may court for several days. During this time, they may change color, swim side by side holding tails or grip the same strand of sea grass with their tails, and wheel around in unison in what is known as a “predawn dance”. They eventually engage in a “true courtship dance” lasting about 8 hours, during which the male pumps water through the egg pouch on his trunk which expands and opens to display its emptiness. The male seahorse is equipped with a brood pouch on the front-facing side of the tail. When mating, the female seahorse deposits up to 1,500 eggs in the male’s pouch. The male carries the eggs for 9 to 45 days until the seahorses emerge fully developed, but very small. When the fry are ready to be born, the male expels them with muscular contractions. He typically gives birth at night and is ready for the next batch of eggs by morning when his mate returns. Like almost all other fish species, seahorses do not nurture their young after birth. Infants are susceptible to predators or ocean currents which wash them away from feeding grounds or into temperatures too extreme for their delicate bodies. Less than 0.5% of infants survive to adulthood, explaining why litters are so large.  The young are then released into the water, and the male often mates again within hours or days during the breeding season.

Seahorses feed on small crustaceans floating in the water or crawling on the bottom. With excellent camouflage seahorses ambush prey that floats within striking range, sitting and waiting until an optimal moment. Mysid shrimp and other small crustaceans are their favorites.  

We saw tanks of them and then buckets of their young at various age groups.

Here she fed all age groups and then we moved into a room with a few rare fish types and a chance to touch both a sea horse and hermit crabs if you so chose – which we both did.  You could pick them up and raise them to the top of the water, keeping their head under water of course.

We loved the sea dragons in the tanks as well – they kinda just gracefully float around amoungst the plants.

The leafy sea dragon or Glauert’s sea dragon, is a marine fish. It is found along the southern and western coasts of Australia. The name is derived from their appearance, with long leaf-like protrusions coming from all over the body. These protrusions are not used for propulsion; they serve only as camouflage. The leafy sea dragon propels itself utilizing a pectoral fin on the ridge of its neck and a dorsal fin on its back closer to the tail end. These small fins are almost completely transparent and difficult to see as they undulate minutely to move the creature sedately through the water, completing the illusion of floating seaweed.

In case you need more of a platypus, echidna and seahorse fix, check this here out!

This was a day with a lot of data entering our brains! It was another good day in Tasmania and the weather while it clouded over some, continued to be very pleasant. Doug had booked us a Airbnb type place in nearby Beaconsfield and we arrived just after 3 after making a beer run.

We have reached out to overlanders we met when we did the PanAm in Guatemala. We’ve made a plan to meet them tomorrow for dinner at their house and they’ve offered us their caravan (travel trailer) to sleep in that night.

The basement we rented on Booking.com was very nice; spacious and bright with great Wi-Fi, free parking, breakfast items, all the kitchen supplies you would ever need and a large sitting area. We paid $143AUD ($97 USD) for this place. A little more than we’d like but this is a touristy area and prices reflect this.

We spent a couple of hours online and then walked over to the local IGA (funny thing in small towns here, sometimes there are two IGA’s and almost next door to each other!) for some take away fish and chips for dinner. They were pretty good too.

Thursday morning we awoke to sunshine once again but the temps will be cooler the next few days; high teens C/ 60’s F). We’ll take that! After exercising, we took our time and as the bnb offered a self serve breakfast, we helped ourselves around 9:30 so we could check out on time at ten. We really enjoyed our stay at this nice apartment.

We did not have too far to drive today to get to Turners Beach where our friends live so we took our time with a couple of stops.

The first stop was Brady’s Lookout (unplanned but it looked like a nice view and was).

Matthew Brady was an English convict who became a bush ranger in Van Diemen’s Land. Brady was convicted of stealing a basket, some butter, bacon, sugar, and rice, and tried at Lancaster in 1820. He received a seven-year sentence of transportation, arriving in Australia in the convict ship Juliana the following December. He rebelled against the conditions in Sydney and received, over time, a total of 350 lashes in punishment for misdemeanors and attempts to escape. In 1824, Brady was part of a group of fifteen escapees who sailed a whaleboat around the south coast to the River Derwent and spent the next two years as bush rangers.

