Tasmania

March 2004, and we wave a fond farewell to Sydney to move onto some more travels in Australia. We are making our way to Hong Kong, but taking time to travel around Tasmania and the west coast of Aus along the way.
In a word, Tasmania was breathtaking. We loved our time there. Flying into Launceston ("Lonny" to the locals) we made our way to our hostel in the centre of town. We only had 8 ydasin Tassie, so we spent the next day exploring Launceston before heading to our next destination - Stanley.

Stanley

Tassie Sunrise, Stanley
Stanley is famous for it's Nut. "What is it?" I hear you cry... Well actually its a large volcanic plug in the earth which has been exposed due to erosion. We made it our challenge to see sunrise and then climb up the Nut at dawn. Cold, but beautiful, the views were lovely.


Me with "The Nut", Stanley

Cradle Mountain
After Stanley, we headed to Cradle Mountain National Park, in the South East. The weather was starting to get much colder now and we were relying on our outdoor gear to keep us warm. We had reserved a couple of bunks in the Youth Hostel in the Park, and planned to spend the next day hiking up the mountain. As we drove into the park we saw a wild wombat! It was defintitely a wild kind of place and we were excited about what esle we would see.
We shared our hostel room with Irene and Peter from Sydney. They are retired, over 60, and spent 3 months each year driving and camping around Australia. They were a great laugh and a real inspiration to us.


Amazing Cradle Mountain Nat. Park

cradle

Derby
There is also a Derby in Stanley! So we detoured to go through it and take picutres for Ant's grandad, who tired to connect all Derby towns in the world through the internet. It was very rustic and had a true colonial feel to it. Just a sleepy town.










pingu

Freycinet National Park
On our way to Hobart we stopped in Freycinet National Park. In particular we wanted to get the famous views of Wineglass Bay.

Wine Glass Bay, Freycinet Nat. Park









Hobart