Freycinet Peninsula

So there we were, driving along the East coast looking out at the Freycinet Peninsula smoldering away. As you can tell from the photo MadHatter was driving, hows that for trust!! Not bad for an avid control freak I thought!

After a bit more driving we came across another bush fire. This wasn't too surprising. A few days earlier it had been 42 degrees in Melbourne and everything was very dry.



We even drove through some smoldering bits. Extreme touring!!



The wildlife park had narrowly escaped the blaze.



But enough of the life threatening bush fires, we had peninsulas to explore! Winglass bay has been rated as the worlds most beautiful beach and we couldn't come all this way without having a wee nosey.
So we drove along the peninsula keeping an eye on the tower of smoke. The 'friendly beaches' were off limits because of the fire (gotta love the Ozzie names) but lucky for us Wineglass bay was quite a distance from there.

We arrived at Coles Bay and had a look through the info centre. Coles bay was really nice, the rocky mountains in the background are called the Hazards, another great name :-)
I couldn't resist the temptation and broke into another Hockney photographic frenzy.



It was here that we discovered that the track to Wineglass bay was a 1.5hr walk OVER the hazards. So we decided that it probably wasn't all that fancy afterall and bought some postcards of it instead.

Homemade berry icecream = good
1.5hr walk over hazards = bad

So we decided to venture on to St Helens and go and look at the Bay of Fires instead.
Along the way we stopped at this very beautiful beach...



Ah yes all very beautiful, but I tell ya - you could smell the sharks! And surprise surprise not a single person swimming :-)



Don't be fooled, you may think that a big nasty shark would never live in such a beautiful spot but Mr Teeth is out there just waiting for you to dab your toes in the water!

We later discovered that this was just the first of lots and lots and lots of similarly beautiful beaches. We didn't bother stopping to photograph the rest. "You've seen one, you've seen them all"...

After a short zip up the coast we found ourselves at St Helens. A rather small town with not a lot to do at 5:05pm. Reasonably pretty though.





How lazy is that! I couldn't even be bothered splicing these two photos into a panorama. You'll just have to use your imaginations.

We checked into our 'Luxury Suite'. This meant it was on the 2nd floor and so could see the water. That was about the extent of the luxury, although they did have the greatest kitsch bedside lamps that I would have swiped if they hadn't been bolted to the cabinet (thought walking down the stairs with cabinet may have roused suspicion).
The carpet wasn't too crash hot though...



Still, it was a place to stay and we had flaming bays to go and look at...

The wonder of Triabunna

So after the excitement of the tasman peninsula we decided to head for Triabunna.



Triabunna isn't very big, but it does boast this wonderful Telstra tower.



We were quite excited about this, well Madhatter was quite excited about this, as we had been under the impression that Tasmania was void of any form of telecommunications or internet. Madhatter was SO excited she promptly bought a telstra sim card from the triabunna pharmacy.... and then swapped it for another one when it didn't work. I'm pretty sure the lovely lady at the pharmacy thought madhatter was some sort of scam artist from the big smoke stealing extra sim card accounts from innocent tasmanians.

Shortly after our cellphone coverage excitement we discovered that the rabbit hole went even deeper! Triabunna had an 'internet access centre'. Internet in Triabunna?!! Could it be true? We would later discover that quite a few small towns in tasmania have these, and we'd also discover that they are never open.
It was all too exciting, so I visited the triabunna op-shop to buy a very classy grey belt to hold my pants up (long story).

It was time to leave triabunna and head north along the east coast of this amazing little island.

One of the first obligatory stops was at the 'spikey bridge', wonder why it's named that?



Our trusty steed, what a great car! (tune in next week to hear about the Mazda 121 Rally Team taking on the lake district :-)



Further along the road we noticed the forest fire on the freycinet peninsula (that's where we were going...)



But first we had an appointment with this berry farm, which just happened to make home made berry ice cream (yum!) and home made scones with berry jam and cream (also yum!). There would have been picture of the yummy food but we were both too busy eating to take photos :-)



Burp. Time for more driving. Doesn't the freycinet peninsula look cool. Shame it's on fire :-)



But hey, that sort of thing shouldn't stop you having fun.



