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chloeandgregoztravels · 7 years ago

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For Greg’s 25th birthday I decided it would be perfect if we could tick off another state in Australia and flew us to the often forgotten paradise of Tasmania. We flew out at 7am for Launceston (pronounced Lorn-ses-ton) unfortunately it was so foggy when we arrived that the plane had to circle for over an hour to wait for it to clear, they even announced that we might have to land in Hobart instead! Luckily the pilot managed to successfully land and recieved a full round of applause from the passengers.

We picked up our hire car and drove to our hostel in town, there appeared to be no one around so we grabbed some juicy burgers for lunch and headed over to Cataract Gorge just outside of town. It was a little cloudy and cold to start but it was still beautiful and after walking round we warmed up. For the first time ever, we spotted these little marsupials called Pademelons, they are a smaller fatter version of a wallaby. So cute!

Cataract Gorge

Pademelon

Suspension Bridge

In 1940 they built a suspension bridge which boasts an incredible view up the gorge thats dotted with little waterfalls. Just as the sun started to appear we decided to take a ride on the chairlift, it was quite relaxing and slowly moved us over the lake, still a little scary when it wobbles! We were still tired from our flight and made our way back to the hostel for a quick dinner and an early night.

Along with the holiday I booked 3 tours and our first one was to the Bay of Fires on the East coast. When our guide David picked us up he informed us that we would be the only ones on the tour! Nice, our own private day out! Dave was amazing, whilst we were driving he gave us thoroughly interesting talks about Tasmania and its history. I’ll sum up some of what he spoke about as I thought it was great, but if you’re not into history skip this paragraph!

As Tasmania was originally connected to mainland Australia, the Aborigines walked across to Tazzie and over the (thousands of) years they developed differently to mainland aboriginals. Firstly they never learnt how to build their own fires, so they relied on a lightning strike to start one which they would then use to create more and they would keep them burning constantly! They also never learnt how to build boats/canoes/rafts, so to go fishing they had to wade out into the cold Antarctic water and spearfish. Furthermore unlike their cousins, they never made boomerangs which meant hunting animals was a lot more difficult.

The weather in Tasmania is ever-changing and seasonal making the Aborigines nomadic, and following the seasons depending on where the food, weather or shelter was best throughout the year. When the first explorers came they thought the island was uninhabited as they arrived in the West where the weather is much more wet and aggressive. When explorers eventually made it to the East, hundreds of years later, they explored the Bay of Fires, people think it got its name from the orange fire-like lichen over the rocks but in fact they named it such as the 30km of coastline was lit up with smoke columns!

It was the arrival of the British that sadly resulted in the genocide of the Tasmanian Aborigines, this is an awful story that deserves to be properly told so I will leave that to your own research, but it was truly horrendous.

Tasmania was originally called Van Diemen’s Land after a Dutch governor (the first europeans to land in the East), and eventually ended up as a destination for convicts, some of which would be sent due to repeat offences on the mainland. After the convict era, the stigma with Van Dieman’s Land meant people didn’t want to emigrate there, so they renamed it Tasmania, after Abel Tasman the Dutch explorer.

Dave also told us about the industrial progression over the years and about how badly the forestry industry was affected through politics, taking it from the second highest industry in Tasmania to the lowest. Unexpectedly mining takes first place, followed by agriculture then tourism, which he also gave us an engaging talk about. What I found to be most surprising was that Tasmania is the biggest exporter of medicinal opium poppies in the world, due to it’s prime location and supplies more than 50% of the Worlds medicinal opium.

We learnt about more of the local animals, a surprising amount of the fauna is endemic to Tazzie. This includes the well known Tasmanian devils and another marsupial called the Eastern Quoll. There’s also a peculiar marsupial called an Antechinus (anti-ky-nus). It is as small as a mouse and only lives for one breeding cycle, as the male just keeps going until its heart gives out and after the female gives birth the young basically keep taking the milk until she is drained completely! Crazy.

Dave gave us this history lesson throughout the day, stopping every time we arrived at a destination, first up was a lavender farm. unfortunately its winter so the lavender isn’t a bright blooming purple so we definitely want to visit again to see it in it’s prime, but it was still a good stop. The farm is huge, the biggest, privately owned, organic lavender farm in Australia, Dave showed us the different types of lavender and even though they were dead you could still smell it strongly. The gift shop was full of these purple ‘Bobbi bears’, which is very popular in China and there’s even a TV show about him, but he’s just a wheat bag teddy bear to keep you warm and the lavender helps you sleep.

