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It's been almost a month since we arrived in Tasmania, the final stop on our Australian trip, so I should write down my thoughts while they're still pretty fresh. After Lindeman Island, and one more quick night's stopover in Sydney, we took the early morning flight to Hobart, Tasmania's capital. We got off the flight and it was certainly a bit more chilly than it was in Sydney, but nothing that couldn't be taken care of with a good fleece.
We got our rental car and drove the 10 km into the city to find a hotel. This was a bit of an experiment for us, as we've never gone on a trip without having some sort of plan of where we'd stay. After browsing our travel books and poking around in the town's information center, we settled on a place that I think was called the Edinburgh House. The walk to the B&B was a bit longer than we thought it would be, and it was starting to rain, but we weren't too worried. Unfortunately, when we got to the reception they told us that they were fully booked. Oops. I guess their mention in the New York Times' travel section is helping business. Anyhow, we retraced our steps back into town and decided to try the Astor Hotel. This ended up being one of the best decisions that we'd make in Tassie. We met the host, Tilde, at the desk and she gave us a couple keys to check out the different rooms. It being Maura's birthday, we decided to splurge for the larger, very nice (but still not too expensive) room. Tilde then gave us the key and without taking any registration or credit card information, sent us up to the room. She told us that we looked trustworthy and that we could just take care of all that later. Over the three days that we spent in Hobart, she always kept us entertained with her stories of the hotel's history, the Times' reporter staying there (and not even giving it a mention!) and the definition of "quirky" (the perfect word to describe her).
Once we were settled into the hotel, we went right back out to explore and find some fish & chips. Naturally, we headed down to the waterfront and found a place that we'd later learn is considered the fish & chips joint in Hobart, and that's really saying something. I won't go through every meal that we had in Tassie, but I'll just say that a lot of them did feature fish & chips of all different varieties, and they were all excellent. We spent the rest of that day and the next walking around the city, shopping, eating, and checking out the many galleries and artsy stores.
Around dusk on our second day, we (well, I) decided that we should drive up Mt. Wellington, which sits right behind Hobart. It took about 30 minutes to make it to the top, which was quite a contrast to the town below. At the very top, it was cloudy, snowy, and quite chilly, but it gave us a great view of the city.
On the third day we decided that we'd drive up the east coast of Tassie to see some of the natural sights there. With a few short stops along the way, we made our way to Freycinet National Park. We left our car in the parking lot with a few wallabies and hiked up the mountain there to get a good view of Wineglass Bay.
We would've liked to have hiked down to the bay, but we had other business to get to. We had to drive a bit further up the coast and hang out with some penguins.
Bicheno is a nice vacation town along the east coast of Tassie and one of its most well-known attractions is the rookery of penguins that has settled just off the beach. There is an excellent tour of this beach by some local guys who set it up 15 years ago to support their surfing lifestyle. We got to see a few dozen Little Blue (or Fairy) penguins coming on shore just after sunset. They spent a lot of time waddling around on the rocks, cleaning their feathers, and then walking right up past us to their nests.
That night, we got some more fish & chips, but this time it was because that was the only thing that was left open after the tour. We headed back to our B&B, which was really our own little cabin, got a fire started in the woodstove, and played a bit more Scrabble.
I couldn't leave Bicheno without finding the Penguin Crossing signs that our guide book had mentioned. After a bit of driving, we passed it and then headed back south to Hobart and to stay in Tilde's hotel for one last night. The next morning we got up very early again and got on our flights from Hobart back to Sydney, through Los Angeles, and finally home to Boston. We couldn't help but sing the Divine Comedy's theme to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie as we drove to the Hobart airport - "So long and thanks for all the fish."
It was a great trip; I'd highly recommend Australia to anyone who has the time to get there and spend some time. I know that I'll have to head back there some time and see more odd wildlife, big open country, and lots of great food.
Jerad posted this in Travel | Comments (0)
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