Here's our itinerary and I will also tell you how it was the stupidest itinerary ever, but hey! You never learn until you experience it and that's kinda the whole point of travelling with your friends. You endure each other, you drive each other crazy, you give ideas and you compensate each other's weakness and most important of all, you experience this together and hopefully, become wise together. I personally think that when people think that travelling is only a waste of money and you need to have lots of money to travel, that's such a shallow thinking. First of all, travelling is not about how much money you spend, it is about the experience. It's about discovering yourself even more, learn to deal with problems that might arise and at the same time have fun and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. I guess travelling on your own or with a small group of friends are different compared to travelling in a guided tour. You're in your safe bubble when you're travelling in a guided tour and you don't tend to mix with the locals and learn to find your own path from point A to B and you only see all the touristy thing when you're on a tour, snap some photos with the landmarks and that's it. When you find your own path, you might discover things along the way and you might come across some obstacles. Sometimes it can be dangerous but that's the thrill. Back to itinerary by the way...
So we started from landing in Launceston airport, then we moved on straight away to collect our hired vehicle from the cheapest rental car joint ever compared to other major players such as budget, hertz etc. We got ours from Bargain car rental but this is the website we visited, Launceston Airport Car Hire. I can't quite remember the cost to hire the car for 3 days but I think it was approximately $245 ish or just a bit more for 3 days including standard insurance but you have to pay $2000 excess if damage is done to the car (i.e. accident etc). I think if you want to avoid paying excess in case if you do get involved in an accident, you may choose to upgrade the insurance cost to $80 a day. If you are a paranoid person, then you might want to go for that option. After we picked up our baby for the next 3 days (it was a Hyundai Accent), we drove down to the nearest Coles to pick up some food and drink to stock up in the car because we were going on a road trip from north to south. Given that it was Easter holiday and nothing is opened and it was also a Saturday, that was the best decision we made. We picked up some snacks and hot cross buns and a couple litres of water (not the healthiest food but would do for the many hours that we needed to drive) to munch on along the way. We drove just slightly more than 2 hours from Launceston Airport to Hobart city and I must say the road in Tasmania was bumpier than the road in other states in Australia that I have visited. Back in Melbourne, I could at least apply an eyeliner whilst in a moving vehicle. In Tasmania, I could barely draw my eyebrows properly. I had to draw bit by bit everytime we hit the traffic light. Vain, I know.
Another thing about driving in Tasmania is, there are waaaaaaaaay too many small animals' carcasses on the road. I guess Tasmania has one of the biggest cases of road kill compared to major cities in Australia and it would have to come naturally as Tasmania is a natural state built on natural mountains and lakes. I swear the population of animals there is more than humans. After a couple of days, we were more used to seeing dead wallabies on the road. So, if you ever decide to visit Tasmania and drive whilst you're there, please drive carefully and try to avoid driving at night. I will tell you why a bit later on down this entry. After what seemingly the longest drive or so we thought, we finally arrived in Hobart city (the biggest city in Tasmania).
If you google Hobart Waterfront, you will most likely come across this image, except I took this myself. I honestly do not have any idea what those buildings are and what significance they bring but I found them in Hobart and Launceston so they must mean something.
We were starving to death, so we drove to Salamanca to check out the market and see what we could get. It was so busy that Saturday and there were so many cars on the road visiting the market. We only found a one-hour parking spot so we did not have time to eat in a proper restaurant plus visiting the market. We decided to ditch the idea of eating in a proper restaurant and just grab what we could find in the market. The market is pretty much like Victoria Market in Melbourne on Sundays where there are stalls selling street food and hand-made crafts. Tasmania is well known for their wood quality, so the market sells heaps of wood crafts. They also sell honey, tea and knit-wear.
Within Salamanca place, there are more restaurants and at night there are a couple of bars around. I'm not sure if they have night clubs. Most probably not. Although Hobart city is pretty lively during the day, but I had been there when it was night time and there was literally nothing to do there. After visiting the market and because our parking time was up, we went for a walk near Wrest Point Casino Derwent River and we took a stroll.
