G'day from Tasmania!

Before I get onto Tasmania, I'll just quickly catch up from where our last blog finished…

We liked St Kilda and had a nice relaxing time there. We walked around the market, I bought a top from one of the nice shops and we generally didn't do much but enjoy the quirky suburb. The last night we had a free barbeque at the hostel and we played free table tennis (Lisa's quite good) and I also played free pool. I stayed out with the people from our room (including someone from Newark) as Lisa attempted an early night - but then we all woke her up when we got back upstairs drinking goon! Good times (but not for Lisa). Anyway, we went back to Melbourne and went up the Rialto Tower for a 360o view of the city and walked through the botanical gardens.

The trip to Tasmania got off to a bad start when my bag strap ripped off my rucksack, which made carrying all mine and half of Lisa's bags even more difficult! Despite this minor setback, we arrived in Hobart otherwise unscathed and walked around the city. We got fresh fish and chips from the local sellers on the wharf and then bought some cheap ham and fruit from the Salamanca fruit market. We walked up a big hill to battery point, but there was nothing there! Dammit!! So we went back to the pub at our hostel and then went out for a long anticipated curry! We liked Hobart, it's a nice little city.

We got up early for our trip to Cradle Mountain. I picked up the car and we went to Woolworths to stock up food and drink. After a few hours driving in the morning, we came across a nice looking café called Christmas Hill Raspberry Farm, not far from the Tasmanian version of Sheffield. Look out for a picture of the Sheffield road sign - excellent! Anyway, we sat by the wood fire and had homemade apple and raspberry crumble and Lisa also had fresh apple and raspberry juice. It was a very nice place. We arrived at Cradle Mountain YHA just before 4pm and we had a nice cabin dorm all to ourselves. It was raining and cold so we cooked and got an early night.

We got up early in a baking hot cabin and then went outside to the showers through lovely cold snow! We went into Cradle Mountain National Park and walked 6km around Dove Lake in the snow and wind. The weather was getting worse as we went round! We got very wet and the visibility wasn't very good so we couldn't actually see much of the mountain. We went around 2 of the shorter walks for about another 40 minutes, but it was too cold and wet so we made our way back across the mountains to Deloraine. At this time, the sun decided to come out, the skies cleared and there was a rainbow - just our luck! We stopped at a lookout by the side of the road at the top of one of the mountains for lunch, before arriving in Deloraine for a hot drink. We drove up to Ash Grove Cheese Farm which was nice. I bought various Tasmanian honey ales, though they tasted more like cider than ale. We then went to our YHA hostel which was cold, messy and dirty! Hot water bottles went down a treat, though we would have preferred a heater!!

I have driven from Deloraine down to Hobart this morning and we have stopped at a McCafe for some free wireless internet. We passed about a million potholes - hitting about a hundred thousand - and also passed a similar amount of road-kill! They were mainly possums, a few wallabies and a cat. We drove past the great lake which was cloudy but massive and nice. We're now going to spend the afternoon at Port Arthur before returning the car to the airport and flying back to Melbourne. We start our Great Ocean Road trip tomorrow morning - busy times!!

Paul