Tazmazing!

A few years ago, on a cold, late night train journey back from the bleak suburban town of Crawley, UK, when we were still just workmates - we had a conversation about Tasmania and how nice it had looked on a program we both saw the night before. Fast forward a few years and we are living just an hour and a half away from Tassie!

Taking advantage of the Anzac Day public holiday we popped across the Tasman Sea and arrived in Launceston, Tassie's second city, early on Thursday morning. We picked up our hire car and drove in to town to stock up on food before heading for our little cabin in the woods. Tasmania is basically empty. We finally found some people watching the Anzac Day parade - a very touching event that happens across lots of cities and towns. The day is taken very seriously here with older veterans all the way through to school children taking part. And some fine marching bands. 

All the shops are shut until midday as a mark of respect so it was time for breakfast. Tasmania is renowned for it's fine, fresh produce so we tucked into our first meal...baked beans on toast and a bacon sandwich. Well, there was plenty of time for pork belly and goat's cheese! With still some time to kill before the shops opened we headed to a beauty spot, right in the middle of Launceston - Cataract Gorge. Ben spent a good hour terrified out of his wits - first on a chairlift with just a thin bar which takes you very slowly over the lagoon at the bottom of the gorge and secondly on the wobbly bridge crossing back over the water.  

It was all very pretty. And empty. 

We stocked up on food and started our drive to Cradle Mountain National Park - a couple of hours inland. Along the way we spotted a new wildlife warning sign - one totally unique to Tasmania... 

Watch out for Tasmanian devils!

After driving through Railton, Town of Topiary (really,  http://www.townoftopiary.com.au) we arrived in the small town of Sheffield. With all our links to it's namesake in Yorkshire, we had to stop. While Railton has it's clipped bushes, Sheffield has it's murals!!

That's a Tasmanian Tiger in the mural. An extinct marsupial.

Time for some of that infamous Tassie gourmet fare...a cheese toastie! It was a very good one though.

We pressed on and arrived at our little cabin late afternoon as a blustery weather front moved in. Our cabin was amazing and could not have been more perfect for what we wanted. Thank you Cradle Mountain Highlander Cottages! 

Firing up the extremely effective wood burner

Cosy, cosy, cosy

Only the sounds of trees blowing in the wind and lashing rain

The next morning was pretty wet and windy, but optimistically we set off for Dove Lake at the foot of Cradle Mountain. We couldn't actually see Cradle Mountatin due to the cloud and mist, but it was still very atmospheric. A stunning landscape that reminded us of Scotland...and then there would be a weird Pandani tree and you'd realise you were really quite far from Scotland.

On the way back to warming ourselves up in the cabin we were finally rewarded with what this trip to Tassie was really all about - wombats!!!! Almost definitely the coolest, and cutest, animals on the planet.

The next day was gorgeous sunshine and we set off on a mammoth hike. Slightly longer than we intended if truth be told, but covering a number of peaks, a very windy plateau, a stretch of the Overland Track (a famous 5 day hike route) and a sheer rock face which saw us sliding down on our backsides. Here's some highlights....

Lake Lilla

Kitted out for winter, good on the windy plateau, not so good on the steep climbs

Crater Lake

Pandanis galore

The Cradle Plateau. A good spot to get blown over, I discovered.

Really very, very steep on the descent from Marion's Lookout

Yet more amazing wombat-ness

The walk completed and Ben's one pound bobble hat lives to fight another day

West of Eden

Our second Aussie winter is about to start, the nights are closing in and it dipped to a chilly 19 degrees today in Sydney(!). So today saw the very first winter snowfall in the Aussie alps - the Snowy Mountains, about 6 hrs drive from Sydney.......so in tribute I thought I'd finally finish our Xmas adventures update when we visited this area in the height of summer when it's a walking/mountain biking centre rather than ski-central.

Heading inland from Eden, we passed across some beautiful scenery on a rather hot drive. With Reggie's warning light popping on as we left Eden, we decided the best approach would be to not use any unnecessary power i.e. air conditioning and kept the engine running even when we stopped. A wise decision as it turned out.

