I arrived in Hobart at midday. Hobart is at the southern end of Tasmania, and it is Australia's second oldest city. Hobart is famous for its large prison nearby in Port Arthur. Aussies call their state of Tasmania "Tassie". This term is so cute, and so Australian :)
It's weird though, because Tassie feels like a completely separate country from Australia. Tassie is more like a mix of AUS and New Zealand. It has the landscape of New Zealand, being an island of the same latitude, but does not nearly have the grandeur of NZ. In fact, Tasmania's landscape is to New Zealand's landscape as the Appalachians are to the Rockies- older, shorter, smaller, not quite as magnificent. However, Tassie is like New Zealand in that it sees the same weather patterns- Tassie's east coast is brown, dry, and hilly, while it's west coast is lush, green, wet, and mountainous.
The people in Tassie are also a mix between Aussie's and Kiwis... Aussie accent with the small-town, middle-of-the-wilderness attitude of New Zealand. I don't know, something about Tasmanians felt a bit... off. Nevertheless, I had an awesome time in Tassie on a five day tour across the island and back.
Oh and yes, the Tasmanian Devil exists :) He doesn't look like Taz the cartoon (he is black with a white stripe), but he is cute, full of energy, and snarls and screams if something or someone gets in the way of his food. I was also realy excited to hear that if you got a picture of a Tassie Tiger (the Thylacines), then you received a full refund on the cost of your tour. I felt really gullible when I learned that the Tassie Tiger is extinct- the last tiger in the wild was killed in 1930, and the last tiger in the captivity died in the Hibart Zoo in 1938. What a beautiful creature though.
My five day tour across Tassie was generally quiet and relaxing. We had a small group of only six people, so we all got to spread out in the 24-seater bus. Usually these tours have all 24 people, but for some reason ours was smaller. It's okay though, I loved having the extra space (though I would've enjoyed having some extra company... Maybe some single guys perhaps?). So our tour was me, a quiet young couple from Taiwan who we referred to as Mr. T and Mrs. B, then Nana the 37-year-old woman also from Taiwan who got burned out from work and whose Tarot Cards told her to go to Australia, Nicole the 23-year-old nurse from Germany who has a June 24th birthday like me, and Chantal the 23-year-old chef and aspiring baker from Switzerland. I hung out most with Chantal and Nicole. We had some crazy fun times!
I chose this tour because it offered a range of hiking acitivies, and I was not disappointed. On Day 1, we drove through the small town of Ross (the sheep capital of Tassie, yay more sheep!) where I ate an awesome, award-winning scallop pie. Then we drove through the pink knuckle rocks of the Hazzard Mountains to get to Wineglass Bay. With it's stark white sand, light green water, and mountainous backdrop, Wineglass Bay is one of the top ten beaches in the world! Fun fact: Wineglass Bay belongs to Freycinet National Park, the third oldest national park in the world. Yellowstone in the U.S. Is the second oldest, and I sadly can't remember the first oldest...
At Freycinet National Park, I chose to summit Mount Amos to get a fantastic view of Wineglass Bay and the surrounding area from above. This was a great hike and quite challenging. We climbed up and scrambled over steep and slick boulders, much like what it would be like climbing up the face of Stone Mountain. If it had been raining, this climb would have been impossible. The summit was wide and had lots of boulders to climb, as well as great places to get a 360 degree view! Beautiful!
After the hike, we drove onward to the small town of Bicheno to stay the night at Bicheno Backpackers. Bicheno is a "one horse town", as it is only big enough for one horse. The night life here is in the form of a nighttime penguin tour when the adult Fairy Penguins come out of the ocean and climb to the rockery to feed their young. The adults spend the day catching and eating fish, and then they regurgitate the meal into their young chicks' mouths.
Unfortunately it is currently low season for the penguins. All of the chicks have grown and gone out to sea while the parents are hiding in their nests and molting. We managed to see some penguins come out of the sea and walk up on shore, and we saw some molting, but usually they see penguins in groups of 30 or more come out of the sea together! If it's the right time of the year, you can even see the parents feeding the chicks! It would've been neat to see, but it was still so adorable to see these penguins up close and in the wild. They're so little and cute and I love their little waddle!
Haha but during the tour I couldn't keep my eyes off of the fantastic night sky revealing itself overhead. I don't think I could ever tire of gazing at the Southern Cross- the fact that it is unique to the southern hemisphere makes it so fascinating and special.
The morning of Day 2, I got up early to watch the sunrise over Bicheno, but it was sadly rainy and cloudy. Rain is apparently rare for this area though, so I guess it's okay. We headed off toward Launcestown, moving from the dry east to the wet west (just like in New Zealand). Launceston is actually on the same latitude as Christchurch across the Tasman Sea that is currently recovering from their tragic earthquake.
Along the way we stopped at the Bay of Fires, another beautiful white sand beach that was voted the Number Two beach in the world in 2002. I thought that it was called the Bay of Fired because of the fire red algae covering the rocks along the shore, but in fact, it's name came from the early European explorers when they saw the Aborigine's fires on this beach.
We made another stop at St. Columba Falls to have lunch, and then continued on to Launceston. The rain cleared and the sun was shining brightly when we arrived, so we went to First Basin, a natural lake/river/gorge/park in Launceston. The world's longest single span chair lift is here, as well as a beautiful 6 lane, 50-meter pool! We just relaxed on the grass and in the pool for a few hours, then went to check in to the hostel. Tomorrow I plan to summit Cradle Mountain, so it's time to get some good sleep :)
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