Lavender Fields

We made a stop for a short rainforest walk. The first tree he showed us was the Myrtle tree, he explained that they have survived for about 60 million years, I misheard him and thought the tree he was pointing at was that old… A serious face palm moment. The species managed to survive ice ages because even though they are huge trees the millions of leaves are only a few millimetres across and could never completely covered in snow so they were still able to photosynthesise where othertrees died out. He also pointed out that the Sassafras tree is lazy and relied on sapping nutrients from ferns for nutrients and even leaning on them for support. The rainforest walk was only 15 minutes or so but enjoyable nonetheless. As we walked through Dave asked us if we were aware that we were breathing in some of the cleanest air in the world, due to Tasmania’s latitude it is unaffected by the heavily polluted countries and as a state they are very environmentally aware.

Rainforest Walk

We stopped for lunch at Binalong Bay, a beautiful, long beach where Greg flew his drone for a while, taking some sweeping shots along the beach which I will do my best to edit soon. Just around the corner we witnessed the famous orange lichen topped rocks, you’d think the Bay of fires is named because of these fiery orange rocks, but for those of you who didn’t read the history paragrapgh, it’s name comes from when the European explorers first witnessed the 30 kilometre coastline it was all lit up with hundreds of columns of smoke, as I mentioned earlier the aborigines didn’t learn how to make fire so they had to keep them all burning. The water is crystal clear and in the sun the water is brilliant blue, we were so lucky that even in winter we were blessed with a sunny day.

Binalong Bay

Oyster Tasting

Feeling a bit nervous we pulled into Launch 65, an oyster farm, I knew I couldn’t turn down the opportunity of having the freshest oysters I will probably ever try. Dave talked us through the process of growing and farming the oysters and how they are some of the top rated produce because of how fresh the water is. When he asked us how many we wanted I thought to myself just one, he recommended half a dozen and smiling ear to ear he brought them over. I was ready to put on a brave face when he explained that these were so fresh we should chew them, I really didn’t think I’d enjoy them but I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say that they were unbelievably delicious! We even ordered more! Unreal.

Since we had the tour to ourselves, Dave asked if there was anywhere extra we wanted to visit, what an amazing coincidence! I found out that my Dad’s father lived near the Bay of Fires in St Helens and although I never knew him while he was alive he had a strong passion for sculpture and was very talented, so it was of course exciting for me to have a chance to see his work. A small museum in the visitors centre called ‘The History Room’

My Grandfather’s work

displays some of his work, it was a shame the staff were rather unhelpful and I later found out I only saw two of four pieces of his work but nonetheless his sculptures are in wonderful condition considering they were donated in 1996. One is a working replica model of some kind of stamping machine used in mining and the other a much larger scale model of a water wheel from an old tin mine in the area, because we were short on time we didn’t learn the significance they have but it was amazing that you could put 20c and they all still operate perfectly, it was a strange feeling to see this work my Grandad had made in action.

On the drive back to the hostel Dave recommended a fish and chip shop for our dinner, he even went the extra mile to order for us and let us pick it up before dropping us home! Note to people visiting Oz, if you order flake, it’s actually shark!

A huge thanks and recommendation to David Luttrell and his tours from Coach Tours Tasmania who is on Facebook for those who would like to book with him!

The following morning, we had heard of a snow warning and were daunted at the prospect of skipping out Cradle Mountain if the roads were closed so we checked out of our hostel and had a bimble around a few local art galleries and museums while we waited for any snow to clear.

The drive is only about two and half hours but we stopped at a few places along the way, if we ever came back I’d definitely want to spend longer doing a food tour. There are so many wonderful places where you can buy food or stop for free tasters. We stopped first at a raspberry farm, treating ourselves to pancakes, scones, hot chocolate and a smoothie, I should mention that virtually everything on their menu comes with raspberries, even savoury meals like poached eggs on toast came with raspberries! We sampled various tasters but my favourite were the dark chocolate coated raspberries. The cafe was full to burst and when we ate the food it was clear to see why people came, delicious. Next door was a creamery which we made the mistake of visiting as after a little taster it was too good to turn down a scoop.

Pancakes

Scones

We left very full and our next planned stop was a honey farm (to carry on our search for chocolate honey, which Gregs mum had bought him one year for Christmas), but on the way I saw a sign for a salmon farm, we didn’t want to miss a free taster of Tazzie salmon! We enjoyed our tasters and the friendly guy running the shop informed us that the honey shop was closed on Saturdays so we headed straight to Cradle Mountain stopping only to take in some of the breathtaking views and giving Greg’s drone another flight before entering the national park where they are banned by the Tasmanian government.

Along the road we saw our first glimpse of snow in a few years and soon the landscape was coated in a white sheet of it, I felt ready for Christmas. I think Australians simply can’t pass up this rare opportunity to build a snowman as there are dozens of them dotted along the roadside which made for good entertainment.

We arrived at the hotel as night fell bathed in the luxury, especially compared to our cold backpacker hostel the night before, after a long day we ordered room service and had an early night.

For photos please head to my Flickr page HERE!

Van Diemen’s Land For Greg's 25th birthday I decided it would be perfect if we could tick off another state in Australia and flew us to the often forgotten paradise of Tasmania.

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