Tasmania 2008!

Tasmania was beautiful. quiet but beautiful. Have always wanted to visit the 'little' island since 2nd year.. felt like i was living in, say, malaysia and taking a trip to Pangkor island kind of thing. just that Tasmania is bigger. and yes it's still Australia.

so after an hour's flight from Melbourne, a quarantine check of my bag (cos the dog jumped at it) and almost forgetting we've got to take our luggage (cos there's no huge baggage belt reminding you that you have to collect any checked-in luggage), we collected the car (a white 3dr hyundai getz) and zoomed off to launceston. i was armed with my "trusted" google-map driving directions to get from Launceston to Cradle Mountain. But i didn't know they don't NAME the highways on the signboards (how gullible can i get!) so we took a while to get used to the names of little towns, the numbered highways... and just trusting.



so clockwise from top left.. 1. Cradle Mountain- Dove Lake. it's a lovely 3hr circuit on boardwalk most of the time... yes unchallenging and can get a bit boring.. a few parts reminding me of singapore's MacRitchie reservoir. but it's still a nice relaxing walk :) great for family walks!
2. buttongrass at Cradle Mountain
3. RAINBOW!!!!
4. Enchanted Walk- 20min boardwalk .. i thought i was quite boring at first. but gave it a bit more time and realised i felt like i was in a fairytale.. with the luscious green. erm. moulds growing everywhere.. and with the river flowing.. mesmerising.
5. mini water fall - part of enchanted walk
6. Cosy Cabin no 6! :) i love cabins! so well-equipped with every thing!!! :D
7. our first meal in Launceston- pretty much packed half of it and ate as dinner ;)
8. my favourite mao2 mao2 grass!! :)
9. dinner on 2nd night ;)





so after spending 2 nights at cradle mountain just walking and watching tv and sleeping, we woke up 'bright and early' at 7.30am on the 3rd morning and made our way to the East Coast! we stopped along the way, after missing the tour times for the Mole Creek caves, we stopped at Chudleigh and visited the quaint and cosy Honey Farm.. where there were lots of different types of honey (haha)- that's the picture with the bees around the house.
Then we stopped at Campell Town (4) for lunch- pie and coffee... and i took a sharp turn into the side road to look at the Red Bridge (4)! what caught my attention as i stood out of the car was the NOISE of a group of very excited ducks/geese from like 10m away? they practically swam all the way to us, walked up the bank, right next to our car and only walk back down to the river when we drove off. ??? really puzzling behaviour i must say!
5. that's us on the walk up to the Wineglass Bay Lookout.. a good 30min uphill climb :) made me miss grampians!
6. the view from the lookout. we didn't go down to the beach just cos it was 3pm. haha. sun sets early!!!!!!
7. Cape Tournville Lighthouse boardwalk: was LOVELY. just the lighting and everything. we glowed in the pictures and the clouds were breathtaking :)
8. our dinner from the nearby take-away store from YHA at Iluka Holiday Centre. not ery nice. 9. the view of Muirs Beach from the front of the backpackers where we stayed for a night.

So after a sort of uncomfortable night, we woke up early, had breakfast, and left the Freycinet National Park and made our way down to Port Arthur. it's interesting how the view changes with the places you go? like a lot more bare trees along the roads (2). We stopped at Eaglehawk Neck and took pictures of the Tasman blow-hole (3) before making our way down to the Port Arthur Historic Site (4). Not knowing that there's tour times and all, we made it to the nicely scheduled cruise and walking tour of the site... i must say that i was quite tired that day.. plus it puzzled me why Port Arthur was set up. was it really for the mission of transforming the lives of the convicts or was it for a pure selfish means of colonisation? sad upon hearing stories of convicts all becoming mentally/physically ill after being sent to the plenitarary. anyways, the middle picture is a view of the broken hospital from the prison. one interesting point as well.. Port Arthur was a prison for 30 years but a tourist attraction since 1877. interesting? i think so!
6. and 9. that's the tessellated pavement beautifully created from the waves and erosion .. right in front of our motor inn!
7. our dinner ;)
8. the motor inn at Eaglehawk Neck.
So, leaving Eaglehawk neck, we made our way to the final few destinations that was provided by the itinierary that a group of friends followed while they were in Tasmania last dec.. i pretty much followed their itinierary.. making a few changes here and there that's all.
1. Sorell Fruit Farm- was closed. for the season :( dashed my hopes of a strawberry pancake breakfast/brunch :(- twice.
2. the road to hobart....from a long way back i've stopped trusting in googlemaps and i just followed the road signs as i drove...
3. and we made our way to the Cadbury Factory in Claremont, Hobart! :) what's a trip to Hobart w/o visiting the factory eh? was quite patriotic when Singapore was the main provider of the processed cocoa products: butter, powder and something else. bought a few blocks of chocs and cheap drinking chocolate ;)
4. see! the scenery along the roads is different from place to place!
5. Russell Fall at Mt Field National Park: a sad stream of what was supposed to be a magnificent waterfall. :(
6. the drive back to Hobart but i didn't want to go check in so early. so i decided to bring us both up to 1270m above sea level ;)
7, 8 and 9. Mt Wellington. my mum was apparently very afraid during the drive up the meandering road up. i was afraid when i stepped out of the car!!! the wind just kept BLOWING!!! and i was shivering and with my shaking heads i took photos of the view of whatever there was at sea-level.. and we quickly ran back to the car. my mum was worried that the car would topple over from the wind!! O_o but whatever it was. it was scary. but exhilarating! hee.