Eastern Delights

Day 9: We left a sunny Hobart and travelled up the Midlands Highway to another cute town of Ross. Of particular interest here was a sheepdog contest which happened to be going on, a quaint little diversion from clocking up the miles on the road. We cut across to the East coast, heading for the beautiful Freycinet National Park, where the sun was shining and the sea dazzling. It was perfect.

It was an uphill climb in the heat to an overlook for Wineglass Bay, worth every single ounce of effort.

It was then a rocky scramble down to the beach, all the time thinking “We’ve gotta come back up this way!” The beach was amazing though, and the water was absolutely stunning. It was a great spot to eat lunch, chill out and get your feet wet. How relaxed and on holiday do I look in this pic?!

Sadly we couldn’t linger too long and had a tough climb back up countless steps to the lookout and back down again to the car park, where a friendly little wallaby was hanging around as we had afternoon tea and biccies.

More wildlife followed at Natureworld, a nice little park near Bicheno. I guess the main highlight here were the Tasmanian Devils, who are currently under threat through a disease going around, so places like this will prove invaluable in maintaining numbers and coming up with a cure.

There were also a number of birds here, a koala, emus, wombats, snakes, some farmyard animals and, of course, the kangaroos and wallabies, who were tame and enjoyed a good feed.

We stayed in the charming little town of Bicheno, where I searched for some food and ended up (again) with fish and chips, washed down with a few Boags ales as the sun went down and the stars appeared in the crystal clear sky.

Day 10: The supposedly dreary and cold Tasmanian weather continued to stay away (meanwhile Canberra was getting a hailstorm) and it was a drive up the bushfire scarred east coast towns of Scamander and St Marys to St Helens and then onto a place called Cosy Corner in nearby Bay of Fires National Park. If I didn’t have enough white beaches and clear blue seas yesterday I had my fill here. Again, the water was beautiful and temperature just about perfect. I guess it’s not so good on a wet day, but if everyday was like this you wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.

Now the Bay of Fires is so called partly because the Aboriginal People would ward off intruders through fires here, but also the vivid orange rocks which were abundant, and great for a little walk discovering the rockpool life.

The day was that good I even had four young ladies to keep me company!

They then took me to lunch, as we headed inland to the rolling countryside of the north east. Lunch was sat outside at a pub called The Paddock, and it felt just like a perfect English summers day, sat outside having a pub lunch. The guy looking very pleased with himself in the middle is Brian, our guide, who was good fun and very knowledgeable about the environment in which he took us.

Whilst the pub on its own was lovely on a day like today, the star attraction is a pig which drinks beer! She downs a bottle in a few seconds. I think I know some people like that!

Brian then took us on a short walk through some cool temperate rainforest, pointing out the different trees and plants and we spotted an echidna rooting around in the soil.

There was also a waterfall to see here followed by a cool return walk through the trees and back to the bus.

The rest of the day took us across the hills heading west, eventually entering the Tamar Valley and Launceston (oo-arrr), where we settled in for the night, checked out the Tamar River and visited a British pub. Sadly a few people left the trip here, including Brian who was heading back home for a few days. But the east coast had shone in all its glory and truly was a picture postcard two days.