Day 5 (con't) & Day 6 - Tasmania

After the cruise, we drove a fair bit along the Tamar Valley. Seeing alot of vineyards and we reached Beauty Point where there is the platypus house.


What's a platypus?

The Platypus is a semi-aquatic mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.

And u know what, dont trying provoking a platypus as it is one of the few venomous mammals. The male Platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.



And this is echidna.


Then, we did a short stop at the Swiss Grindelwald



Along the way to Sheffield, we stopped by for cheese. Tasted wasabi cheese, chilli cheese, lavender cheese. But i still prefer the traditional type of cheese with our bread. Haha....



The maturing of cheese...


Off we were to Sheffield. Went to the supermarket there to buy food for dinner cooking.

Sheffield is a town whereby there are lots of murals. And yes, along the way, I saw alot.... And alot of them are very nicely done. Too bad I didnt had the chance to take photos as it was starting to get cold. Yes. Cold. And it was drizzling....

Sleep was at this apartment.


Dinner preparation:



The next morning, just outside our apartment.


Cradle mountain is part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. It is at the northern end of the park, and marks the start of the renowned Overland Track – a at least 6-day walk via hiking trails to Lake St Clair, Australia’s deepest natural lake, in the park’s south.

Not a very clear photo as it was cloudy that day.


Though it was autumn, it was cold. We weren't prepared for that cold weather and had to buy gloves there. Luckily, both of us brought along 2 jackets.







On to Strahan on the west coast of Tasmania.

Fireplace... yessss.....


Off for a walk... is this a real police station??


Off to see the sunset.


Most beautiful sunset seen to-date. What was lacking was a bottle of wine.

Day 5 - Tasmania

Launceston... Think it's the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart.

We had dinner on day 4 night at this Thai restaurant owned by Thais. And surprisingly, one of the lady who served us is a Singaporean studying for her Masters at the University of Tasmania. Hmmm.... thought Tas wasnt really a popular place to study at. Well, I might be wrong.

Bo liao us taking a picture of their carpark system. You got to decide if you want to park your car for 1/2 hour or a few hours there and then.


We were there to take this:


As well as to take a look at the cataract gorge.

That's us on the chairlift.


View from the chairlift.


We climbed again, to the lookout for the cataract gorge. but it wasnt fabulous. but we saw alot of lizards along the way. hahaha

Then, we walked to here:


We, on the bridge.


It wasnt a scary walk cos' they had warnings, telling people like my hubby to not swing the bridge. :)

A nicer view from the bridge.



Off we were to another cruise ride. Not a bumpy ride.


This cruise brings us into the cataract gorge.

Look at how the houses 'stacked' up...


Off to work now... blog about the later part of day 5 again... :) it's friday. yippee...

Day 4 - Tasmania

Up up and away....

Off to Freycinet National Park for some good morning exercise.

This is real and not from any wallpaper ah.... Great Oyster Bay. Only 10 min walk return.


Saw a wallaby on the way to another walking trail... A wallaby is a smaller version of the kangaroo and it looks soooooo cute, doesn't it??


Climbing up and up the walking trails, you actually need comfortable walking shoes. And I was almost panting when I was up there as I didnt make any rest stops. The wineglass bay lookout.


Cant really see the wineglass bay huh? See the next photo...



Blue waters, white sands surrounded by greeny. Wow.... this is awesome and worth the climb.

We didnt go down to the winglass bay as it was too far and too much time is needed.

see... i walked and climbed for an hour and more....


Next, the lighthouse. This place is also part of the National Park and we were driving uphill to reach it.

And it seems that we are pretty 'high' up there... see the clouds???


The lighthouse.


With all the climbing, of course we were hungry.
Another place raved by their locals.

Oysters again. This time, accompanied with crayfish (they called it crayfish, we call it lobster. :P )

Fresh as it was straight out from their farm. i think so...




No ambience, just eating it al-fresco style outside a ermmm hut/container?? ha... who cares as long as the food is gd.


Not the cheapest oysters we have eaten but decent price for fresh fresh oysters.


With a full stomach, we were off to Launceston, the next town in Tasmania with more people. Ha.......

Day 3 - Tasmania

We headed out from our apartment on day 3 to move towards the east coast.

Still at the Tasman Peninsula.

We were here in the morning:


Dangerous it may seem, but there were people surfing....


One of the reasons why it was remarkable... see the outline of Tasmania???


Then, off we were to here:


Nothing exccept for walking trails. It's a historic site whereby convicts were sent to mine for coal... I think so lah....

The world's largest surviving carnivorous marsupial can now be found in Tasmania only.
Yes, the tasmanian devil.


No front views as this one was busy licking itself after it's meal.

Why cant we have this in Singapore? A caravan selling food.


And the locals have alot of raves about their fish & chips.
And, it was good compared to alot of restaurants serving this. Mainly and most importantly, the fresh fish.


Eating and enjoying a blowhole - can you see it??


We bought ice-cream too. It was then that we realised ice-cream was very very nice there.

Off on the road for a couple of hours before we reach the east coast.

Our cottage apartment for the night which gave hubby the creeps cos' of the very very English-heritage kind of layout and deco.


We go supermarket shopping almost everyday.
And dinner for that night was Singapore-style fried noodles and BBQ meat/sausages/mushrooms.

Oh ya, the chilli costs A$0.40 for one. :)

Love you.

Birthday

Birthday was on Monday. Took half day leave.

Greetings as usual from my group of friends and in particular a guy whom I knew since secondary school and who never fails to sms me birthday wishes even though we hardly contact.

