Holidays in Tasmania

 We spent the Christmas and New Year holidays in Tasmania. We had heard from many other Americans that Tasmania was one of their favorite Australian places.  We decided, based on this, to spend the holidays in Tasmania.  We were there for almost two full weeks.  We drove ALL over Tasmania.  It was exhausting, but I am glad we did, as there was A LOT to see there.

I had been proud because the tickets to get from Canberra to Tasmania were relatively inexpensive.  Little did I know it was not cheap to rent a car in Tasmania. Some families drive all the way to Melbourne and then take a ferry over to Tasmania.  We had considered this, but it takes more time, and the ferry ride takes I think about 12 hours. Not being a huge boat person, and the air tickets being on the cheaper side, I opted to fly there.  

We flew into Launceston in the Northern part of Tasmania. There we picked up a rental car and drove to our first location- a little Airbnb in Jackey's Marsh, near Cradle Mountain.

Jackey's Marsh/Cradle Mountain

We stayed in a pretty rustic cabin/house off the grid. It was very quiet and had lots of critters around it, which  is important later... There was no TV, but a piano, guitar, and old record player. At night we played games and listened the the random assortment of records they had on hand. 

resident kookaburra

The next day we got up early and went to Cradle Mountain.  This is an absolutely beautiful national park. We went on a few hikes and just took in the natural beauty that surrounded us:

Lauren bought a "poo-flip" or what I called a "scat mat" that had pictures of the types of poo you might see and who produced it.  She was on a mission to figure out who lived up here.

Girls found a tiny lizard

Our first (and so far only) wild wombat spotting.  Did you know their poop is square?

After leaving the park, we went to a Tasmanian Devil reserve very close to the national park. I've got to say that Looney Tunes lied, and Tasmanian devils look nothing like they depicted.

Tasmanian devils are not very big, but they have the strongest bite per body mass of any living mammalian carnivore. I was warned by a colleague not to get near them because they could easily bite off a finger.  They are an endangered species, as many of them have contracted a highly infectious cancerous facial tumor disease. We enjoyed watching them.

At the sanctuary we also saw a spotted quoll, which is an animal I had never heard of before.  It looks like you took a cat and merged it with a rat, and then asked a small child to decorate it. I sort of still can't believe these things are real.

After this, we drove back to Jackey's Marsh.  But first we had to stop for Mike to take a million pictures, and for me to get a picture of one of the better road signs we saw out there:

As we got ready to leave Jackey's Marsh the next day, I felt a stinging on my foot.  I had NO idea what got me, only that it hurt a lot.  I was yelling quite a bit and trying to kick whatever it was off my foot.  No one could see what it was and assumed I had seen a scary spider. I finally just ripped my sock off my foot and was no longer actively being bitten. It took a while to find it, but when we flipped the sock right side out, we finally found the culprit- a Tasmanian inchman ant.

It was not a pleasant experience, but I'm glad it got me and not the kids. We stopped by and talked to the person in charge of the Airbnb and he told me I'd be fine, because if it had been a problem, I would have known by then.  It honestly felt very much like a bee/wasp sting.  After that I was happy to leave Jackey's Marsh and get back to a place where we had cellular reception and a place to stay with less wildlife.  

Next we stopped in Lauceston on our way towards Tasmania's east coast.  In Launceston we went to the Cataract Gorge Reserve, a beautiful park with a scenic chairlift and oddly a lot of peacocks. It was a fun way to spend the morning.  The girls loved the chairlift.

After this we had lunch in Launceston and then drove a few hours to Bicheno, which would be our home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Bicheno

Bicheno is a beautiful, relaxed beachside town, with two main attractions- Bicheno blowhole and Bicheno Penguin Tours. I wanted to come here to see the penguins come in from hunting at night.  That and I found a nice little Airbnb to spend Christmas in.  I really loved Bicheno and sort of wish we had spent more time there. 

This is the beach right inside of town.  A great little beach with fun rocks for the girls to explore: 

We arrived in Bicheno on Christmas Eve. We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town and then explored the beach pictured above.  Then we had to wait for sunset, which was late given it was summer, to go on a special penguin tour.  

I think the tour started around 9:30pm. It was late for the kids and they were a little bit whiny, but it was SUPER cool. A big highlight of the trip for me. We were able to see fairy penguins in their natural habitat and hear from knowledgeable guides. Really cool to see them come out of the water, and run up the beach to their homes. 

Here is a video of it:

The next morning we woke up and it was Christmas! Our stockings were there with a few gifts for everyone. The girls got some MAJOR wish-list items: Caitlyn got her first cell phone and Lauren a fitbit. Excitement was all around.

We had lunch at a beach (a new Christmas experience for us all) and somewhat lackluster spaghetti dinner on our airbnb back porch.  It was a great day and a relaxed Christmas. We very much missed our extended family, and it felt very different than our normal Christmases. But, we still had a nice time. Here are some pictures from Christmas day:

There was a path to the beach from our Airbnb through some bush.  I admittedly sort of ran through it because there was some long grass and I was nervous there would be snakes. We didn't see any snakes but did see at least one penguin egg.  