We had to leave Hobart by 3 pm so that we could get to Port Arthur Historic Site where our first accommodation was before night time because we thought we could visit the Historic Site and take some photos there but then I realised we wouldn't be able to get in without paying even though the motel we were staying was literally next to the Historic Site and it was not cheap to go in there. They do guided tour during the day and they do ghost tour during the night. We had booked our ghost tour for the night but because you can't take photos at night, we thought we could sneak in from the hotel when we arrived but they fenced it off to prevent people from sneaking in :( The ticket to enter the site during the day is $32/adult I think and when we arrived there, it was already 5.30 pm and they close at 6.30 pm. The sales girl was willing to reduce it to $18 pp but I told my friends it wouldn't be worth it although I must say, the view was magnificent during the day because I had been there during the day on my first trip but during my first trip, I didn't have time to join the ghost tour. So I wanted to make it up this time. We had a bit of time before leaving Hobart and because we didn't buy dinner package along with the ghost tour (you have option to get dinner plus the tour or just the tour). We thought it was quite expensive, so we decided to only purchase the tour ticket but we realised there is nothing to eat at night in Port Arthur, so we had to eat first before the tour at night. We stopped by Mures Upper Deck where they sell seafood varieties and we got ourselves fisherman's basket to share.
They were fish, calamari, prawns and scallops with fries shared between the 3 of us. We were still full from the frankfurt sausage we had from the market, so this was plenty. During our 3 days trip, I must say we didn't have any proper meal because we spent most of our time in the car road tripping and it was hard to find a nice place to eat. We had to just make do with what we could find. I also blog about food as some of you might notice, unfortunately I didn't find anything blog worthy when I was in Tasmania (food related I mean). It took us about an hour and 20 minutes to reach Port Arthur Historic Site and the scenery along the way was breathtaking. Unfortunately I didn't take any photo throughout the journey from Hobart to Port Arthur and it was challenging to take a good photo in a moving vehicle and we couldn't stop as well because the road where we were driving on was fairly narrow and fairly busy. So, stopping in the middle of the road was out of the question.
A little bit of introduction about Port Arthur Historic Site...
Port Arthur was occupied by secondary offenders (those who re-offended after they arrived in Australia from Britain) back in 1850s. It was pretty much a prison. There is also a chapel which now is pretty much a ruin and the chapel was never fully constructed. It is now just a skeleton of a church which really gives you an eerie feeling at night especially when you're attending a ghost tour in the midst of heavy rain. The prison was then closed in 1877. There was a property development opportunity afterwards and some buildings were torn to build houses. However, there were growing ghost stories in the community and it quickly became a tourist attraction in the 1920s where people would visit the prison ruins. It was then taken over by the National Parks and Wildlife Service who received fundings to restore and manage the site. When you visit Hobart, it is almost in your "must-do-list" and you have to visit in the morning and at night because you would get two different atmospheres. In the broad daylight, it is a magnificent view with the strangely beautiful ruins that look like small castles overlooking the peninsula. At night, this is the last place you would want to take a walk by yourself because of how eerie this place is in the dark. Pity it wasn't raining heavily when we went there because the lightning and rain would have given a bigger scare to all the attendees.
Unfortunately because we were not allowed to take a photo with flash (some people do but I respect the rule so decided not to take photos with flash), I only took 2 photos while on tour because it was too dark to take any photo.
This is the photo of the chapel I mentioned above. The uncompleted chapel and according to our tour guide, a few attendees in the past "spotted" a woman peering through the window at the very top right hand corner (the lit part) but there is no floor foundation so there is no way a normal human being could stand up there. Well the truth remains a mystery. You're probably wondering how did we walk about exploring this massive compound in pitch black. Well, not entirely pitch black. The tour guide brought a few lanterns with him and they were dispersed between all of us with mostly kids who were asked to hold the lanterns (because kids would like to be given a sense of responsibility. This is basic child psychology in order to keep them interested). It was still extremely dark because there were so many of us and the lanterns didn't lit beyond certain range.