The buzzing town of Bombola, pretty much exactly halfway between Sydders and Melbourne

Arriving at our hotel in the main Alpine village of Thredbo, Reggie had finally had enough and conked out with the windows stuck open. But at least he'd got us there. A visit from roadside assistance confirmed we would need a jump start every time we set off until we could get someone to work out what had broken. 

Since we didn't need to move on for a couple of days, we put it to the back of our minds and set about exploring....and mountaineering! Thredbo sits at the bottom of Mount Kosciuszko...the highest mountain in Australia, all 2228 feet of it.

We jumped on the ski lift to take us up to about 1900ft where lots of the ski runs start in the winter, but in the summer are mountain bike heaven. There was many a padded biker with their bike wedged awkwardly into the ski lift around us. The 1900ft point also kicks off the walk to the summit and we set off on the ascent!

Looking down to Thredbo from the ski lift

Snow....but 20 degrees.Confusing.

A bit of Aussie Alpine scenery

The top of Australia

Summiting!

but this is how it looks today...brrrrr!

So it's time to start 'rugging up' as they call it and Ben can once more start ranting at people coming into work complaining about the 'ícy, freeeeeeeeezing weather'. It's still 17 degrees people!!!!!! To be fair it'll soon be 12 degrees inside our non-centrally heated house. A strange quirk of Aussie house-building. I guess it's just not worth it for only 3 months of cold. Brrrrrrrrrr..........

Onwards to Eden

Pressing on from Merimbula it was all beaches and national parks. After a stop at Pambula surf beach....

Pambula Beach

....we pulled into Ben Boyd National Park. More off roading for Reggie and he was starting to look pretty rugged and dusty :-)

 We headed to The Pinnacles - a rock feature by the beach. It was totally deserted and pretty stunning.

We then stopped by Eden for some lunch and then into the other half of the Ben Boyd National Park the other side of the town. Ben Boyd was an interesting sounding chap - a slightly crazy Scottish guy, apparently of imposing appearance. He went to Australia to build his fortune through all manner of enterprises. He set about establishing a town that would rival Sydney named after himself - Boydtown - and borrowed and juggled his way to success in his various businesses, whaling and farming and so on. He had some fairly dubious views on getting cheap labour and after a spell of success his finances crumbled and he set off for the gold fields in Australia, then the USA, also ending in failure. He was last seen disappearing into the rainforest in the Solomon Islands with a servant. Shots were heard from the trees and he was never seen again. A strange character to name such a beautiful area after, but there you go.......

There are a few of Ben Boyd's follys still dotted around - an Elizabethan style manor house and Boyd Tower, which was supposed to be a lighthouse, but was never commissioned.
Instead it became a lookout for whale spotting in Twofold Bay. It seemed hard to imagine as we stared out at this huge expanse of calm, clear water, but it used to be the scene of many a battle between whaling boats and the humpback and southern right whales that visit the area. Now whale watching is one of the key local industries, but back in the day whales were caught and killed in a weird alliance between man and orca. Killer whales herded whales into the bay, jumping around to alert the local whaling teams. They would keep the whales penned in and exhaust them until the whaling boats arrived to finish the job. The bargain was the whalers would then leave the killer whales to feast on the tongue and lips of the dead whales - the only bit they were interested in - and then come back the next day to collect. Grim, but pretty amazing.

One of the orcas was a particular favourite...Old Tom. The orca pod didn't visit after Tom died and the whaling industry sort of died with him. He was so popular they built a museum to put him in. A pretty cool building too - nice bit of art deco.

Eden was brill. Beautiful and a good pub. A few nice cafes too down at the still very active harbour. The fisherman were chuckling away in the pub the night we were in at some 'yachties' - a crew that seemed to be halfway through the Sydney to Hobart boat race stopping off for the night. I'm not sure they were too impressed with the part-time sailors.
The next morning we had a relax and a read on the beach, one last look at the stunning bay and it was time to head out of Eden. At this point Reggie's battery light came on.....meh, probably be fine.....

Christmas on the coast....

Clearly we've not yet managed San Francisco Part 2. In fact we've been poor. But we'll come back to them. Let's talk Christmas!

