A weekend in Tassie

I am really bad with keeping up with blog posts as you should know by now, and I should stop starting my blog posts with excuses about my bad blogging skills as well. Anyways, I skipped a whole bunch of stuff between the last post and now but recently, I had spent a weekend (3 days/2nights) in Tasmania and I just HAD to blog about it!

The trip itself was very last minute for me because my friends had told me about it a bit later and I decided to join in! I bought my plane tickets abruptly the next day and waited for the weekend to come! We actually rented a camper van for this trip to save money and also for the true Aussie experience, which at first, I was a bit uneasy about but after this weekend, I feel like I could conquer anything! Not really, living in a camper van (intended for 3 people) with 3 other people is not easy, definitely not the most clean/comfortable. I feel if I had stayed longer than 2 nights, I would go crazy. Not to mention smelly because showers were a rare necessity to come by. I should’ve taken a photo of the inside of the van but basically there is usually 3 rows of seats but instead of 3, the middle row is taken out and boards are put in so that you can lay single mattresses to make a bed.

When I was waiting for transportation to goto the airport, I saw the most mystical sight in the city: Hot air balloons. I was so amazed as I had never seen hot air balloons before, nor that close. It wasn’t that close but it looked huge even from my point of view! What a great way to start the trip!

I had checked the weather beforehand and it said it would rain on the day I arrived so I was a bit disappointed. But as I was entering Tasmania grounds in the plane, the weather looked drastically better than I had expected.

One the first day when I arrived in Tasmania, my friends were already there from last night so they picked me up in the van and we did some grocery shopping before our trip began. If you have ever heard of the Tasmanian devil, well, they sold their eggs at the grocery shops here … Sadly, we did not see any wild ones.

Oh, did I mention I was the one driving on narrow mountain roads, it was pretty terrifying at some points. The view while driving though, was spectacular. From hills to mountains to fields of green to fields of sheeps and clear, blue beaches. I couldn’t have asked for more of a roadtrip view!

We stopped by a bunch of beaches along the way because the water was the utmost blue with beautiful white sand. I dare say, the drive could be better than the Great Ocean Road.

We then made our way to the famous Freycinet National Park on the Freycinet peninsula. I saw this in the visitor centre and thought it was really neat. Although we did not see any wombats on this trip, it was probably for the better because apparently they attack people and are definitely way larger than that.

We had originally booked kayaking for 4pm but when we got there, it was rescheduled for tomorrow morning at 9am because the winds were too harsh. So instead, we decided to walk up to the famous Wineglass Bay, along with Coles bay. The locals suggested checking out Honeymoon Bay, Sleepy Bay, and Cape Tourville inside the national park so we did all of those as well! You can tell how tired I was by the end of this day … When we got to the parking lot, we were joined by wild Wallabies (the smallest kind = friendliest ones)! I’ve never been this up close to a wallaby and since they were super friendly, I got to touch one! It was definitely a mother because she was carrying a baby inside her pouch, mucho adorable!

Omg, it’s so cute I want to cry. Look at that baby!

First we traversed up the windy pathway to the top of the lookout point for Wineglass Bay, but along the way, there was another lookout point for Coles Bay so we stopped for a bit there.

Almost to the top so we can get a more full view of Coles Bay! The boulders witnessed along the way were way massive. The mountain itself is pretty much made up of huge red boulder the size of small shacks.

We are finally at the lookout point for Coles bay, and a resting point for my friends and I …

The walk up to Wineglass Bay lookout point was around 40mins and the hot sun hitting our backs, but it was definitely a walk worth doing! We came up to this great view overlooking the bay and its white sandy beaches. You can even see other lakes from here and it’s crazy how the water is so crystal clear and blue!

After this walk, Honeymoon Bay, Sleepy Bay, and Cape Tourville followed. The first two were pretty beautiful but none could compare to the Cape Tourville walk. It was absolutely grand! I couldn’t believe my eyes that everything was so vast and I was on the edge of the world (pretty much). This walk is one of Tasmania’s 60 greatest walks, so if you’re planning on going down there, definitely check out this walk. I hope my photos will do most of the convincing. 😛

Honeymoon Bay (for you lovebirds wanting to get away)

No pics of Sleepy bay, but here are some of Cape Tourville (my fave)!

For the first night, we camped out at Friendly beach just 20km of the national park. We made ourselves some sausages with cheese and ketchup and toasted some bread slices. Real Australian camping, I would say. I was hungry so I didn’t care what we ate. When we were finishing with eating, it was pretty dark already and we heard some shuffling in the bushes. It was MORE wallabies! They’ve come to take our food, we were all pretty freaked out by bouncing black shadows in the dark. You could also imagine it was pretty hilarious. But we quickly packed up everything and hid inside the van. After a while, we had to go out for the washroom and we came across the most beautiful sight in the world. Since there was no light anywhere, stars covered the entire star from end to end. I definitely could not count it all and my Iphone could not capture this magical moment so I had to just store it in my memory bank. What made the moment even more special is that one of my friend and I had witnessed a shooting star! Holy crap, never in my life have I seen something like that and I’ve always wondered what it looked like. Obviously, I panicked and did NOT make a wish because at the same time, I know that that star has been dead million light years away (LOL guess Milky Way did teach me something). It’s okay, just seeing it made pretty much has already made my life.