These 2 photos were taken with my Samsung Note 4 as I chose not to use flash with my proper camera. No one in our group took any photo at all so I was a bit embarrassed to showcase my semi DSLR camera taking photos with flash. Then!!!! I saw the other group filled with paparazzi popping flashes everywhere they went. I wished I was in that group :(
To sum up my experience with the ghost tour, it was definitely better than the Sydney's ghost tour I attended a few years ago with my sister purely because of the setting which made a massive difference. In Sydney, the ghost tour was held in the city and the surrounding areas. The tour guide would be telling ghost stories next to a bar although we were standing in some abandoned buildings but you could hear the music pumping next door. Not a very ghostly atmosphere. In comparison, the atmosphere was perfect in Port Arthur. Although the stories were pretty ordinary ghost stories with occasional scare made by the tour guide by suddenly stomping his feet onto the floorboard and frightened everybody but being in each site really did take me back to the events happened in there hundreds of years ago. For those with weak hearts and do believe in ghosts and are scared of ghosts, maybe just brace yourself if you still want to go. Those with brave hearts should definitely give it a try just for the experience and for those who make fun of ghost stories and who are just going to troll around, then don't waste your time and money. Maybe just visit the site during the day and that would be enough.
This was taken from the accommodation where we stayed for 1 night before the ghost tour. There was a fence separating the motel and the site and this view was pretty much what I could take from where I stood and there is more than what's in the picture. This is only 5 percent of what constitutes Port Arthur Historic Site. We stayed at Port Arthur Motor Inn which wasn't the greatest place to stay but it offers all the basic features you need, a queen comfy bed and a single bed so perfect for the three of us and any additional adult and bed, you just have to pay $25 per adult. There were complimentary tea, coffee and two water bottles. There was a split system heater/cooler, towels, bathroom amenities etc. Everything was kind of old but the room was clean. It was pretty cheap too and we slept like logs because we needed to get up by 5 am. We were planning to leave for Cradle Mountain by 6, however it was still too dark to drive and driving in the dark in the middle of rural Tasmania isn't the brightest thing to do. So we waited until dawn and we started our longest journey to Cradle Mountain.
Sometimes I am so frustrated how no matter how good your cameras are, there is just no way it can capture perfectly what your eyes see. This photo in real life was a hella more incredible that what it looks here. It was before sunrise as we started making our way to Cradle Mountain. We made a couple of stops along the way because at times, there wasn't any stop for the next 1 to 2 hours of journey. We had to stock up on snack, food, water and empty our bladders.
We stopped by a small town called Brighton to fill up our petrol and fill our stomach at the nearby bakery. We were then advised by one the ladies in the petrol station that Cradle Mountain was still 4 hours away. This was when everything went wrong. First of all, I thought the famous lake St Clair was where Cradle Mountain was because it's called Cradle Mountain - Lake Saint Clair National Park. So we thought they were the same thing!! Little did we know that from Lake St Clair, THE Cradle Mountain was still 3 hours away from Lake St Clair!!!
Second of all, we tried to be smartass about the route we travelled and I (yes, me) suggested to take the shortest route to Cradle Mountain via B11 (PLEASE AVOID THIS ROUTE UNLESS YOU"RE DRIVING A 4-WHEEL DRIVE). That was THE most painful route because it was an unseal road and length of the road was a pretty much 1.5 hours drive so imagine how long that route is plus we were driving slower than a walk of a turtle. We didn't even want to imagine how dirty our car was once we got out of the car. It was the shortest route but there was a reason why the GPS said we should get there in 4 hours instead of 3 hours. After what seemed like a forever road trip moment, we arrived at Lake St Clair National Park which we all thought we had arrived at Cradle Mountain. We were celebrating and proud of our effort in making it there, at least until the lady at the counter shattered everything. We were told that Cradle Mountain was still 3 hours away from Lake St Clair! At that time, I was going to pass out but we held on tight because regardless, our next destination was Launceston, so we had to go pass Cradle Mountain to get to Launceston anyways and we still had time because it was about 11 am when we arrived at Lake St Clair even though we were cutting it just fine. We decided we should take a quick look of Lake St Clair before pulling our second leg of journey to the great Cradle Mountain.
