I’m already finished my trip to Tasmania, and it was so awesome! So how did it all come about? Well, my flatmate (Beena) had to go to Hobart for work on Monday and she wanted to make a long weekend out of it. A couple of weeks ago, she messaged me on Sunday afternoon and asked if I’d be interested in joining her. Originally, I wasn’t planning on going to Tasmania until the summer since it tends to be a bit colder than the rest of Australia, but once I looked at flight prices and saw that it would only be $160 round trip, I figured why not go twice?! I decided to give myself Thursday and Friday off, and we booked our flights that night. We got an Uber to the airport at 6:15 Thursday morning and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to go through security and have breakfast. A few things that shocked me upon flying within Australia is first, they didn’t ask for identification or boarding passes to go through security and therefore, anyone could go through whether they were getting on a flight or not. The second thing is you can bring an unlimited amount of liquids of any size. I brought through my water bottle and two bags of toiletries and didn’t get stopped at all. Lastly, they didn’t even check identification to get on the plane – they just scanned the boarding passes. I could have given my ticket to a friend and they wouldn’t have known! Everything was a lot more relaxed than what I’m used to.
Our flight was only an hour and fifteen minutes, so we arrived in Hobart just before 10am. We picked up our car rental and started our drive towards Freycinet Park. We made a couple of stops along the way to get some snacks and see some views. Then we made it to Coles Bay (the nearest town) at around 2pm. We stopped at the only restaurant we could find, ordered a pizza to go, and ate next to the water. Then we were ready to go hiking! 
In order to see the famous Wineglass Bay, they said it would take an hour and a half round trip. It was only 16 degrees outside, but both of us were so hot walking up to the lookout! We were both dying once we made it to the top, but we only took 22 minutes – half the time! From that point onwards, Beena started joking about whether a specified hiking time would be for normal people, or “Janelle-walking-time.” I guess I tend to speed-hike just as much as I speed-walk… After we went back down, there were two wallabies waiting for us in the parking lot, and one of them even had a baby in its pouch! We then went to a few other short hikes, and then finished our day at Honeymoon Point, where we sat for an hour and waited for the sunset. After that, we did another 2.5 hours of driving to Saint Helens. I knew that the lodge that we’d be staying in would have a cat, but I stupidly only brought Benadryl so by the time we got to Saint Helens, I was nearly passed out. I made myself stay up until 9 and then I was good to go to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
On Friday, we stopped at a cute, little bakery in Saint Helens to have breakfast before starting another activity-filled day. We started by checking out Bay of Fires, which is 50km of pristine beaches. There wasn’t a soul to be seen and it was absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately, it was still too cold to have a beach day so we wondered if the beaches were just as quiet during the summer. After exploring for a couple of hours, we left Saint Helens at 10 and started the 4-hour drive to Cradle Mountain. We arrived there at 2pm, had lunch, and then waited for the shuttle to take us to the mountain. What we didn’t realise was that the last shuttle left the mountain at 5pm, so it only gave us two hours to hike. We decided not to do the lake circuit because they said it would take between 2-3 hours (even though we had full confidence in our speed-hiking abilities). Instead, we walked down to the lake and then did a 1.5-hour hike to Ronny Creek, which was another shuttle bus stop. The weather at Cradle Mountain tried to be on our side – apparently the fog had (for the most part) cleared up right when we arrived, but towards the last half hour of our hike, it started raining. The coolest thing about the hike was the amount of wombats that we were able to see!
