It is only a short flight from Melbourne to Hobart (Tasmania) running at about 1 hour 15 mins but it sure is expensive at around 120 quid return - where are Easyjet when you need them!

I got in at around 4pm so I took a quick look around the town, it's population is around 200,000 but still pretty small. There are some historic buildings (supposidly meant to remind me of England but I am not sure when it was our tradition to build single story houses!!). There are some nice touristy bits including a big harbour. The hostel was okay except I was on the 3rd floor with no lift so 6 flights of stairs later I had a bit of a sweat on!

It was an early start to meet my tour group, there was 18 of us in total and sadly I was the only person with English as my first language (apart from the guide!). We were two french, two german, two swiss, two danish, one dutch, one spanish, six japenese and me!! What a spread of nationalities aye! I got myself up front with the driver - I thought he may need a little moral support!

Day 1, Hobart to Strahan

From Hobart we headed to Mount Field National Park where we hiked to some really good waterfalls and had a bit of a guided walk where all the trees and plants were pointed out to us (there are some really talls ones there). We then drove onto Lake St Claire for a view of Australia's deapest lake and some lunch (tuna wraps, hmm my favourite NOT). On the way to Strathan we had a little wander into Franklin Gorge National Park and stocked up at the bottle shop! Adventure tours have their own houses in Tasmania so it meant the whole group got to stay in a big house, very nice! Stir fried beef and noodles for tea - definately a step up from lunch but sadly as I was last in line it was a very small portion for me (this could be good for the diet!) - who knew that these tiny Japenese creatures could eat more than there body weight in one sitting!!!

Day 2, Strahan to Cardle Mountain Region

We got time in the morning to look round the tiny town of Stahan, they have a little wood mill there that is allowed to use Huan Pine the special wood they have in Tassie that does not absorb water hence never rotts. They are not allowed to chop it down but if they find any that had previously been sunk by forresters years ago or if a Huan pine falls down naturally then they can use it. There were a couple of tourist shops and some Victorian architecture (still not convinced!!) to look at. We then drove to the Henty Sand Dunes, which were bloody huge! The leader got slightly worried when one of our group disappeared (later nicknamed "Walkabout"!) but she showed up again so we drove on towards our goal. Once at the Cradle Mountain Hostel we went in to the Park and got some history about Gustof Wein(something) from Austria the man that insisted this area become a National Park and protected. We went on this little walk that was like something out of Lord of the Rings with twisted trees and green moss hanging everywhere. Also got to see a Wombat, Wallabies (look loke small Kanagroos), Pademelon (look like small Wallabies) and a Possum (nasty creature)!

Day 3, Cradle Mountain to Devonport

We got lucky! Apparently there are only 40-60 days a year that are clear at Cradle mountain and we got one of those! We headed out to the mountain early and had to pick whether to walk round Dove Lake at the bottom (6k) or climb round the Moutain (13k) which was meant to be pretty difficult with part of the route having a chain climb. I decided to chance it with my knee and take the harder walk - I was really pleased I made it fine, I must be getting good with all this practice! The right knee was even fine too so I think it is gradually sorting itself out. The views were terrific and you got a real sense of achievement afterwards (along with aching quads!). Seven of us did it and we had one from each nationality (except Japan). Afterwards we headed off to Devonport via a little town with lots of murials (they heard about another town that had done it to get tourists in so copied). We had to get our own dinner tonight so I opted for a big pizza all to myself! Fed up of this shaing malarky!

Day 4, Devonport to Bicheno

This morning a few of our group changed and we got a really annoying kid from Boston - he was 24 and in the army and oh boy didn't he think he was special, he just loved to put down the "Brits" and refer to me as a civie - twat!!!!!!! Anyways we went to St Columbus Falls, which has an ancient forest back drop and looked at some more waterfalls. We then drove on through landscapes of farms, rainforest and mining towns before we got to the Bay of Fires, basically there are lots of beach coves in a row along the coast - people used to stand high on the cliffs with fire to send messages to the next cove hence the name Bay of Fires. There is also an orange algae on the rocks which made me think of the name too. It was a really nice beach but not really the weather for sitting around. That night I got my own room - hurray! I felt a bit guilty to enjoy it too much though as everyone else was in dorms, there are some perks in sitting up front with the leader!

Day 5, Bicheno to Port Arthur

We drove to Freycinet National Park and hiked to Wineglass Bay, see picture, it got it's name due to it's shape and also when they killed all the Whales it looked like a glass of red wine where the blood turned the water red. I found it to be a rather tiring walk as my legs still ached from the Cradle Moutain walk! I think it was about 9km return from the car park to the bay. It was really nice and peaceful with some really tame Wallabies for company! We ate our lunch there and hiked back. We then drove on stopping at a fruit farm that had the most amazing Cafe - you could get the most yummy fruit pies with ice cream ever - need less to say I treated myself to Humble Pie (sadly very few of the people on tour understood the saying eating Humble Pie and it was really tricky to explain!). We travelled on to Port Arthur where we stayed, crossing the "Dog Line" on the way where in the 1800's a row of dogs on chains ran the length of the land that connected the peninsula of Port Arthur to the mainland. The dogs stopped any convicts escaping from the prison at Port Arthur crossing into the rest of tasmania.

Day 6 , Port Arthur to Hobart

We got the morning to look round the historic sight of Port Arthure where the old gaol was along with all the other building and churches, there was plenty of info and it was a nice morning (I wish we still treated our criminals the same as they did then!). Then we headed to the Wildlife centre to see the tasmanian devil! They were great, I took loads of pictures! It's pretty hard to see them in the wild as their number is diminishing due to them getting a rather nasty contagious mouth cancer which is currently wiping most of the wild ones out as to communicate they bite each others faces! I have never seen such nasty little creatures - they growl and snarl and fight each other all the time. They have the 3rd strongest jaws in the world (pressure per pound)- the only things stonger are a great white and just by a little bit a salt water crocodile. We atached them chew throufh thick bone in seconds - they have no problem biting through a femur! We made a few more scenic stops on the way back and got to Hobart for the end of the tour by 5pm. It was a really good tour as the guide was so knowledgable and was good at passing information on to us (a bit slow for my liking as he had to speak real slow for all the nationalities to understand). We learnt a lot about the Aboriginal Culture as the guide was orginally from Alice Springs and could actually speak one type of Aboriginal language (there are over 250 Aboriginal languages, each with about 6 different dialects!!).

On the last night we the group decided to meet up for fish and chips and head out for a Spanish beer (Alberto our Spanish guy insisted!). I ate too much and made myself a bit poorly but it was very nice! Also for the first time in a week I was able to call Mark, bliss!