On 14 April 1825 Lieut. Governor George Arthur  posted rewards for the capture of Brady and his gang of 25 pounds sterling and a conditional pardon. In return, Brady posted his own reward stating:

It has caused Matthew Brady much concern that such a person known as Sir George Arthur is at large. Twenty gallons of rum will be given to any person that will deliver his person unto me. I also caution John Priest that I will hang him for his ill-treatment of Mrs. Blackwell at Newtown.

— ‘M. BRADY.’

In 1926 Brady was briefly captured but managed to escape and swore revenge. Days later Brady and his gang captured a boat, intending to sail it to the Australian mainland. Due to bad weather crossing Bass Strait, they were forced to turn back.

After the sailing fiasco, one of Brady’s gang members, an ex-convict name Cowan, betrayed him for a pardon. On 28 March 1826, in consequence of private information, Lieutenant Williams of the 57th Regiment with 14 soldiers and four armed prisoners made contact with Brady’s gang south of Launceston. Both parties fired, and during the ensuing gun battle Brady was wounded in the leg. The bush rangers separated as they fled. Two stragglers were caught by local farmers.

Brady and four others escaped until a campfire was spotted later that night and John Batman and party went to investigate. The outlaws all fled into the bush, abandoning their fire. Batman and his crew stayed near the campfire. During the night Batman heard a noise and went out to investigate. He saw a man limping in the bush near a shallow creek and hastened towards him; it was Brady. Batman induced Brady to surrender and return with him. The outlaw was ill and suffering much pain and did as he was asked.

On Sunday morning, Batman delivered Brady to the Launceston prison. News quickly spread that Brady was caught and the townsfolk turned out to see the captured felon pass by on horseback.

On Thursday 27 April 1826, Brady and Patrick Bryant pleaded guilty to the murder with malice. Brady was duly sentenced to death and was hanged on 4 May 1826. There were multiple unsuccessful petitions to halt his execution, and his cell was filled with wine, fruit, cakes, confectionery, and flowers from the ladies of Hobart Town.

One of his hideouts is now known as Brady’s Lookout and is a popular picnic area with views over the Tamar River. 

It was a view worth stopping for with an interesting back story.  The Tamar River looked lovely in the sunlight and the surrounding area was on full display in its spring green.

We drove into the outskirts of Tasmania’s second largest city, Launceston, where we wanted to see the Cataract Gorge. There is a gondola but it appeared that you could take a walk along one side. We found a free parking area and it was about a 3 minute walk down some stairs to get to the start of the Cataract Walk.

This was very worth it – especially on a sunny day like today. The walk is maybe a 3 km / 2 mi round trip and all level on a concrete path that clings to the cliff walls.

Here  you can check out more photos of Cataract Gorge.

After climbing back up to the car park, we made a stop in town to get some beer and see the town centre (not too exciting) and made our way northwest.

We had one quirky place to check out in the city of Latrobe – a giant platypus statue in a park which was really not worth the stop:

We were very early to get to our friends’ place so we stopped at a Mickey Dee’s for a drink and some online time. Doug had found us a parking lot next door to it which we thought was free but two hours later when we returned to the car, we had a $32 AUD ticket! That was some expensive parking for two hours!  We were able to pay it online the next day.  Lesson learned: don’t trust our map app for free parking! 

We headed along the coast to Turner’s Beach stopping only once more at Lillico Beach where a Little Penguin Colony resides. Naturally being mid day, there were no penguins but it was nice to get out of the car, see the beach and see the little boxes they’ve built there for the nesting birds. This is not our kind of swimming beach as it’s pretty rocky but it was a pretty sea view.

It was encouraging to see that at this site last night alone, 108 of them came ashore!

