The 45 minute flight from Melbourne to Launceston on Tasmania (or Tassie as they say here) went quickly and after having done so many flights now it’s become nothing more than a busride that takes you to your next destination. Nothing exciting about it anymore.. After picking up our rental car (another Sonata but unfortunately this one doesn’t have the V6 engine) and a Subway take out lunch, we checked in to our motel in the centre of Launceston (the locals say Launie). It’s not a very exciting town but they do have an excellent park nearby where many locals go for recreation; Cataract Gorge has some nice hiking trails and you can go for a swim either in the river or in the pool. The next day we drove east, first through mountainous area where we hiked to a nice but, since it’s been dry, not so impressive waterfall, and then south along the beautiful east coast to St. Helen’s Point. There we had a wonderful self made lunch on one of the big rocks sticking out into the sea. An excellent place to relax for a bit as we had the place all to ourselves.
It wasn’t all that easy to find a place to stay in Bicheno for two nights, because, so we figured out later, some auto club on a touring holiday was in the area with their hot rods. It was nice to see and hear these colorful cars though. 🙂 Bicheno is a good starting point for trips to the Freycinet Peninsula but is also home to a nice animal park where you can get up close to kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, possums and other creatures but especially the tasmanian devils. The tasmanian devil is native to Tasmania, a very cute little animal with sharp teeth but unfortunately an endangered species. Not only by man but also because of the facial cancer disease that has wiped out 95% of some of the colonies on the island…
The peninsula has many beautiful bays and beaches but one of them is on the top 10 list of the world’s best beaches; Wineglass Bay. A must see of course but the only way to get there is on foot via a 2.5 hours return hike over a steep and rocky path. ‘Piece of cake’ we thought so we packed food and water, towels and swim suits and off we went.. It was pretty steep and very rocky and hot but the views of the bay were stunning. Unfortunately when we got to the beach some clouds were filtering the sun and the sea breeze made it a bit too chilly to stay there for long. It was certainly too cold for a swim.. Yes, we are a bunch of wimps. The good thing was that we were back at the motel early enough to go see the little penguins again that live on the beach just around the corner. Like on Philip Island they come ashore at dusk to go back to their nests and feed their chicks. We spotted only a handful but at least there weren’t hundreds of other tourists around either.