Of course we just had to take our selfie stick to capture those beautiful moments with all of us in it and not having to get people to take a photo for us like what I had to do everytime with my Olympus. A selfie stick is just so convenient! If only someone creates one too for DSLR instead of a tripod :) A tripod is great but not a great selfie tool. I can understand though how people get so worked up when they see people with selfie sticks in public. Well, we only use this when we are travelling not in a crowded place because it can hurt people practically and it looks annoying. Can't blame some of those countries that ban selfie sticks to be used in popular landmarks across the world.
Afterwards, we walked to the nearest cafe still within the national park to grab a take-away sandwich. I ordered a chicken sandwich and it was really good. I could taste that it was made fresh but that was the third mistake we made. We went back to our car and were back on the road on a mission again. We made another stop at Queenstown to fill up tank at the petrol station again and no one was paying attention to the way we should go. We didn't know what happened but almost 45 minutes down the road and an extremely windy road later to the point where my friend next to the driver almost threw up, we entered an unsealed road again. I felt somehow very wrong about it and I asked my friend who was the designated driver to stop. I quickly look at my phone GPS. Now, unless you use Telstra network, any other networks pretty much don't work. HOWEVER, your phone has a satellite system which will tell you where you are and do you know that if most of you own smart phones and have google maps installed, the blue dot that moves when you walk/drive, that blue dot keeps updating even though your phone doesn't have network signal. I guess it works based on satellite positioning and it works like a compass on an offline map. Luckily the maps already loaded the details when we were in some area where the mobile networks worked, so at least I could still view the map in details. We quickly turned back to queenstown back to where the petrol station was but we already wasted almost 2 hours on the road. Thankfully throughout the whole ordeal, I didn't throw up because I don't get motion sickness. it literally takes a lot for me to experience motion sickness. The only time that happened to me was when I was a child travelling from my hometown to a small island off Malaysia called Penang Island via a small ferry and the waves made me a bit sick but I didn't throw up.
When the three of us travel together, each of us has a role. One is a designated driver, one is a spare driver and I am the map reader because no one else in our group could read a map, especially a paper map. I don't know how this happens but I am pretty good at reading maps and I can pretty much direct myself with a manual maps a.k.a Melway. I started reading maps as soon as I got my hands on google maps before iPhone was born. There you go, breaking the stereotype that women can't read maps!
The scenery along the way was incredible. Just to show how natural everything is in Tasmania. It would literally take your breath away and make you forget all the problems in the world.
We arrived at about 4.30 pm because after we found the sign saying Cradle Mountain take a right turn, it was still another half an hour drive to the information centre. We couldn't wait to see what this place has to offer after driving for almost 9 hours in one day.
Lake Dove is the iconic lake in Cradle Mountain and you can do so many types of walk but to get the most out of it, you need to arrive early in the morning to do as many walks as you want because Cradle Mountain is massive. They also organise a night walk for hardcore hikers and it really looks fun. I used to do a lot of night walks in the mountain and jungles when I was a teenager, very much like my dad who loves outdoor adventures too. We could only do a short walk to the nearest lookout which took only 5 minutes walk unlike the infamous 6-day overland track walk. I think it costs about A$3000 ++.
First look at Lake Dove
The lake itself takes about 2 hours to walk around the lake. Just imagine the rest!! I wished we arrived earlier :(
Now you get why our itinerary was a complete fail and why we should've started from Launceston and work our way down to Hobart.
It was only a 5 minutes walk up to that massive rock up there from the mouth of the lake. That was pretty much the only outlook we could check out given the time constraint.
The view from top of the rock. Imagine how beautiful it would look from up the mountain. Still regretting until this date that we didn't have more time to do more walk.
Took this random waterfall (It's called Pencil Pine Waterfall) from another lookout before we started leaving Cradle Mountain at about 6 pm when it starts getting dark. It was another 2.5 hours drive to Launceston city from Cradle Mountain.
Driving at night from Cradle Mountain was not fun at all. It was pitch dark just solely lit by the moonlight and headlights. We had to use high beam feature most of the time because it was way too dark and too many small animals tried to cross the road. There was one time this squirrel was crossing and decided to stop in the middle of the road. My friend had to flash the headlight to shoo the squirrel away. It was an extremely harsh condition to drive and was potentially hazardous for us. The car could slip down and roll off the cliff if we were not careful enough by avoiding animals, I'm not surprised there are so many cases of road kill in Tasmania because drivers' safety always comes first. No offence to animal activists out there.
