Tasmania was amazing. Four days really wasn't enough to see it all, but I basically went non-stop and saw as much as I could. I put over 1300 kilometers on the car I rented over the four days. I flew into Launceston, rented a car and then drove to Cataract Gorge. It's a gorge that has several walks you can do around it that has some amazing views, a swimming pool at the entrance, and a cafe in the middle with peacocks wandering around right next to you. I spent about three hours at the gorge, then got in my car and drove about four or five hours out to the west coast. I got to the town of Rosebery that evening and checked in with the campground I had reserved that night. Rosebery was the kind of town that you blink and you missed it, so there really wasn't much to do there. I went to the local pharmacy to get a few things and started talking to the pharmacist there. When I told him I was from Hillsong College, I found out he was Christian too and we ended up hanging out and having dinner that evening in town. We exchanged email addresses then I went to sleep early in my car since there wasn't anything to do really in that town. I woke up early the next morning and drove to the beginning of the Montezuma Falls hike I'd planned on doing. It's about a three hour hike round trip to waterfall and once you get there, you walk out on a small bridge that sways back and forth with two pieces of chain-link fence on either side keeping you from falling. The waterfall was beautiful. I spent about 30 minutes at the falls before heading back to the car. I then traveled south to the town of Strahan. I grabbed some lunch and walked around the town for a bit. Then I headed west to Lake St. Clair National Park. By this time, it was evening, so I asked the ranger there if there was a 1-2 hour hike I could do around there. I did a hike around the lake to platypus bay, where supposedly it's common to see a platypus. It was raining a bit though, so I think that kept the platypus from coming out. I slept in the car again that night.
The next morning, I began the drive to Hobart. I got to my hostel and decided I would make the drive out to Port Arthur, where they housed some of the troubled prisoners back when they first brought the convicts to Australia. Along the way, there were several stops with interesting views at the ocean, including the Tessellated Pavement, the Tasman Arch, and the Tasman blowhole. I also stopped at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park. There I was able to watch them feed some Tasmanian Devils. Since Tasmanian Devils are fairly slow and not too smart, they generally eat roadkill in the wild, so that's what they feed them at the Park as well. They eat the bones and fur of whatever their meal is, so by the time they're done, there is nothing left. While watching them eat, I accidentally dropped my camera over the gate where they were. A few of them heard it drop and went to see if it was food. They bit it a couple times and then went back to the Wallaby roadkill they had been eating. The ranger grabbed a stick and retrieved my camera for me. That was a bit embarrassing, lol. Then I was able to see a kangaroo feeding there as well. But for the kangaroos, they have a bucket of food and allow the visitors to feed them. So I had the kangaroos eat out of my hand. It was pretty fun. I then went to Port Arthur and walked around the grounds there, seeing the harsh conditions of the prisoners who stayed there. I then drove back into Hobart, walked around the town, and grabbed some dinner.
The next morning, I drove to the top of Mount Wellington. You can look up pictures online, but it's supposed to have an amazing 360 degree view of Hobart and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, the day I went was rainy and extremely foggy. You could barely see 10 feet in front of you. It was also pretty cold up there, I'd guess around the mid-forties, farenheit, which is very cold considering this is Australia's summer. I didn't spend too much time up there, considering I couldn't see anything. So I drove back down to Hobart and checked out of my hostel. I needed to be at the airport the next morning to fly to Melbourne, so I was staying in Launceston that night. Rather than get there by the highway, I drove up the east coast and stopped in Richmond, the oldest city in Tasmania with the oldest Jail, church, cemetery, and bridge in Tasmania. Then I continued north and stopped at Freycinet National Park and hiked to Wineglass Bay. Once again, the foggy conditions that day prevented me from seeing the amazing view from the lookout point that you can see if you look up Wineglass Bay online, but I did hike all the way to the bay, and it was still beautiful once there. I really felt like hiking fast that day, so what was supposed to take me an hour and a half each way, took me 50 minutes to get there and 40 minutes to get back. I was having fun getting my heart rate up. I did walk around the beach for an hour once I got there. I then finished the drive up to Launceston, getting there around 10:00 pm. I went to sleep and got up to get to the airport the next morning and flew to Melbourne.
If you want to see pictures from my trip, they're on my facebook page. I'll try to make a post in the next couple days about the Melbourne portion of my trip. Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment