Tasmania, Australia

We decided that as long as we were visiting that part of the world, we might as well check out the island of Tasmania a.k.a. Tassie – the home of the Tasmanian Devil and a place where Australia would send their own criminals. Although we’ve read about it before we went, we didn’t realize how beautiful the island’s landscape was until we got there.

Pirate Bay – do I look like a pirate?

Day 1 (Port Arthur, Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park, the Salamanca Place)

The island, 2 hours-flight south of Australia, was significantly colder than the mainland and had a completely different feel. We flew into Hobart and rented a car there, which was a very easy process (definitely get a GPS), and immediately set course onto our main attraction – Port Arthur, a World Heritage site consisting of a prison compound and the surrounding settlement. Boys as young as eight years old, if convicted of a crime such as stealing bread, would be sent to this place to serve the penance. Even under the bright afternoon sun, the place gave off an unmistakable grim and chilly air.

Most of the “cool” buildings are in a pretty deteriorated state (apparently, it didn’t become an official tourist attraction until 1980s, and until then it wasn’t kept up at all). So, after walking around a bit, taking a boat tour in the nearby harbor, and doing an hour-long tour of the grounds with a group of fellow tourists, we headed back to Hobart.

On the way back, we stopped at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park, which we would highly recommend, especially since it’s right on the road to Port Arthur. We got to see a Tasmanian devil being fed with chicken and got our first petting session with kangaroos!! There were not a whole lot of other tourists, so we got to enjoy the animals pretty much to ourselves

Feeding kangaroos at the Tasmanian devil conservation park

(not always the case in wildlife reserves). Also, during the same trip, we pulled over at the Pirates’ Bay, which was one of the prettiest places we saw on our trip on the island. The bay got its name because that’s where pirate ships waited out bad weather. Cool, right?

Port Arthur bay

We got back to Hobart by early evening and booked a room at Lenna Hotel right next to the Salamanca Place – an area full of shops, bars, and restaurants overlooking a marina – and popular tourist hangout. We had an excellent sea food dinner at Blue Eye, which we’d recommend if you are staying in that area.

Day 2 (half-day) (Mount Wellington, the Cascade Brewery)

The next morning, bright and early, we took the very winding and very narrow road up to the top of Mount Wellington. Although the drive, on the left side of the road with virtually no shoulder, was quite unnerving, the view a the top was worth it. If you do the drive, which we’d highly recommend, bring an extra jacket – the temperature was hovering around 32F / 0C and with the wind, was quite bone-chilling. It was pretty cool to see the same views that Charles Darwin would have seen when he climbed the same mountain back in 1830s.

Totally worth the winding drive up!

At the bottom of the mountain, we stopped at the Cascade Brewery, whose tagline is “Brewed on the Edge of the World.” The brewery first opened in 1832 and is the oldest operating brewery in Australia. You can read the history behind it here. Although it’s not documented anywhere, I strongly suspect that Darwin might have had a few beers here on his expedition to Tasmania.

Our next stop from Hobart was Brisbane and the Gold Coast of Australia. Unfortunately for us, our flight was delayed by a few hours due to a hail storm at our arrival destination, which is apparently is not uncommon for this time of the year. Fortunately, we were joined in our waiting by a group of BMW sales representatives whose company flew them to Tasmania as a company retreat and who were returning to Brisbane on our flight.

Aussies! Funnest airport delay yet 🙂

Over a few beers, we learned that: (1) Australians have a great sense of humor; (2) they agree that their TV programming is pretty bad (you’ll see when you visit); (3) the cars in Australia cost twice as much as they do in US; (4) virtually all Australians have been in USA at least one if not multiple times, as it is a right of passage for them after college to travel US (like it is for Americans to back pack in Europe). They also told us to check the Byron Bay, a place we probably wouldn’t have considered on our own, but which turned out to be our favorite place during the whole trip.

All on all, I’d say if you have extra time, you should check out Tasmania, as it is quite different from the mainland.