How was my birthday??

Nope, no big pressies but i'm ok with that cos my biggest pressie in terms of material wants was received in Feb08.
I'm not greedy.

I'm happy to be healthy, happy most of the times, have a lovely hubby and the nicest mummy in the world (well, to me la....)
What else can i wish for???

Yes... wishes for more money. who doesn't?
but life isnt all about money sometimes. :)
contradictory it may seem, but that's life rite?

Day 2 - Tasmania

Apologies for taking so long to update. Been very busy. Work, family, dinners.

For your info, my birthday is coming... ermmmm.... :)

Alright, back to our trip.

Our day started with a trip to Port Arthur - this time in daylight. :P

What should I say about this place.

According to the website:

"The Port Arthur penal settlement began life as a small timber station in 1830. Originally designed as a replacement for the recently closed timber camp at Birches Bay, Port Arthur quickly grew in importance within the penal system of the colonies."

Please check out their website should you be interested to find out more.

To me, in short, this place was a convict area. With alot of their buildings being destroyed.




See this tree... it was autumn then, thus the trees are slowing changing... we thought it was amazing...


It was hot and cold. Hot because of the sun. Cold because of the wind. Don't know to hate or love the weather sometimes.

Lunch was light. Our next stop was a cruise.

See the octopus? Can we get that in Singapore????


Some of the marvellous sights.





Highest sea-cliffs in the southern hemisphere


Do you see them?? Never in my life have I seen so much seals!!!!


And... they are real smelly....


The cruise boat.


It was an interesting ride. Out at sea, we had roller-coasters ride cos' of the waves. Just like jet-boat rides.
The only sad part was that we didnt manage to see any dolphins at play. :(

3-hour Tasman Island eco-cruise was definitely an eye-opener.

How could I forget dinner?

Remebered I said oysters?? :)

Here you go..
Though abit small, it was fresh. No need for tobasco sauce. Just lemon and awww...


Was it becos' Tas has one of the freshest air in the world and cleanest water in the world??? With a population less than 500,000, what is pollution?

One of the nicest seafood chowder ever tasted.


P/S: Had dinner at one of the established restaurants locally and had prawns. But... was complaining that they were nothing compared to what i had in Tas. Missed the mussels, served boiled with nothing else. Heavenly.

Day 1 - Tasmania

Was thinking whether I should blog about the trip and the fact that it was 11 days long... it will definitely take a while before i can finish blogging about everything. Well, let's see how things go ba.....

Thursday 10.50 pm. - Flew off from Changi Airport Terminal 1 (so sad, it's not terminal 3 as we are not rich enough to take SQ. :P).

Touched down at Adelaide for a short while before we are off to Sydney. The reason why we had 2 stopovers were cos' 1) save money. more stopovers, cheaper fare. 2) we were going to Sydney for a few days before coming back home. 3) Melbourne - which was supposed to be the nearest city for a stopover to Tasmania had no seats cos it was F1 weekend.

Supper on Qantas. This is nice. Especially that sweet potato thingy. Or was it pumpkin???


Refreshment.


Waiting for our domestic flight at the Sydney dosmestic airport - surprisingly, their dosmestic airport seems to be better than their internation airport.



Upon reaching Hobart, we went to get our car. Changed and changed the car till we got this. Wanted to get the Nissan X-Trail but too bad, our luggages could not fit into the boot. One thing I learnt was that it is always better to get a car which has a boot that can cover the luggages. 4WD and passenger vans and MPVs are always a problem cos they do not have a covered-up boot like a sedan.

Chio rite??? Red colour.... and it's very powerful according to our friend who drove it.



Note: If you are thinking of buying 4D for the car no., you may wish to know that it did not "open" the last 2 weekends. Should u decide to buy and do strike, please send me a small token of appreciation for the inspirational numbers. Thank you very much.

Our home for the 1st 2 nights. A self-contained apartment which can sleep up to 7 people. Strangely, they only have 1 shower and 1 toilet. Hmmm... imagine having 7 persons fighting for a shower. OMG. Luckily, we only had 5 pax. :)



Did I mention that I nearly got blown away at Hobart airport? The wind was so so so strong that I nearly got blown away and had to hold on to Brian. Hahahaha...... What a welcome for me.

The first night was very very interesting as we went for a ghost tour.

Yes. You heard me right. Timid Cynthia went for a Ghost Tour.

The thing about doing a self-drive is that one has the control of time and what one wants to see or does not want to see. I doubt a package tour will bring you for a ghost tour. :P

The bad thing is, driving. I'm not the driver though. Heng..... Winding roads, wildlife on the run during dusk till dawn are sometimes a nightmare.
Another bad is navigation. Which was luckily, pretty easy in Tasmania as apart from 2 big cities with more complicated roads, the rest are pretty simple. a few highways, some major roads and occasional secondary roads.

Day 2... please be patient. :)

Back...

Hi people,

I'm back from that BIG island. :)

I was away to see Tasmanian Devil and feast on oysters for hmmmm, 11 days.

Wonderful.

Away from civilisation
Away from the concrete jungle
Away from the rush and crowd

One of the cleanest air in the world did I breathe in
Almost all the 4 seasons in a week did I experience
Freshest seafood did I tasted

I guess I would have outbreaks due to the overwhelming amount of seafood poison if not for the clean and fresh air, cool and at times, freezing temperature.

Wish I am still away....

P/S: Photos up soon. Still uploading them. Thousands of them. :P