We arrived in Turner’s Beach at 4pm as planned and although Ryan wasn’t back for his swim in the river (brrrr!) Michaela greeted us and introduced us to their children, Coen, age 5 and Eloise, age 2. When we met them in Guatemala, they were still single – they actually got engaged in Chile and married the following year. At that time they lived in Perth and when they returned to OZ, they lived in South Australia where Ryan took a course to become a paramedic (Michaela is a physiotherapist). They had planned to immigrate to the UK at the beginning of 2020 but COVID put the kibosh on that plan and instead he got an internship here in Tassie. They bought a house, had their second child here.

After a walk to see the beach and the river,  Ryan was back and he made us a BBQ dinner, we chatted and around 8:30 retired to the caravan for the night.

We awoke to some on and off sprinkles and after packing up and having tea, we left their place around 7:30. It rained for the first 90 minutes or so on and off, sometimes light, sometimes hard but for the most part it was a dryish day with sunny periods.

Shortly down the coast, we came to the town of Penguin – which of course, also has a colony of little penguins but the thing we wanted to see was the giant penguin statue and park; it was still raining so we didn’t hang around long; in fact Doug didn’t even get out of the car!

We were headed west to the western most point of the state at West Point Reserve, aka, Gardiner’s Point. The last 5km of the road was gravel and we were alone for sure. It was super windy and the water was rather rough.

We didn’t stay long cause the wind was icy cold. We went a little south along the coast to the small,, and we mean small, town of Arthur where the “Edge of the World” is found. The cool thing about this point is that if you sailed out on the ocean here in a straight line, you would not hit land until Argentina – nearly 16,000 km / 9941 mi away!

It was super windy and waves were crashing here as well but there was more of a beach. The community here seems to have only one place to eat; take away at the general store so for lunch we opted to make do with the food stuffs we had with us: fruit, granola bars and drinks.

This link  will take you to more photos of the north coast.

Continuing on this road we were driving along the north edge of the Tarkine Forest. It was, of course, no forest like we know in BC but there were lots of varieties of trees, sometimes rain forest like.

There were a lot of these signs:

and we did see road kill of a few pademelons, a wombat and one devil.

This road can be a long loop but after investigating the sights to see, we chose to only do two and could do that on a shorter drive back to the coast.

First stop was Sumac Lookout where we could see down over the forests. There was a really cool cutout sign for it too:

We then made our way to Trowutta Arch. This is a rare, naturally occurring arch that was created by the collapse of a cave and the creation of two sinkholes on either side of it; one dry and one filled with water.  It was a short walk of maybe ten minutes along a path through the rain forest full of fern trees and lots of moss and wet trees. It actually rained on us on the way to it.

The first arch is quite huge and there is another across the pond.

The sun came out on the way back to the car and we made our way back to the Bass Highway that runs along the coast. After stopping to fill up (the price of petrol here is similar to on the mainland) we made one more stop for groceries and went to our hotel in Burnie.

Before reading on you can  click here to check out more photos of our drive to the west coast and through the forest.

The big attraction in Burnie is the large penguin colony. We had booked at room at the hotel on the beach front not far from the viewing area. We got an “executive room” with a queen and a single bed, fridge, kettle, bathroom and slow Wi-Fi and courtyard parking for $144 AUD ($94 USD). It was mid-afternoon when we arrived and after so much driving we were happy to be out of the car. Today we did 444 km / 275 mi – our biggest driving day on the island.

After dinner we watched a bit of TV and then at sunset headed over to the Penguin Centre about 800 m away all along a boardwalk on the beach. There were 3 women there giving a talk so we listened to the rest of it and then the viewing began.

The Australian little penguin, is considered a separate species from the New Zealand birds by studies done in 2016 and 2019. They are commonly known as fairy penguins, little blue penguins, or blue penguins, owing to their slate-blue plumage. Their minor feathers are dense in melanosomes which attribute to both their strength to swim fast through the water, and its unique blue colour. Like those of all penguins, their wings have developed into flippers used for swimming.