Second day, we woke up and made our way to the paddling/kayaking tour. IT was quite chilly in the morning and the winds blew quite hard so it was pretty rough out on the waters. At one point, I literally thought I was going to flip over and drown. I have to say getting from one side of the river to the other side was pretty tough and we kept taking shelters to shield away from the incoming waves. I felt like I signed up for surfing instead of kayaking! Once we got to Honeymoon Bay and had some tea and snack, the weather was much better and the sun came out. Therefore, we made our way back to the point of origin.

We stopped halfway and the guide made us turn around and we were faced with this marvellous view of the mountains!

After kayaking, we made our way into a small town on the way back and had some lunch, I ordered some oysters cause I heard the oysters here were delicious and super fresh! They were indeed. Out of nowhere, these two girls came up to us and told us that they were also at the same campsite last night and that we totally just drove off without one of our mattresses LOL. They were pretty much running after us and thank god they found us at the town. What a funny coincidence and faith in humanity restored!

We then made our way for Mount Field National Park where we settled for the night. The same thing happened again except this time, we were attacked by not-so-friendly-looking bushtail possums! We realized that’s why everyone packed up so early and went into their car, because they know the animals come out lurking at night! They had red eyes and were kind of growling a bit. Obviously, we freaked out once more and hid in the car until grounds were safe. Here are some evidences of us living the camper life.

Mmh, bread and cheese, what a necessity…

After waking up in the morning, we made our way into the actual park and took a bush walk that led us to 3 waterfalls: Russell Falls, Horseshoe Falls, and Lady Baron Falls. They were each equally as amazing and I do love a good waterfall.

Overlooking the park from the top of Russell Falls

Horseshoe Falls was actually my favourite, just look at it!

And finally, Lady Baron Falls that had the most powerful flowing water ever.

After the park, we were actually on our way to Mount Wellington but since we had our flight in the afternoon, we simply could not make it. I was rather disappointed but instead, we dropped by the famous MONA: Museum of Old and New Art. This museum is built on the edge of the island overlooking the water and the rest of the city near it, rather beautiful location I would say. They had a exhibition going on called “The Red Queen” when we went.

I usually don’t visit modern museums as much so this was indeed a surprise to me. I loved the concept of this museum, the whole thing is basically underground and you start at the most bottom floor and work your way up. The architecture inside the museum, when you first enter, reminded me of a mummy’s tomb. Here’s what I mean.

Thats the winding elevator/stairs that leads you down the hallow path to the basement floors. For the upcoming photos, I can’t really explain the arts themselves so I’ll just have to show you pictures and you guys can then interpret them yourself 🙂 Furthermore, they give everybody an iPhone/iPod at the entrance that shows/tells you description of each art piece and the interviews held with the artist; the art pieces themselves don’t have any info stands so to make the viewing process more pleasant and catered to each individual. (If you’re special, they even give you a pair of headphones to listen to the interviews, which my friends and I got!) Pretty modern indeed! These pieces are some of my favourites.

The Pulsating Room (w/pulsating light bulbs obviously)

The circles are all vinyl discs. Pretty rad.

A trampoline attached to musical instruments that make sounds when you jump on it!

How does one play on this ping pong table …

The Paradise Room (favourite room) – funny story, I was actually sitting where that girl is sitting to take a photo and when I got up after the photo taking, I slipped on the pink carpet down the hill. (It’s way slippery than it looks) I was so embarrassed but at the same time, really funny. So every time I look at this photo, my palms would get sweaty. (ew)

The extremely large TV screen.

K, this room was mad creepy. It was basically these numerical the whole way and you had to follow the path until the really inner part of the room. I got extremely creeped out because when I got to the middle, I looked up and saw something move and I freaked. Turns out, it was just my reflection but man, I got so scared for some reason.

The Buddhas, one made with soil and one with metal.

This really cool device that used wind as the power to draw on paper!

And thus ends our short trip in Tasmania. Local Melbournians (Rowena) have told me there was no point in visiting Tassie but I proved them wrong. It was definitely a wonderful trip with some cool people and lots of neat things to see. I think the short time there was definitely well used up and funny enough, the afternoon that we left, it started pouring so we had it really lucky! Thank you Mother Nature! Moreover, the roadtrip/camper experience was well needed/suited for this beautiful, full of nature land.