There was a nice rocky shore at the end of the path, and we had a lot of fun playing there:

 

 

The day after Christmas it was time to leave Bicheno and drive 2.5 hours to Hobart (Tasmania's capital). Before leaving Bicheno, we decided to stop by the blowhole.  It was a very unassuming entrance at the end of a neighborhood.  I really was not even sure we were in the right spot. 

The blowhole had amazing energy. I felt so relaxed there.  I could have stayed there all day long. We had a good time exploring and Caitlyn had a great time taking 9023948028304980293 pictures with her new phone.  She's got a great eye and some of here pictures are my absolute favorite. If you go to Bicheno, I definitely recommend spending some time here, just to relax. 

Here are some pictures from the blowhole:

From here is was off to....

Hobart

In the drive down to Hobart, we passed places with funny names like "break-me-neck hill" and "bust-me-gall hill."  It was a fun drive down to Hobart.  We spent three days in and around the city.  We were lucky to be there when there was a food festival.  It was a little tough though because we were there on Boxing day and then also on boxing day observed, which meant A LOT was closed.  Caitlyn told me she really enjoyed Hobart, but I think she would have enjoyed it even more if we were there when more was open.  One place we ate was called Imago Cafe.  Their breakfast was FANTASTIC.  It is the best smashed avo toast that I've had.  

The first full day in Hobart, we drove up to the top of Mt. Wellington. It was a relatively short, but windy drive up.  I forced us to go up relatively early in the morning and I am glad I did because it got CRAZY crowded up there.  Here are some of the gorgeous views we had:

We also went to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. We spent a long time in there and saw lots of interesting things:

A very direct acknowledgment of the Aboriginal community on which the museum stands. Most direct one we've seen.

A cool piece of art that had pictures of women sent from England to Tasmania, which was once a penal colony. Some of the women were being sent away for petty theft, and their children came with them.

Had to take a picture of a huge ant given I was bitten by one.  :)

This museum employee was great with Lauren. Spent a long time talking to her about Ancient Greece and feminism. 

 

Then we had delicious ice cream because it was HOT:

The next day we drove out to the Port Arthur Penal settlement.  It was beautiful, but we were all a little tired out and probably didn't enjoy it as much as we should:

Our last morning in Hobart, we drove over to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart. This is listed as one of the must dos in Hobart, but it was honestly our least favorite.  I am writing this months after the fact, and cannot remember what exactly we did not enjoy about it. Just that it was not our favorite.  Despite that, here are pictures of MONA:

And other artsy type photos Mike took around Hobart:

Orford

We spent the next couple of days in a town called Orford. The honest reason why was because Tasmania was incredibly booked up during these two days and we couldn't find anywhere else to stay. We were in a little place that had a pool, playground, and a handball court.  It was a decent place to rest up for a couple of days.  Here are few pictures from this stop:

Back to Launceston for NYE

We went back to Launceston to spend NYE in a nice little Airbnb that was right over the river and had a fantastic view of the fireworks (and allowed us to go right to bed after the fireworks were over). We went back to Cataract Gorge to walk around, went to a car museum, found a fun new playground and generally had a good time:

Here I need to pause to break out some important stats from our time in 2022 in Australia:

Beach total:

We visited 24 Australian beaches in 2022:

• 6 beaches in Port Macquarie
• 6 beaches in Western Australia
• 7 beaches in Jervis bay
• 5 beaches in Tasmania

Australian Wildlife totals:

We encountered the following wildlife in 2022:

• kangaroos
• koalas
• wallabies
• wombats
• Tasmanian devils 
• quolls
• rosellas
• cockatoos
• magpies
• blue tongued lizard 
• kookaburras
• inchman ant
• emu
• cassowary
• lorikeet
• dingo
• ferry penguins
• quokkas
• black swans

now back to our trip.......

Burnie

After Launceston, we drove up north in Tasmania.  On our way to Burnie, we stopped to see more Australian animals. We went to Platypus House and Seahorse World. Platypus house was definitely worth the trip. Seahorse world, not so much, but it was right next door. 

At Platypus house, we got to see a few platypi? which was cool (as we have still not yet seen any in the wild). But even cooler was they had echindas and we got to spend time in the same space as them. One of them even brushed up against Lauren. This made most of feel echnidas are really cool! Here are some pictures from all of this:  

Then it was off to Burnie.  We stayed in a really beautifully decorated Airbnb. It was a little weird because it was RIGHT next door to a KFC.  There was a very strong smell of fried chicken outside, but they did a good job of not letting the house stink of fried chicken. It was also right in the city, and made everything very walkable.  Unfortunately we were here for New Year's day and New Year's day observed, so very little was open while we were here. 

The point of still being in Tasmania at this point was to see friends/neighbors of ours from Maryland who also moved to Australia this year and who happened to be traveling to Tasmania at the same time. Their kids were our kid's classmates back in the States.  It was really great for the kids to have a chance to catch up.  Here are some pictures of Maryland in Tasmania:

And that was the end of our trip to Tasmania.

One last interesting tid-bit: the airport in Launceston was not large. So we had to walk down a staircase off the plane to get into the airport.  A first for the kids: