Home stretch from Tasmania’s second largest to city to the capital city, covering some of the most popular spots along the East Coast including Bay of Fires and Wineglass Bay. Personally I didn’t find it as interesting, I missed the isolation and history of the West Coast, though the patchy weather probably didn’t give me the best impression.
I’ve seen rather a lot of waterfalls now, at least half a dozen on this trip already, but St. Columba Falls did have some nice bush and ferns on the short walk to their base.
Puengana is famous for their cheese, nationally award winning for the past four years. It’s a good spot for cheese tasting and some ice cream, plus they appear to be a Fonterra supplier based on the farm signage, hard to avoid them even outside of New Zealand.
Bay of Fires would be absolutely stunning on a good day, with gorgeous white sand, turquoise blue seas, and red lichen covered rocks. Even on a pretty miserable wet and windy day it was still quite a sight, though I wasn’t as brave / immune to the cold as my fellow travellers who braved the waves.
Shelly Point lived up to it’s name, being home to a lot of shells, and more lovely if somewhat overcast beaches.
Bicheno was home for the night, and home to a rather dull blowhole, great views from Whalers Lookout, and a fun foreshore path alternating between bush and rocks, which made for an interesting run as the sun started to set.
Thankfully the sun returned for the final day, first stop Freycinet National Park, the second most popular in Tasmania after Cradle Mountain. Did the challenging Mt Amos walk, pretty hard work on the thighs up, very hard work on the knees down. Thankfully it was dry and from the top rather nice views of Wineglass Bay.
Having a little time to spare I also did the Wineglass Bay Lookout loop walk, much easier if still a bit of a hill to tackle, for less good views and hoards of people.
There were beautiful views from Devil’s Corner vineyard, particularly from their rather cool purpose built lookout toward Freycinet National Park.
Kate’s Berry Farm had the most amazing lavender ice cream, but unfortunately my camera decided at this point to finally die. Switched to iPhone backup for a few shots of the outside. Not really as exciting as flower flavoured ice cream…
The nearby Spiky Bridge was aptly named.
Some nice views as we drove along.
And on the bridge theme Richmond is home to the oldest bridge in Australia plus a few more nice heritage buildings.
Returned to the metropolis of Hobart and back to Auckland the following, which took pretty much the entire day, leaving hostel at 9.30am and getting home by 10pm. Joys of lack of international flights into Hobart (only really Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane direct) and two hour time difference with NZ. Had time in the morning for a final run around Hobart though, past The World and the huge Golden Princess cruise liners, and out to the Tasman Bridge for views back toward the city centre.
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