Day 1 Sydney Airport Tas
Landing at 6:30 am into Sydney from Bangkok, having had about 2 hours sleep on the plane and our body clocks saying that it was currently 2:30am, meant that 6 hour wait for the only flight to Hobart was a very long one. Made even worse by the seats in the airport that all had arm rests and didn’t make for a place you could lie out on. So we sat and waited!

Got to Hobart and headed over to the hostel. At $69 (aud) this place was still the cheapest in town but was probably up there with the worst places we’ve stayed at. So we headed out to take a look around at the city. We went down to the habour and then along to Salamana Square. Everything seemed laid back, which was great but it was going to take some re adjusting to the prices now we weren’t in Asia and the prices were more than in England and Sweden for everything…

Day 2
Got up and left the hostel to collect our car. We were given a little Hyundai Getz which just about held our luggage and we departed to our first stop at Richmond. The town is a fairly tradition, old town and we took a stroll around and enjoyed the weather, with the sun out and the temperature around 25-30C but without the humidity of Asia. We decided to have an afternoon tea in the sun which was all very pleasant. Our plan of travel was going to be to head up the east coast, along the north and then back down the west coast to Hobart. We took the road up the east coast and stopped at the Freycinet National park, where we took a stroll out to the wineglass bay look out and hopefully took some pictures that can be put on canvass or enlarged at the bay was so beautiful. After the stroll we went to Honeymoon bay where we sat in the late afternoon having a lovely picnic. Tasmania is very scenic and there is always something with the landscape to take in, which made the drives so lovely, even if the roads have a bend every few metres! We were heading up to St Helens for the night and arrived around 7pm. We stopped at the backpacker lodge and enquired, with the interesting news from the owner that they were totally full and we’d be lucky to find somewhere at this time. Magic, may be a night in the car – wished we’d taken the bigger option! Then a guy who overheard this said that they had a spare bed in their room that we could sleep on if we wanted, which was nice but we thought we’d try something else before sleeping with a stranger! We went to the next Youth hostel, which had been closed and turned back into a normal residential house. We planned on what to use as a duvet in the car! Then we went a little out of town and found a small house with motel units on the back. They had a room for $75aud and compared to the night before, it was lovely, so we took it up. The room really reminded us of Martin grans house and we knew that it was going to be great for a night.

Heading into town however we were reminded of Boden on a Sunday night. The place was just dead and it was a Friday night, so we weren’t sure we’d be in for a big night! We found a pub on the sea front, so had a quiet beer.

Day 3 Martin’s Birthday

Martin was woken to a birthday card from the little wife. We then headed out towards Binalong bay and the bay of fire which this place was famous for. The bay of fire was spectacular and again, we hope that we’d have some pictures that do this some justice.

We then headed further north but keeping to the east coast, taking in all the little towns that you drive through as well as all the mountains, lakes, sea, beaches etc. We passed through Launceston which is seconded biggest town in Tasmania towards our place for the next two nights, on the Rosevears wine estate. We stopped at the Velo vineyard which was meant to have some lovely sparkling wines. We stayed for a while and got to taste a few wines before picking out a really nice rose sparkling to have for the evening.

Then we headed for the Rosevear estate. We were given a pod type accommodation, set up on a hill overlooking the vineyard and over the Tamar valley, including other vineyards and a lake. Martin walked into the place with Marie singing happy Birthday with a nice cake in her hands. Very cute. We sat and ate some of the cake – very good.
The room was big and it had a nice big balcony and a barbeque – all very backpacker!!! We headed to town to quickly stock up on food for the evening bbq and managed to get a phone and mobile broadband (at $5aud per hour on the internet, it was going to get expensive!) in preparation for the camper.

In the evening we sat and enjoyed the views and had a great bbq. This place is made for bbq’s and picnics, which we will be doing more. The sparkling wine went down a treat. It was a very nice evening and made for a great birthday that will always be remembered, even though Martin did tell Marie that it wasn’t really necessary since last year’s Vegas surprise meant she could let the next 5 or so go by without bothering but no complaints here.

Day 4

After such a good evening, it took a while for us to get going, mainly because we were enjoying having such a nice place and it felt like having a home!! We finally ventured out to sit in a car park for 2 hours whilst we got connected to the internet and Martin went through his cards and replied to messages from his birthday. We also (hopefully) booked the campervan finally for aus.

After which, it was time to visit another vineyards. We were told that there were around 1500 vineyards and about 65 wine cellars to visit so we thought we should do more than one. We visited the Moores Hill, tried a few of their wines and took home a really good unoaked Chardonnay. We then headed back to our place of stay and went to their cellar to try out all their wines and took a Merlot away with us. Well, when your in a wine region what else can you do!!!
With so much food left over, the evening was a very chilled bbq on the balcony, watching the sun go down, watching the wallaby’s in the vineyard and enjoying some wine.