These penguins typically grow to between 30-33 cm / 12-13” tall and on average weigh 1.5 kg / 3.3 lbs. The head and upper parts are blue in colour, with slate-grey ear covers fading to white underneath, from the chin to the belly. Their flippers are blue in colour. Their irises pale silvery/bluish-grey or hazel, and the feet pink above with black soles and webbing. The average lifespan for the species is 6.5 years, but flipper ringing experiments show that in very exceptional cases they may live up to 25 years in captivity.

The Australian lineage will swim together in a large group after dusk and walk along the shore to reach their nesting sites. This may be an effective predator avoidance strategy by traveling in a large group together. This has not been seen by those of the New Zealand

For the Southern Australian colonies, anchovies are the primary food source. Anchovies are rich in oils and nutritional value. The nature of their diet also impacts foraging methods, which may vary by colony depending on what food is available. Fairy penguins do not migrate and are present year round at the breeding sites on Tasmania and Southern Australia.  

The guides had flashlights with red cellophane over them as bright lights and camera flashes are not good for the little penguins. We tried to use a piece on Doug’s phone but it didn’t work so Fran did the best she could with photos trying to take them when someone with a light shined it on penguins

Before we even saw the first one, a pademelon wandered by and hid in the bushes (sorry for grainy photo!):

Then the birds began to appear; the little ones waiting for their parents to return from sea came out of their “homes” and the squawking began. It’s not very loud and they are SO cute, it never got annoying.

After about 20 minutes, Doug was too cold (due to the wind) and went back to the hotel. Fran stayed about another 20 minutes till the guides all left before she got too cold too. The temps tonight dipped down to around 9C / 48 F and the wind off the sea was quite chilly. Fran had 3 layers on but her hands had to be free for photos and after 40 minutes, they were frozen! The pademelon showed its face again after everyone else left.

She probably took well over 150 photos, and a few bad videos but many were culled away due to not being well enough lit or blurred by the movement of the penguins. It was a very cool experience and we were happy we stayed so close by.

Here’s a link  to many more photos of penguins!

Next morning the sky was somewhat overcast and the cooling trend had begun as predicted. We were heading inland to Cradle Mountain National Park to do the Dove Lake Circuit hike and maybe the short Enchanted Forest Walk but before getting half way (it was a 102 km / 61 mi drive), the rain began letting up at times but as we climbed into the park, it just got colder and wetter.

The drive was mostly through forest and we climbed to about 1000 m / 3000’. We were not dressed for this at all even with all our layers! The forecast looked worse as the day progressed and we were cold just walking to the visitor’s centre!

We decided to call it a no go and instead head to the “devils @ cradle” zoo about 1 km away from the parking area. Fran got tickets online and we made it for the 10:30 am talk. Now we’ve seen the devils before (but loved seeing them again) but this place also had quolls which we’ve never seen and as they too are primarily nocturnal and not very large, we thought this was the best way to see them. They have two species here, the spotted tail quoll and the eastern quoll.  (BTW, when we told the lady we’d decided  not to do the Dove Lake hike, she said she was not surprised; “if you get a clear day to do that hike – you’d be smart to buy a lottery ticket”! she said; so we didn’t feel so bad.)

We were a tad early so we took a walk around the site and then Chris gave us a 45 minute talk walk around the place.

A random pademelon walked right by us:

We visited three Tasmanian devil pens – one had a single older male in it and you could see the marks left behind on this backside from the mating seasons he lived through. He is now “retired” as he’s too old to breed and lives alone.

Then it was on to visit the quoll pens; first the spotted tailed one and then the eastern quoll (some of these pics are through glass).

Quolls are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. They have brown or black fur and pink noses. They are largely solitary, but come together for a few social interactions such as mating which occurs during the winter. Once a female quoll has been impregnated, the folds on her abdomen convert into a pouch that opens at the back. The gestation period is approximately 21 days and a newborn quoll, or joeym is the size of a grain of rice at birth. A female gives birth to up to 30 pups, but the number that can be raised to adulthood is limited by the number of teats (6–7). They have a life span of 1–5 years.

