We were so lucky with Tas. Even though it was pretty icy compared to where we had been previously, the sky was blue for the 5 days we were there. Hired a car straight away and drove up to Cradle Mountain to do some walking (and get rid of some of the tummy from Adelaide!). We stayed at the YHA at the camping ground which promptly had a power cut. For 5 hours between 6pm and 11pm. That's all right if you're expecting it, but we needed electricity to cook, so we didnt get any food, there were only about 3 torches between the 10 of us, no blankets, no heating, miserable fire. We ended up going and sitting in the car every hour or so with the engine running to warm up... eventually we drove to the posh resort which had a generator and bumped into friends of Campbell Strachan (for those at PwC, how random is that?!) Next morning, however, all was forgotten, and we went off to climb Cradle mountain. The walking was pretty easy until we were about an hour away from the summit. Then we just had to scramble over boulders and hold on for dear life. It didnt help that the boulders out of the sun were still covered in ice. Still, very satisfying to get to the top, and very sore feet afterwards. Then off to Launceston, and on to Wineglass Bay. We climbed Mount Amos to see this - see photos, we were dead impressed with the view. And to continue a theme, we then went and stayed at the coldest hostel I have ever been in in my life. I ended up wearing all my clothes to bed, using 3 blankets and a hat. Finally on to Port Arthur to look at the prison. And to hear about all the things that they had to do in the cold without heating (i was very interested in this by that stage of the trip!). Some of the prisoners had to build ships, spending their whole day up to their necks in the freezing water. Im so glad the Boyds didnt get transported for all that sheep russling that went on!!