Sydney's Christmas tree

Our second one in Oz and again no sense of feeling remotely Christmasey. Just too weird when it's even 21 degrees overnight. Both our offices were closed, no visitors and our new pride and joy, Reggie, parked outside....a road trip was the only answer. 

After deciding we'd only had bad luck with rain north of Sydney we decided on a route that took in the NSW south coast down to the border with Victoria then inland to the area home to Australia's ski resorts in Winter. Finally heading back to Sydney via a deep space centre and a concrete sheep. Actually those last two ended up a little later than planned due to a little rest that Reggie had to take in Canberra, but we'll come back to that. 

Reggie the Honda in all his sports coupe splendour

After amazing summer weather so far we set off on Christmas Day afternoon... in absolutely torrential rain. One of Reggie's endearing features is leaking in wet weather so it was a damp start. First stop was Berry, a lovely town a couple of hours south of Sydney that we've passed through a few times. Full of tea shops, it's always packed with scone hunters, but was deserted on Christmas Day so we pulled in out of the rain to our motel and set about eating a lot of cheese. Well something had to be like Christmas. 

Since my phone saw fit to wipe all of my photos you're spared a shot of rainy Berry, but after coffee and doughnuts on Boxing Day morning we headed south. Turning off the Princes Highway towards Murramarang National Park we pulled into our campsite on Merry Beach. It was a beautiful spot right on the beach with kangaroos just bouncing around between the tents and winnebagos.

Our trusty teepee right before we got started on our tea of boil in a bag curry. Surprisingly good.

Kangaroo family stop by complete with joey

We finally saw our first kangaroo in full on speed-bouncing mode. Chased by an optimistic Alsatian. The dog was left for dust.

The next day we continued down the coast through little villages and holiday spots and turned off the highway on to the coast road crossing the lovely Wallanga Lake on rickety wooden bridges.

This part of the world is called the Sapphire Coast. The water is almost unbelievable colours of blue and green and crystal clear. Reggie's off roading experience was again called into action as we headed into Mimosa Rocks National Park in search of a place to camp. Ben decided it wasn't the spot for us....I think he was scared of the long drop (immaculately kept as always in Oz). So we pressed on through yet more pretty beach villages to the small town of Merimbula and found another beach side camping spot.

to be continued.......

Summertime in San Francisco Part 1

Again....it's been a while. Back from a fantastic trip to blighty, we're going to get back into this blogging game. It was amazing seeing all our family and friends again and we had some lovely times up and down the good old UK. Except for those bloody mary, garlic vodka shots.

We'll come back to our UK visit, but first a quick post about our latest favourite place on the planet - San Francisco - where we stopped off for 2 nights on our way back to Oz.

After yet another comedy flight with United (although this one ended up in our favour) we arrived late afternoon and headed to our hotel in North Beach.

San Francisco greeted us with this spectacular view of a double rainbow from our bedroom window. Wowzers.

A luminous welcome

Our lovely room in Hotel Boheme

Our hotel was beautiful and cosy and just a few metres from some notable SF spots e.g where FF Coppola wrote The Godfather screen play and the City Lights Bookstore where the beat generation had it's birth. Plus lots of Italian restaurants...always a good thing. We ventured out for a couple of drinks and some pizza and started planning the next day.

The next morning we started with a massive danish pastry and a walk to see one of the most crooked, steep streets in the world - Lombard Street. Walking there we encountered some additional fairly steep streets.

Quite slopey

Our first view of Alcatraz

San Francisco seemed to us a bit like New York....you've seen it so many times on film you think you've been there before. Also after loads of people had told us San Francisco would be damp and chilly, we had wall to wall blue skies the whole time, not one glimpse of the famous fog.

Hopping on the cable car we had lots of amazing views of the city.

Lombard street and the Coit Tower in the distance

Downhill in cable cars

Blimey, it's hilly

The drivers were entertaining and thankfully very competent on what seemed like impossible hills. We rode to the downtown area and hopped on a train to Mission. Lots of central and south american immigration have given this area a distinct look and feel. Apart from anything else, we'd read it was an amazing place to get a burrito. And so it was....

We went to La Taqueria...and it was A-mazing.

Mission is also home to some amazing, colourful murals. Some have been there years and some are much more recent, but most are around a social or political theme. But are also very beautiful.