Marie was in for a treat that night. After going to bed, Martin went to sleep whilst Marie decided to finish reading her book (the last of Twilight), when Martin started to mumble something (not understandable!!), then opened his eyes, put on his glasses, picked up the paper and flicked a couple of pages, then dropped the paper, took off his glasses and went back to sleep. Martin has absolutely no memory of this – think someone may have been sleeping!!!!!

Day 5

Packing up (again), we drove a little south west to Mole Creek and the Marakoopa cave. We joined a guided tour and was taken through numerous caves and given a good, informative but not deathly boring detail of how the caves were formed and the background to them. They were so beautiful and really good to see.

In the last cave before leaving, the tour guide turned off all the lights, so we can see all the glow worms on the ceiling. It was like a starry night and really cool to see. They are really weird little creature but fascinating.

We then headed over to Sheffield, having also passed through Bracknell (weird) which is a small town in a decent location for the next day’s trip to Cradle Mountain. We managed to get a room above a pub. We took an evening stroll around the deserted streets, to see all the murals that are painted on the walls around the town. The paintings are excellent work and are of lots of different scenery.

On the way back to the hotel, we saw the local lion’s vegetable club leaving, having just finished an evening competition, with a lady commenting there was a really good variety that evening. It was really funny to see and showed the real small town feel. Quality.

Day 6

After an early start we headed towards Cradle Mountains, passing some amazing scenery and some winding roads (thank god Martin was driving). We arrived at Cradle Mountains just as it started to rain! But we had read how changeable the weather could be and that they could have four seasons in a day, so we were prepared. We chose to do a walk up to Marion’s lookout which was going to be a 3 hour round trip. We took the shuttle bus to the starting point of our walk and on the way there the driver pointed out Marion’s lookout which seemed to be at a very high point! The walk up to the top took us through Dove Lake, Little Lake and Womble Peak. Although it was raining it was a very pleasant walk as it would have been very hot in the sun. The last climb to the top was pretty steep but when we got to the top we had some stunning views over Cradle Mountains. We decided to take a different route back to the shuttle bus and on the way we saw a lot of animal droppings and we were wondering which animal they came from. On the way a family passed us and the man was stopping to take a lot of photos on the way. Just as we had passed him he called for his wife and son to come over. Martin and I stopped and realised that they had spotted some animal in the grass. We walked up and they told us they were wombats. They were so cute. We stood watching them for a while as they were digging their wholes. After our 3.5 hour walk we stopped back at the café for some hot chocolate. As we were there we saw that you could make bookings for the Gordon River cruise. So we decided to book tickets for the following day. The cruise would depart from Straham so we decided that this would be a good town to stop at for the night. After a two hour journey, again through some winding roads, we arrived at Straham. We checked in with the Backpacker place to see if they had some rooms. They only had beds in a dorm so we decided to keep on looking. But everywhere we passed had a NO VACANCY sign. So after an hour we drove back to the Backpacker place to take the dorm. The lady picked up on us not wanting to stay in a dorm and asked if we had a tent. We said we didn’t have one so she offered to rent us one for 25 dollars. It was a pretty good deal and we both thought it would be much better than staying in a dorm. So after we had setup the tent we headed towards town to get some food. We picked a pizza place that also served pasta and risotto. The food prices were pretty high but when the plate came out it was massive so at least you got a lot for what you paid. After dinner we decided to get a bottle of wine and find somewhere to sit as it was a nice evening. We didn’t have any glasses so we had to swig out of the bottle, but we found a nice spot overlooking the harbour. We returned to our tent to find that it was made for children and that the length did not fit us. So it wasn’t the most comfortable night sleep.

Day 7

After breakfast we drove down to the harbour and checked in for our river cruise. It was raining so not the best day to be on a boat but the boat had seats inside with large windows so you could see outside. We started by going to the end of the harbour, where it meets the ocean, and this place was called hells gate. It was named so after all the prisoners who were taken in this way to Sarah Island where they were going to be imprisoned. After this we went past the fish farms and watched the fishermen feed the fish. We continued up to Gordon River which is a world heritage site for its beauty and history. We stopped and went for a rainforest walk where we saw some trees that were 2000 years old. After the walk we had a buffet for lunch and then we headed towards Sarah Island, which used to be the notorious prison island. We had a guided tour of the island and it was interesting to say the least. They made the tour into a role play puzzle and it was quite amusing. When we arrived back to strahan it was raining pretty bad so we headed straight for the car to get to New Norfolk for our last night. After three hours on the road we arrived safely and it was great to finally have mobile signal back. We tried in a few places before we found a room in a pub where we could stay for the night.

Day 8

Travelled down to Hobart where we got ourselves a picnic and Martin managed to sell our national park pass for 30 dollars (paid 69). We drove up towards the airport where we had our picnic in the car overlooking the sea. Our plane was delayed to Melbourne so we only arrived at the hotel in Melbourne at 11PM at night. A long day travelling!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PHOTOS FROM THAILAND AND TASMANIA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tas
http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/642428619

Thailand
http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/625252219