We caught the shuttle back to the parking lot and we were originally planning to drive two hours to Launceston (the other major city) but we decided we might as well do the 4-hour drive back to Hobart since we’d have to wake up the next morning to finish it from Launceston anyway. We arrived in Hobart just after 9pm and were exhausted once again, so we just went straight to bed without having dinner for a second night in a row.On Saturday morning, we went to Salamanca Market, which happens every Saturday and has about 300 stalls. I got a smoked salmon omelette on a roll for breakfast, which was so good! Tasmania is apparently known for its food, and Hobart definitely did not disappoint! We spent about an hour and a half exploring the market, then drove to the ferry terminal to go to Bruny Island. Fun fact: Bruny Island is the same size as the island of Singapore, but instead of having 5-6 million people, it has a population of about 600. We got to the ferry terminal with ten minutes to spare, got on the ferry, and took the 20-minute trip to the island. We then drove a half hour to the Fluted Cape trail, which is a 2.5-hour hike. Unfortunately for us, it was quite misty and foggy on the island, and it started to pour for nearly our entire walk up the cliff. When we finally got to the top, our view was a white fog into nothingness. Luckily, the fog slowly started to clear as we made it back down, so we were able to see some views (and a couple of wallabies!) on our way down. We were completely soaked and freezing once we got back to the car so we drove to a cheese restaurant and split a cheese and bread platter. We then drove an hour to the very southern part of the island (the southernmost part of Australia) to see the view from the lighthouse. It was FREEZING up there, and the wind nearly blew me off of the cliff! Our plan was to stay until sunset, but we only lasted about 5-10 minutes before we decided we’d rather spend our time next to the car heater. We drove another hour back to the ferry terminal and had to wait about 40 minutes to catch the final ferry back to Hobart. By the time we got back to Hobart, it was about 8pm so we went to a restaurant called Urban Greek and had a delicious late dinner. I had forgotten how good real Greek food was, and it really made me want to go back so I could eat my way through it! I do think Greece was one of my favourite countries to eat in, as everything was so delicious!
On Sunday morning, we arrived at MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) right when it opened at 10am. We had breakfast at a cafe there and split a frittata and a beef & ale pie, which were both so good. And then we decided to also split a slice of carrot cake because I had been talking about carrot cake nonstop the entire weekend, so why not have it for breakfast? We then spent about three hours going through the museum. It’s quite modern and abstract art, and it deals a lot more with other senses rather than just eyesight. I didn’t really understand any of the art, but it was still interesting. It reminded me a lot of the Pompidou Museum in Paris, as the types of art were similar. After the museum, we decided to check out central Hobart, so we walked along the cold harbour and then found a restaurant called Mures, where we had a late lunch (and I had an amazing seafood chowder!). Afterwards, we spent an hour checking out the shops until they closed at 4pm, and then we went to the cinema to watch Crazy, Rich Asians. The last time I’ve been in a cinema was about three years ago when I got a free ticket to watch a movie in London. This is cause I’m too cheap to spend 15-20 dollars to go to a movie. However, since Sunday was a rainy day in Hobart, there wasn’t much else to do. And the movie was cute – Beena and I both cried (I think we have similar tastes in movies). After the movie, we went back to the hostel to rest for an hour and a half cause we had a dinner reservation at a place called Templo for 8:30. The restaurant offered a tasting menu for $65 per person, but we decided to each just get the gnocchetti/anchovy/lemon sauce dish, and then share the swede dish (which here, a swede is a rutabaga). Both dishes were absolutely delicious! We were so full after only eating half our meals, but we couldn’t stop eating them. I was shocked as to how good all of the flavours meshed together!On Monday, we got up and packed all of our stuff. Beena’s work meetings started at 10am and my bus to the airport left at 10:45, so we parted ways and I stopped at a restaurant called Waffle On. There, I had a bacon and banana cinnamon waffle, which was so amazing (again, the food in Hobart is spectacular, so no surprise!)! I then walked to the bus stop, took the half hour bus ride to the airport, got screened for a random drug test, went through security, and still had an hour until boarding. Then, I found out that my flight would be delayed by 45 minutes, which is when I decided it would be useful to write this blog post. So here we are! Officially on the flight as I’m finishing this up, and then I’ll have tonight to unpack and repack my stuff to fly to Brisbane tomorrow morning (I’ll be going from 10 degree to 22 degree weather). Hope everyone’s doing well! Love always
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