After arriving at Launceston, we made a quick stop to take away some food to eat at our second accommodation at 96 on Arthur. The food in Tasmania was quite horrible actually. Especially the Asian food which didn't surprise me considering they're the minority and there is not much competition going on.As it was already late at night by the time we arrived in town, the receptionist left the key in a safe box outside our apartment. Yes, there is a safe box attached outside the entrance to the apartment. All you do is to key in the unique code given by the receptionist and you're all good to go. We made the booking under 2 people, so there was only a queen size bed and I intended to sleep in the living room but I ended up squeezing in the middle of the bed between my two other friends. This place is again, an old but clean kind of accommodation. They have a kitchen area, a living room, a TV with DVD player, bathroom with a bathtub and other bathroom amenities. It costed us I think $99 a night per apartment. How cheap is that??
The view from the balcony outside our apartment,
.jpg)
Next day at 10.00 am, we checked out the apartment, left the key back in the safe box and off we went to explore Launceston. First we made a stop at the waterfront to get something to eat. It was Easter Monday, so we were not surprised that most of the restaurants opened at 11.30 am. There was only one that opened early and naturally, people flocked to that restaurant. I would say the food was average so I didn't bother taking any photo and on public holiday especially Easter, most restaurant attracts 15% surcharge!! That applies in other states in Australia too!! How unfair?? We have to use our tax money to pay for people's employees when in fact the bosses should pay with the profits they earned! Anyway, I'm not the only one whinging about it. There were some ladies queuing behind me and I swear all they talked about was how expensive the surcharge was and how unfair it was etc.
Oh and dare I say the portion served was rather small. I am not a big eater and it was pretty small for me. For confidentiality reason, I would not name the restaurant we visited but if you've been to Launceston, you'd probably know which one I'm talking about.
We took a bit of a walk on the boardwalk alongside the water before we made our journey to the infamous Cataract Gorge.
It was probably a 10-minute walk from the waterfront to the entry to Cataract Gorge walking trail/hiking trail. There are two ways to explore Cataract Gorge. One is via the zig zag track which is more challenging (the name of the track is pretty self-explanatory). We did zig-zag track a few years back and because we didn't have time to finish it, we had to go back to head to the airport. This time, we started early so we could explore a bit more. We decided to take the walking trail which is on the opposite side of the zig zag track. These tracks run parallel to to each other separated by the Tamar River.
In this picture, this was taken when we were about 10-15 mins down the walking trail. On the left hand side, it's the walking trail, on the right hand side, it's the zig zag track.
Much further down the trail, we discovered something we didn't get to see the last time we were there. There was this family picnic area with a small cafe and the view was amazing. The area is called The Basin. They even have this Cable Hang Gliding thing for enthusiasts. It looked fun but we didn't try it.
.jpg)
From the basin, you can walk along the bridge shown in the photo across and it will take you to the zig zag track so you can make a whole round back to the entrance. We were running out of time so we decided to make our way back to the town and get ready to drive to the airport. Our flight got delayed by half an hour and we found out it was because the Sydney Airport was shut down for half an hour due to the storm. Hence, our flight got delayed too because delay rarely happens with Jetstar. With Tiger Airways, it happens more. I was terribly sad when I left. I'm not sure why but I felt some sort of attachment with Tasmania. The locals are friendly, I felt calm just breathing the fresh air and looking over to the great mountains. Everywhere you go, you can see mountains far ahead. It was just breathtaking and I always have a soft spot for outdoor adventures. I wish I could just go bush walking every single time and get paid for it. Dream on.... I guess at this stage, I won't be returning anytime soon but Tasmania is definitely one of my favourite places to visit and to find my soul amongst other states I've visited in Australia. If I have another chance, my next trip will be to visit Northern Territory, possibly Kimberley. By the time we were at the airport, we started counting how many hours we spent in the car and we worked it out to be 15.50 hours in total! Don't make the same mistake we did, plan smart!!
Until my next holiday, Adiós!!
