We noticed how close Launceston was to Swansea and decided to “pop in” on the way back to Hobart. We said our goodbyes to Lesla and Mike…

(Not the best photo, but you can see how close they are to the water!) and were on our way. It was suggested that we head to Cataract Gorge, so armed with a map we drove through the beautiful town of Launceston. And beautiful it was! I love that all the houses are different colours (same as Hobart!) and the Autumn leaves really set it off! We parked the car near the gorge and started our walk.

Did I mention is was cold? I mean, the locals were wearing light clothing, but I had 4 layers on. Chilly!!! It was a very pretty walk though, and we started warming up quite quickly.

When we got to “the end” it was like we’d stepped on to a movie set, hidden away from everything! There was a swimming pool, a restaurant, a cafe, a bar, a chair lift, a suspension bridge and a park. It was really amazing! And wouldn’t you know it, I don’t have any photos of it on my memory stick. I’ll have to see what I have at home! It really was gorgeous! There are 2 ways of returning to the start – the high road or the low road 🙂 We had taken the low road there, which was the easy route, and we had planned to take the high road home which was more of a hike, but I was just too knackered. We got back to the car and started our journey back to Hobart.

We arrived back at the B&B and this time we were booked into a room at the back of the building, with our own ensuite! Gorgeous! And oh so quiet (sssshhhh sssshhh). We returned the car with no additional costs (woo hoo!) and caught the last quarter of a Carlton vs Geelong game at the pub. Then we used our last $19 to buy some dinner (noodles/rice at a cute little Asian take away joint) and it was back to the B&B for a night in.

What a great trip! We had such a lovely time and really enjoyed the ease of getting around Tassie. Hubs wants to do a Cradle Mountain hike one of these days, and it’s definitely a place I’d love to come back to. I’m so glad we were able to visit while still living in Melbourne. The next trip on the list? Back to Brissie for a weekend at the end of May. Hope to see some of you then!

Here’s what I was talking about when I mentioned the different coloured houses in Hobart. Just beautiful!

We were up bright and early (well, we weren’t very bright and it wasn’t that early) for a walk around Freycinet National Park on the Sunday. We arrived armed with a map, water, snacks and brand new sunnies (I was struggling without them!!) and of course Hubs’ camera! We decided on the Wineglass Bay and Hazards Beach circuit which was 11km and supposedly 5 hours. Hubs was really keen to do Mt Amos as well, but we weren’t sure we’d fit it in. I suggested we try and push ourselves through the first walk and then decide after that.

We started off around 11am and I gotta say, the first 1.5km was hard going! The weather was incredible and within about 15 minutes, both Hubs and I had removed our thermals, which we had to carry around for the rest of the walk! (It was 8 degrees that morning!!!) We got to the top of the lookout and had a great view of Wineglass Bay.

No, that is not a cardboard cut out of our silhouettes! Hubs wanted to lighten it but I got impatient and wanted to blog before he got around to it! 🙂 Now, there are a couple of different stories about how Wineglass Bay got it’s name – one is that it is shaped like a wineglass, but the other is that there were 2 whale slaughter stations situated at the beginning of the bay, and that all the blood from the whales would come in and “fill up” the bay and look like a glass full of red wine. Gross.

We trekked on (downhill!) to the bay and it was just as beautiful at the bottom.

It seemed pretty damn chilly, what, with the close proximity to Antarctica!!, but that didn’t stop some crazy people from going swimming! We left them to it and cut across on the track to Hazards beach which was just as stunning.

We took our shoes off and enjoyed the feeling of the sand between our toes. I actually felt the water, and to my surprise it wasn’t as freezing as I was expecting! The last part of the track was through the bush and over rocks and through trees and all sorts of fun things! I really like those sort of hike/walks. Especially with the glorious weather – you can see from the photos how stunning it was! We got back to the start at around 3:30pm and with the light fading fast (no more daylight savings!!) we decided against Mt Amos. Hubs was a bit disappointed, but was getting a bit sore, and I was absolutely stuffed, so we just headed back to the car. After taking some photos of a Wallaby:

We had cooled down by this stage and it was freezing! So on went the thermals again, and we returned to Swansea via another bay and a lighthouse. All lovely sights to see! We arrived “home” around 6pm, exhausted (and chilly!) after another great day out.

On the Saturday (24th April) we headed to the Salamanca Markets for a little look-see.

It was quite busy and we slowly made our way around the whole place. I gotta tell you, it’s pretty depressing walking around markets for 2-3 hours, knowing you don’t really have any spending money!! The usual suspects were there (jams, cards, clothes, jewellery) but Hubs and I were quite taken with the wood carvings and the leather goods, respectively. The weather was quite okay – a bit windy which blew the autumn leaves up in the air which was so gorgeous. We then hopped into the car and started heading up to Swansea.

On the way, we had to stop at Orford for this amazing view:

The clouds were completely covering those mountains when we first got there, but by the time Hubs set the camera up, it was starting to clear. Very pretty none-the-less! We arrived at Swansea around 3pm and caught up with Lesla (a relative, but too hard to explain how we’re related!!) over a cup of tea and some ANZAC bikkies – it was the ANZAC day long weekend after all! It was such a beatiful afternoon that Lesla took us for a walk along the beach – practically on her doorstep!

It really was very pleasant! We got home a bit before dark and settled in for an evening BBQ (cooked outside, eaten inside – it wasn’t that warm!) Mike and Lesla gave us some info about Freycenet National Park – our destination for the following day, and after watching a bit of the footy, we headed to bed for a nice, warm, cozy night sleep.