Tasmania Part 1: Hobart and the East Coast Drive

Tasmania (or Tassie as the Aussies call it) was an area of Australia that we were both extremely keen to explore. For some reason it seems to be missed off the standard British tourist itinerary, yet every Aussie we had met along our trip so far had raved about it. We had five days of camper van action, in a practise run for New Zealand later in the month.

As we descended into Hobart we knew this part of the trip was going to be special; miles of white sandy beaches with turquoise water, mountains and forests easily outnumbering the odd settlement. Even the airport was welcoming; the bio-contamination check was a cute spaniel who went and sat on any bags he deemed to be a risk (and looked so pleased with himself every time). After passing our bag check we exited the terminal to a welcome to Tassie BBQ and free hot dog!

After a bit of a walk to pick up our camper (which happened to be the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo), we headed through Hobart towards Mount Wellington – a Munro sized mountain which towers over the city. As we started the winding drive up to the summit a sign warned of snow forecast for a couple of hours’ time which made us laugh given the beautiful sunny afternoon.  However as the journey to the top progressed, the wind was picking up and we got hit by a couple of showers.  We stopped about 2km before the summit at a viewpoint and, as it was dry, decided to walk the rest of the way to the top.

At the top the wind was blowing pretty hard and it had started to rain, but fortunately a viewing shelter was on hand to protect us from the worst of it.  And what a view it was (even in the cloud)!  It looked over Hobart, way down below and out towards the southeast of Tasmania over the bays and islands and smaller hills and to the south across the islands and to the north up the river valley towards central Tasmania.

However, our love for this mountain did reduce on our way back to the car. The winds picked up to the point it was difficult to walk in a straight line, and the rain soon turned to hail that was blown into our stinging faces for a good 20 minutes.  We arrived back at the car soaked and freezing cold and feeling a little sheepish for dismissing the warning of snow!

The next day was parkrunday (Saturday to those who are less enlightened), and we went to Queen’s Domain on the edge of Hobart to run round the park there.  In one of our most exciting runs so far, Claire built an early lead over Gareth on the downhill first half, but Gareth made up most of the gap on the way back up the hill.  Claire managed to spot Gareth coming though and finished just ahead of him by one second!  Gareth was consoled by the fact that there were two cricket pitches at the end of the course (although no play at the time of the parkrun).

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After a quick shower and breakfast back at the campsite, we got out on the road to the East coast.  Our destination was Freycinet National Park, which had been recommended by most of the Aussies and fellow travellers we had spoken to.  The park is on a peninsula and can only be accessed part way down by car, so the rest has to be done by walking. As we sat having our lunch and looking across the bay just before the park, we wondered if we might be in for more rough weather as the peninsula seemed to be under a mass of thick clouds. However by the time we got round to the visitors centre on the other side the skies were blue and suncream was swiftly applied!

We chose to do a walk to Wineglass Bay lookout which is supposed to be one of the most scenic bays in Tassie. As we reached the ridgeline we could see fantastic coastlines on both sides of the peninsula but the turquoise waters and white sands of Wineglass Bay really made it stand out. It was definitely one of the most beautiful bays that we saw during our trip (and there was some good competition). As we were stood at the lookout snapping pictures of the view, we were joined by a wallaby who managed to get to the middle of the clearing before realising he was surrounded by people, and decided to employ the ‘if I stand still they can’t see me’ approach whilst we all took pictures of him!

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After our walk we headed back north to Bicheno which is a town just outside the National Park and had two vital attractions: firstly it was the only settlement nearby large enough to be showing the England vs Australia rugby game; secondly the towns cliffsides are populated by a colony of little penguins (also known as blue or fairy penguins) who return on mass each evening from a day of fishing. We spent an hour watching around 50 of these wonderful birds waddle past, some getting close enough to touch (we resisted with difficulty) before a late night drive back into Freycinet National Park.

We stayed overnight a Friendly Beaches campsite which had been recommended to us back in Hobart and when daylight dawned we could see why. The campsite backs onto miles of postcard perfect beach made all the more beautiful by its isolated location. We spent two hours that morning walking along the sand of Friendly beaches and admiring the 1000s of different shells along the beach, only seeing a handful of people.

After another quick stop at Bicheno to admire the Bicheno blowhole we were on our way north heading up along the east coastline to find more perfect beaches at Lagoons Beach Conservation area, St Helens and the Bay of Fires.

Overview of the day: Tasmania probably has more kilometres of perfect beaches than it does people, and the Tasman Sea in spring rivals the North Sea in temperature!