Next stop: Freycinet Peninsula and the wonderful wineglass bay.

And now for something completely different...

Or maybe not.

So after one day in Hobart we headed south east to Port Arthur. Back in the good ol' days Port Arthur was one of the Empire's nastiest prisons. "Gee, that sounds nice" we said. So off we went to start exploring the rest of this quaint little island (I can say that because Tasmania is fractionally smaller than the island I live on).


Port Arthur.


An old building.


A Cathedral.

Port Arthur was a bit of a let down. The information centre was all very nice, but the place was really tourist-ised. There was no feeling of what the place had been, and most people seemed more interested in the remains of the cafe where the Port Arthur massacre had been in 1996.

So after Port Arthur we headed north, along the tasman peninsula.



We took a detour to look at 'the devils kitchen'. Very cool.



How could I pass the opportunity to get arty?



It was all very dramatic.



And there were even pretty bits.



So I'm guessing you're now thinking about visiting Tasmania? Well don't! New Zealand looks the same and we don't have big-ass man eating sharks ;-)

Bring me more food!!

We arrived in Hobart and decided to go down to the waterfront for dinner.
On the way we passed this beautiful piece of graffiti:



Seems Tasmanians have good taste ;-)

Speaking of taste... we happened to be in Hobart for their food festival (how did that happen!??)
Dinner was at Princes Wharf and consisted of 'one of everything' :D



It was Yum!!

They also had a handful of circus acts at the festival, including these guys (supposedly from Dublin and Sweden, although the accents kept slipping :-) Movie of acrobats


After scourging we went for a stroll along the waterfront. Oz has a really impressive array of sculptures and installations.


There was also an original 1800's Merry Go Round. It was steam powered! Damned cool!


Hobart is a seriously cool city. If only it wasn't hiding on a small island in the middle of nowhere.

Right, so where were we?

So after a few days in Melbourne it was time to head to Phillip Island for a few days by the beach. Anyone who knows about motorsport will know how excited I was about heading to one of the best race tracks in Australasia :-)

While on Phillip Island we popped into town to buy socks and a jersey (unlike the day before it was now about 17 degrees and raining).
In the local car park we noticed this beauty:



The attention to detail was stunning:



Go Mad Max!!

Phillip Island was really beautiul.



In the afternoon we drove past the race track. I was so excited I forgot to photograph it... but the memory will live with me forever ;-)

The next day we raced back to Melbourne, returned the 'rent a bomb' (sans air conditioning) and dashed to the airport.
Next stop: Hobart.

Flash does Melbourne

Brought to you by popular demand...

Well, I've just returned from a mad-panic visit to Melbourne. It was Mad Hatter's birthday and I had airmiles to spend so what-the-hey, time to cross the ditch and see what all the fuss is about :o)

I had been to Sydney 6 or 7 times (and was a little 'over' the place) but Melbourne was a completely different cup of tea (I'm guessing a Chamomile, kinda relaxing and comforting without being totally hippie and stupid).



look how pretty Melbourne is! And those tracks down the middle of the road have trams on them! What more could you want from a city?!!

The first few days in Melbourne were a soothing 33 to 36 degrees celcius. A good temperature for doing nothing and watching the world go by whilst having drinks on the balcony. The next day was 42 degrees. This is a good temperature for hiding in air conditioned pubs.... but we went to the zoo....
"are you totally mad?!!" I hear you say. Yes, I think we are.



Healsville animal sanctuary is a zoo and animal rehabilitation centre. We spent a lot of time in the shadows and the air-conditioned reptile houses.

One of the first animals we visited was a young femal Wombat. Poor wombat was very hot.



Wombats are really big! This one still has quite a bit of growing to do.



Mad Hatter donated a hand to show the scale of the wombat. Many would be too scared to touch a ferocious man-eating wombat but not the intrepid Mad Hatter ;-)

About the only animal that wasn't affected by the heat was an Echidna.



On days like this it pays to not have fur.

- Time to go to Auckland for meetings. More Oztrailer adventures to follow -