Tasmania

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year's navigating through the wilds of Tasmania, dodging bushfires, wildlife, and bad weather. We arrived in Devonport after an overnight ferry trip on the Spirit of Tasmania, and immediately headed toward the east coast, where we took a peak at the Bay of Fires, before heading south to spend our first night at the Bicheno Caravan Park. There, we managed to catch the nightly parade of fairy penguins from the cold waters of the Tasman Sea into their roosts on the Bicheno coast. We also met Tim and Cindie, who've spent the past 5 years bicycling around the world and were actively working on editing the second book describing their adventures.

From Bicheno, we continued south, stopping in at the Freycinet National Park, and Swansea and continuing on to Hobart, where we arrived Christmas Eve. We lodged oursleves at the Customs House Hotel on the harbour, and had to search a bit before we could find a find meal worthy of Christmas Eve (quite a few tourists in town for the Sydney to Hobart race). On Christmas Day, we joined the rest of the tourists at Port Arthur, one of the few remaining windows to Australia's more humble colonial beginnings. Christmas Day was cold and rainy, with snow falling on Tasmania's peaks. As a further insult, Hobart pretty much shut down by the afternoon, and so we were forced to find sustenance in the local casino, and we returned to our hotel only to have the electricity knocked out by a gust of wind.

On Boxing Day, we returned to the bush, and headed north into Tasmania's highlands. We spent a night at the Tarraleah power station - formerly a community for Tasmania's hydropower workers - now a quiet resort, complete with accommodation ranging from a luxury lodge, to cottages, to camp sites. We got a taste of summer weather in Tasmania, with temperatures overnight dropping below 10C.

The following day, we continued north into the Cradle Mountain/Lake St. Clair National Park, stopping for a quick peak at Lake St. Clair, before taking the roundabout western roads to get to Cradle Mountain. We passed through some of Tasmania's more rustic communities, including Queenstown (a little village nestled into a mining-scarred landscape) and Rosebery, the latter looking like something out of West Virginia in the 1970s. We arrived at our campground just outside the park in the late afternoon, and proceeded to pray for good weather for the next day.

We woke early to tackle Cradle Mountain itself - a peak the juts out of the highland landscape, famous for its views which are often obscured by nasty weather. Just three days before, the mountain had received snowfall, but we were lucky enough to experience fantastic blue skies. The hike to the base of the mountain along the park's Overland Track (which continues south for days for the intrepid adventurer) was pleasant enough - fantastic views of the surrounding peaks and valleys. The ascent to the summit however was indeed challenging, with the "trail" consisting of a series of metal stakes sticking out of a boulder encrusted mountainside. We scrambled past more than one person who'd decided that this was not what they had in mind when they set out for a hike, but we made it to the top without too much trouble. We returned via Hudson's Lake, a trip that took longer than we expected, over rougher ground, and the trail disappeared toward the end, forcing us to get a bit creative. It all ended well, however, and we called it an early night after about seven hours on the move.

Our final day saw us heading back toward Devonport to catch the ferry home, but we stopped off in the quaint town of Sheffield to check out the famous murals (painted years ago as a means of attracting tourists - it appeared to have worked), and then snuck in one last hike through Narawntapu National Park (previously known as Asbestos Range National Park, but that clearly doesn't sound as pleasant). This coastal park allegedly has the highest density of wildlife of any park in the world. Not sure about that claim, but there certainly were heaps of wallabies and pademelons. Once again, we got a bit side-tracked and lost the path, but eventually back-tracked and recovered.

We boarded our ferry a bit stinky and sailed off into the sunset for the voyage home.

For the feast of photos, go here.