With my stress levels very high, not knowing where to stay, what to see, etc. We checked into the Showgrounds, lying about being “self contained”. This campground was ordinary. We couldn’t get any site that had both power and water so opted for power as it is more important. The amenities were ordinary and so was the sleep due to constant trucks braking and accelerating at the round –a-bout next to the grounds.
Anyway, we set up and headed for the most important place in Hobart – Cadbury Chocolate Factory. At $17 per family to get in you certainly got your money back when as you enter you all received a family block of chocolate and then another 2 freddo frogs at the beginning of the presentation.
The presentation was nothing compared to Panny’s Chocolate Factory in Phillip Island; but the chocolate was MUCH BETTER!
The Cadbury shop was to die for. There was so much choice and Rod got cranky with me for taking too long to decide. Well I was on a budget and had to spend wisely. We ended up with a $15 bag which included many, many chocolates. I am sure it will do us for quite a while.
We then went for a drive into the city centre and walked around a couple of blocks for a look. There was a cruise boat in but we didn’t get close to it as it was raining.
We returned back to camp and had a cuppa and I had a long chat to two people we met from Morayfield.
The next day Rod and I went for a drive to get a new battery for the car, to run the fridge, find a fishing spot and check out another van park. We opted to stay at Snug Beach, just 20mins south of Hobart.
We arrived at Snug Beach and while the amenities and grounds were nice the hospitality of the owners, very old owners, was lacking. If I had another choice I would have told them to stick it up their bums and left! But we didn’t. We met up with Shane & Jayne, friends we met in Canberra, and chatted the afternoon away sitting on the beach. After they left Rod and I went for a walk along the beach up to the footbridge and checked out the boat ramp. The water here was crystal clear.
After local information about some fishing spots we took to squid fishing off this jetty at night. Unfortunately we didn’t catch any but other people were so we will try our luck another night.
Saturday – Salamanca Markets. With many people telling us that we must see these markets we headed off to the city excited to buy fresh fruit and veges and perhaps some seafood. Nope. These markets were like Southbank L
We utilised this time to take a stroll down to the wharfs and saw the big orange boat, something Atlantis, which is the Antartic supply ship. We couldn’t get too close but cool to see.
We also stumbled across Sea Shepard, the anit-whaling boat. Mitchell noticed a sign on the side that said “free tours” so I took the boys on board. It was pretty cool to show the boys what a working boat looks like inside, them questioning why the doorways were so high and looking up close and personal at each room. I was going to sign up to do 6 month volunteer but then I found out that they are totally vegan on board. Lol.
We were going to go up Mt Wellington but opted to use our free voucher and head out to the Salmon Ponds. Cost $2 for fish food. The grounds were amazing and we were lucky enough to see the owner’s wedding happen while we were there. The boys enjoyed feeding the big trout and seeing all the different reels; Mitchell was happy to point out that some were called Mitchell.
We returned to the van park, had a coffee with Shane and Jane and their friends and got dinner made and headed off for squid fishing again.
This time we took Tiffany, Shane’s daughter, with us. With all our “local information” from the previous night, we now knew where to fish and chose our time a little better; an hour earlier.
Three squid later, caught by Mitchell, we were all very excited. Tiffany and I played with another squid on the dock and I freaked out when its tentacle sucked to my finger. No scared, just unexpected. It was pretty cool though.
We returned home, I pulled the heads off the squid, we showered and went to bed.
Sunday:
I came up with the bright idea of waking up really early and going to see the sunrise from the top of Mt Wellington. The alarm went off, 5am Qld time, I rolled over and Rod said “do you still want to go?”. “Nah, it’s only a sunrise.” So we tossed and turned and after not being able to sleep we decided to go. Rod put the kettle on and I went to the toilet to notice the sun had already come up! What! Tasmanian’s must see sunrise time as when the full sun has risen. I see sunrise as when the first bit of sun breaks. With that, we returned to our warm bed.
We got up a bit later and got ready to head down to Tahune Airwalk. However, true to form, we deviated and headed for Mt Wellington. Now while we headed for the mountain we could see cloud but went up anyway. At the peak we got photos standing on the “pinnacle”, walked out one way to one point – saw clouds and rocks; walked to the glass viewing platform – saw clouds and rocks also. Not disheartened as it was still pretty exciting we headed down the hill to take some pics.
From here we then headed for Tahune Airwalk to catch up with Shane, Jane and crew. After what felt like forever we arrived. The kids were in fine form, not, so were left behind while Rod and I did the swing bridge walk (3km round trip). The walk was like being on the set of a movie. It really was nice and the trees were so big, both height and circumference. The swing bridges were fun. Not very wide at all. The boys would have loved them.
Upon return we ran into Shane and Jane who gave us their tickets for the Airwalk so we took the kids and did that too. It was a footpath built above the trees and one element of it reach out over towards the river. A tad freaky! Kluver, you would not have like it.
Very, very tired we left and only stopped to see “The Big Tree” on the way out. The Big Tree is the heaviest tree in Australia. It was 87m high.
We returned to the van park with little time to cook the squid from last night’s catch and dinner. But we managed. The squid was FANTASTIC! Mitchell and Rhys did most of the prep and Rod helped them cook. We ate dinner and left, just a little later than normal.
We caught 3 squiddies tonight – I caught the first one; my first one ever! Rod and Mitchell caught one each as well so we had ourselves another 3 squid for tomorrow night. We returned and Mitchell & Rod gutted and cleaned the squid. A nice hot shower and bed for all of us.
Monday:
Desperately needing a chill out day we decided to just stay put and watch movies and do nothing. However, knowing that this was our last day in the Hobart region we thought we had better make the journey to the southern tip, Cockle Beach, or we might miss out.
So we left and headed along the coast line, doing the tourist thing. Stopped at a sheep cheese factory. Now we have tried sheep cheese before and it is very nice, however it was very expensive. Nice and expensive was also the case today. We tried but could not bring ourselves to pay $12 for a very small piece of cheese.
A little further along we stopped at Gordon Jetty for a look. Yep, definitely a jetty in need of reconstruction. You would stand on one plank and it would lift at the other end. It was all uneven and quite decrepit. A man here was in the middle of filleting his catch, 50 flathead fish. Glad it was him and not me, they are a pain to fillet.
On the lookout for oysters we stopped just past Eggs & Bacon Bay, yep that really is a place. The boys and I ventured out with a screwdriver, hammer and plastic bag and collected heaps of oysters – approx 70. Returned to the car to see Rod’s unimpressed look and jammed them into the Engel (car freezer).
Starting to feel tired already and we hadn’t even reached half way we discussed the fact that there were going to be some things on the trip we just won’t get to and both agreed that Cockle Beach was one of those places. We stopped at Huonville for lunch and the kids had a play.
We returned back to the van park. I had a quick snooze while the boys watched a movie. Rod & Rhys then went to the shops and Mitchell went for a fish off the beach while I used the metal detector. No fish, no gold.
The afternoon was spent preparing our daily catch – crumbed calamari, caught last night and oysters Kilpatrick! What a feed. We even had visitors in the van park visit and try our dinner.
Running a little late with the chatting and eating we headed off for our nightly fish and returned with only one squid, caught by Rod. Showers and bed for all.
We packed up in the morning and thought we’d go to Cascade Beer Factory. We arrived and had a look around, even saw a rabbit, which the boys chased. We didn’t go in and do the tour as the next one available was in another 2 ½ hours; we were not waiting that long.
PHOTOS: (all in separate folders)
Snug Beach to Huonville, via coast
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