Quolls eat smaller mammals, small birds, lizards, and insects. All species have drastically declined in numbers since Australasia was colonized by Europeans, with one species, the eastern quoll, becoming extinct on the Australian mainland in the 1960s. Major threats to their survival include the toxic cane toad which was introduced in Queensland in 1935, predators such as feral cats and foxes, urban development, and poison baiting. Conservation efforts include captive breeding programs and re-introductions.

They are mostly ground-dwelling, but it is not uncommon to see a quoll climbing a tree. 

There were also a very cute marsupial and hard to take photos of as many of the pens were fenced and did not have glass walls although some did. The spotted tailed quoll was about the size of a female devil but has a longer tail.

It rained on and off during our time here and we got really cold; you could see Chris’s breath when he spoke at times!  We had no regrets seeing devils again. They were quite healthy looking too and being kept away from outside critters.

We left the place around 11:30 and the weather had not improved. We did spot the top of Cradle Mountain at one point but most of it was in cloud so we did not regret our decision to skip the two hour + hike!

Click  here to see more photos of the area around Cradle Mountain NP and more, importantly, more devils and some quolls!

We had one more place to see before going to our booked hotel room in Westbury and that was the small town of Sheffield which is famous for its mural and as it happened, this weekend and next was “Mural Fest” which was competition so there was plenty of extra murals to view.

We walked up one side of main street veering off at times to see more and at one point we saw a little market where a fellow told us we could try some scallop pie (a famous Tasmanian specialty) but upon arriving at that kiosk, they were sold out.

We continued to walk around and found the contest area before returning to the car about an hour later.

We got to our hotel around 2 and after checking in, we both went for walks with Fran picking up some items for dinner as well. Our room at the Fitzpatrick Inn (built in 1830) has a private bathroom, small fridge, kettle, toaster and Wi-Fi as well as free parking. For this we paid $130 AUD ($84 USD).

We had a dinner of crackers, guac, cheese and yoghurt – no cooking facilities here and managed to stay warm in the room. Being an older building, there’s no central heat or AC and the electric heater took a while. There were two warm comforters on the bed here which for Fran was way overkill for sleeping but of course, it’s easy to push aside.  

We saw so many murals, if you want to see, click here.

Sidebar: Every place we’ve stayed at Tasmania, has provided an electric heating pad on the bed under the sheet which is never a fitted one. We’ve never used it.

Sunday morning, Doug went for his long run which went okay and Fran did yoga. After showering and tea, we hit the road shortly after then. It was a glorious sunny day with some fluffy clouds and promises to warm up back around 20C / 70F today and the next few days. Figures that the one day we wanted to do a longish hike, it was cold and wet but we can’t really complain. So this morning we are heading to Hobart for two nights with a couple of stops enroute today.

First it was the little town of Evandale, famous for its Sunday market. We wandered around it for about an hour, Doug got some used books, we got some “pipe” candy treats, some Tasmanian creamed honey and Fran bought herself new slippers for use in Matilda. It was a very pleasant stroll in a comfy temperature.

Then we moved onto the historic city of Ross (founded in 1821) where the “Female Factory” is located. This place was originally built as quarters for the chain gangs that built the Ross Bridge but in 1836 it became a female penal institution.

The Ross Female Factory is located is located he midlands region of Tasmania. The site was operational between 1848 and 1854.

The only remaining building is the overseer’s cottage which is now open to public to get a glimpse of the history of the convict site. The archaeological excavations of the site have revealed that the factory was divided into three sections: the Crime Class, the demoted Solitary Cells, and the promoted Hiring Class. These were considered the three stages of reform during the incarceration of the female convicts. Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land had ceased in 1853. The site served as a factory as well as a hiring depot, an overnight station for female convicts traveling between settlements, a lying-in hospital and a nursery.

Female convicts were hired for many different reasons from the factory as probation pass holders to local settlers, mainly to work as domestic servants. They could be sent back to the factory for punishment if they were charged with an offense by their master or mistress.

The Police Department took over use of the buildings after the female factory closed in 1854. The chapel was used by the Roman Catholic Church.

We toured the cottage reading the information boards and stories of some of the inmates. It was pretty interesting and it was actually free.

This link  will take you to more photos and info on Ross Female Factory.

We had a bite to eat from our food stuffs in the car and stopped at the village bakery to get some “scallop pies”, a Tasmanian specialty. A good pie has a butter pastry outer and is full of tender scallops and vegetables in a creamy curry sauce.  So fingers crossed, it is yummy. We bought a couple of other items as well to round out our dinner.

Then it was straight on to Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. The drive went smoothly and Fran broker her streak of never having to stop at a roundabout in this state today! Traffic has been pretty light in the rest of the state and she wasn’t surprised that here in the capital, the roads would be busier.

We had booked an apartment downtown about a click from the waterfront/docks. When Fran went to check in, we discovered they’d upgraded us to a king suite and it was very nice. We have a full kitchen (no oven though), a king bed, a small dining area, a balcony, a sitting area and a desk. For this we paid $293 AUD ($195 USD) for two nights. It comes with Wi-Fi and free parking.

Fran went for a walk to get a few groceries and the bottle store for beverages and we enjoyed a chill afternoon into the evening. (Alcohol is not sold in grocery stores here at all – just in “bottle shops”.)

Our dinner was the scallop pies which we pretty good but needed more scallops in our opinion:

Monday was full on sun again and after a catch up morning for Fran on the website and the hundreds of photos she’d taken in the past week, we went out after lunch for a stroll around the city centre/dock area.

We stopped by some 19^th century stone brick buildings like the Presbyterian church of St. David’s (built in 1836), a former bank (built in 1845) and the like.

We reached the docks and this area reminded us of the core of the city of Helsinki; water, docks, boats, and not very tall buildings surrounding it.

A Carnival cruise ship was in and there were a few people wandering around but it was not over crowded at all; no where in Tasmania has really been crowded; give it a month maybe once the kids are on holiday…..

We walked Salamanca Street where they hold a huge Saturday market (timing didn’t work for us) and it’s full of shops and restaurants with outdoor seating on a day like today.

We saw the old Henry Jones jam factory – he became quite a tycoon and is sited as being what would have been part of the 1% if there had been that term back in those days.

There were monuments to an Australian Antarctica expedition and due to this exploration, the sign says Australia lays claim to 42% of that continent..

There was a moving monument to the women and children who came to the island as convicts listing their names at the base of each sculpture:

We saw the monument to Abel Tasman which was quite impressive after walking past the Tasmania parliament building:

We returned to the apartment and spent rest of the day chilling.

Tuesday after exercising, showers, tea and clean up, we packed and had to check out by 11 (it’s normally 10 here in OZ but we asked for a late check out and that’s all we could get). Our flight is not until 8:40 pm so we have lots of time to kill. We had hoped to visit the MONA (Museum of old and new art) but turns out it’s closed Tuesday, Wednesday AND Thursdays!

We left the apartment at 11 after making breakfast and made our way up, up, up to Mount Wellington (kunanyi in local aboriginal language) at 1263m / 4144’ for views over the city. It was a perfect day for it too. Not a cloud in the sky and the temps were going to reach 23C / 74F today. We thought it would be a quick stop, get out look and leave but we did a short hike to see the basalt columns (called organ pipes here) a little closer up and there are a couple of boardwalks up there to view points so we did them all and perhaps spent an hour up there. It would be a perfect place for a cafe/bar but nothing like that up there.

It kinda felt like walking in Iceland, Norway or northern Scotland in that landscape.

We left there are drove back down not too far from where we’d stayed to Long Beach in Sandy Bay. Here we killed time by sitting a park bench, reading and walking and enjoying sitting by a beach in general. There was a cafe nearby and bathrooms too. Parking was free for two hours so we just moved the car after the first two hours and stayed one more hour.

Around 3:45 we decided to head towards the car rental place with one more stop to see the Tasman Bridge from one end of it. It was the beginning of rush hour and traffic moved quite slowly for a bit; we stopped to fill the gas tank and arrived at the view point just after 4. There was a small parking area and a few fisherman

The Tasman Bridge is a prestressed concrete girder bridge over the  River Derwent in Hobart. When it opened on 29 March 1965, the Tasman was the longest prestressed concrete bridge in Australia with a total length measuring 1,396 m / 4,580’, including approaches.  Averaging 73,029 vehicle crossings per day, the bridge is the highest volume road section in Tasmania. It features five lanes of traffic including a central lane equipped for tidal flow operations.

The Tasman Bridge gained national attention following the “Tasman Bridge disaster”. On 5 January 1975, the bridge was struck by the bulk ore carrier with a cargo of 10,000 tons of  zinc concentrate. It caused two piers and three sections of concrete decking to collapse and sink the vessel, resulting in the loss of twelve lives. The disaster split the city in half, forcing commuters living on the eastern shore to make a 50-kilometre (31 mi) round trip via the next bridge to the north. The Tasman Bridge reopened on 8 October 1977.

Click here to see more photos of Hobart.

We then drove to the car rental drop off office and they took us to the airport. We were rather early but we found a place to sit, have a beer, wait for bag drop off and then were able to get to the gate. The flight left about 20 minutes late so we arrived late but grabbed and Uber and were back at the hotel where we’d left Matilda and in bed by 11:30.

It was a very good side trip, we did most of what we wanted to do, enjoyed ourselves, didn’t feel rushed and the down time at the end was great. Now we have a couple of days to prepare for our trip to Vietnam!

Mileage in Tasmania in our rental car: 1799 km / 1117 mi

Comments on Tasmania:

Many Tasmanian towns have a British feel to them and lots of them have British names as do the streets in them.

It’s very green at least this time of the year and so beautiful in the sunlight.

It has hills and mountains, the tallest of which is Mount Ossa at 1617 m / 5035 ‘ (Cradle Mountain is 1545 m / 5069‘.

There’s lots of pasture land it seems we saw more cows than sheep but there are great numbers of the latter for sure.

Some Tasmanian treats: Valhalla ice cream (Fran had some at the Unzoo); scallop pie (mentioned above), pipes of licorice in different flavours which we tried at the Evandale market. 

The weather is definitely cooler here than on the mainland and they do get snow and freezing temps in many parts in winter being so much further south (even the animals here have thicker coats!).

We definitely recommend coming here on a trip Down Under and for us, 9 days was a good amount of time but you could definitely do it longer as we skip sights that are similar to things we’ve seen before and there are more heritage sites than we went to. It’s been delightful to travel without hordes of tourists and lots to see with good infrastructure.

As on the mainland, the sun is very strong here “down under” and you see much more hat wearing; even school children playing outside at PE time.

We can see the attraction to coming to live here if it wasn’t an island on the “other side of the world”. The pace of life is slower for sure.

Fun Facts about Tasmania:

1. It is the 26^th largest island in the world.
2. It is said to have the world’s cleanest air. Tasmania has the old-est trees in the world. Huon pine trees are located in Western Tasmania are some of the oldest living things on earth. The Huon Pine tree grows very slowly; a 20-metre tree could be thousands of years old. While the oldest individual tree or stem on the site may now be 1000 to 2000 years old, the organism itself has been living there continuously for 10,500 years.
3. Tasmania has over 2000km of walking tracks and 18 national parks
4. The Tasmanian Wilderness is a World Heritage Site that covers oe and half million hectares, making up 24% of Tasmania’s total land mass. It was listed as a World Heritage area as it is one of the last areas of cool-temperature rain forests in the world.
5. The first environmental political party in the world was founded in Tasmania.
6. Tasmania is also known as the Apple Isle due to the commercial success of the state’s apple industry.
7. It was named after the European explorer, Abel Tasman, a Dutchman, the first European to set foot on Tasmanian soil in 1642. Remarkably, he didn’t discover mainland Australia until his 2nd trip.
8. This state has the only world approved bottled rainwater. Pure rain water from the rainforests of the Northwestern region, is harvested and bottled, from the same area with the cleanest air.