The rainy weather thwarted our original plan to stop at Freycinet National Park and walk to see Wineglass Bay on our way to St. Helens. Instead, we drove straight to the town deemed to be bustling by the tourism powers that be. When we arrived, we had to double check to make sure we were in the right place as the town we drove into was quiet and empty. Sure enough, we were in the right place, a lovely AirBnB rental house right on the water.

The next day, my birthday – woo!, we decided to get up early to head back to Freycinet to do the walk we’d wanted to do the day before. Jon and I both hate back tracking, but we didn’t want to miss out on such a highly touted tourist destination. We walked to the view point and then continued on down to the beach and a ways further, doing a loop back to the car park.

The walk paled in comparison to the Cradle Mountain hike earlier in the week in both difficulty and views, but it was still a lovely way to spend the day. That evening Jon cooked me a wonderful birthday dinner and we enjoyed our last night in our rental home.

Before heading away from the coast, we hit up the Bay of Fires beaches. This is another of the must sees per big tourism, rated as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. I agree wholeheartedly that they are beautiful BUT can a beach that you can’t use for typical beach purposes – swimming, sunning, relaxing – really be the “best”? I don’t think so. What do you think?

After spending the morning driving on winding less than 2 lane roads to view beaches, we switched things up to drive on winding less than 2 lane roads to get over to Launceston. We finally came across normal roads as we got closer which I found more exciting than warranted. Fortunately, no super strong kangaroos tried to lift up our car along the way.

Big tourism briefly mentions that there is a gorge in Launceston that you can walk to from the CBD. Jon and I decided to check it out and found that in this case big tourism was seriously underselling things. The gorge is a terrific place to walk, a big park, a free public pool, a natural swimming hole, and more all located in actual walking distance from the CBD. I think it is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in a city.

We hoped to grab a few post cards and some souvenirs before heading back to Melbourne. Unfortunately, the entire CBD shutdown at 5 pm so nothing was open for us to spend our tourism dollars.

Then again, we probably would have spent $10…

We drove out of Launceston and onto the ferry in Devonport  for the return trip to Melbourne. Luckily it was a much smoother uneventful sailing and even more luckily it didn’t coincide with this.

With Cradle Mountain conquered, we set off for our next destination – the capital city of Tasmania, Hobart, a mere 243 clicks away.

There where multiple route options of similar length, so we opted to take the one that took us past the “Great Lake”. Indeed, it was a pretty big lake and the road (gravel at points) took us around it.

After we put the lake behind us, we stopped in a town called Bothell for lunch.  Bothell is home to Australia’s oldest golf course (1822!) and Lonely Planet stated that “worthy eating options are thin on the ground” – but we managed to find a lovely cafe that had fresh pies (of the meat variety) for lunch.  Yum! Sufficiently full, we continued on to Hobart and arrived around 3pm.  After checking into the hotel, we explored the CBD area and found some burgers for dinner.  Still sufficiently wiped out from our hike the previous day, we settled into the hotel room for a few beers and some BBL cricket.

The next morning (Christmas eve) – we headed down to the docks to board the ferry that takes you to MONA – the Museum of Old and New Art.  The ferry was well appointed with a cafe and many different seating options.  Being the mature adult I am, I immediately headed for the sheep.

We settled in for short 30 minute ride to the museum.   Or is it a Bond villain’s lair?

Sticking to its villain lair reputation, you enter the museum and immediately head down 4 stories on a spiral staircase to start your tour.  The museum lived up to its name having both old and new art.  I can’t say I know much about art, but I found most things in the museum interesting.  There was a big exhibit by Gilbert & George, which we saw first.

We toured around and took everything in.  I particularly liked the chubby Porsche.

It took a few hours to wind our way back to the surface.  We saw a bit of “normal” art and heaps of “not-so-normal” art – for instance a machine that has scheduled feedings and poopings.  Once we were done, we jumped on the ferry to head back to Hobart.

That evening (after doing some legwork to figure out what would be open) – we headed out for a nice steak dinner in Salamanca Place – a neighborhood in Hobart famous for its Saturday market.  After dinner, we set out to find the Christmas tree we had read about in the paper.  The locals were upset that $35,000 was spent on this:

I felt more like I should be “airing my grievances” and participating in “feats of strength” near this group of Festivus poles arranged carefully into a tree.  I tend to agree with the citizens of Hobart that this is a debacle of a Christmas tree.  We grabbed a few good beers at a bar nearby and drank outside enjoying the last of the day’s light at 9pm.

Christmas morning we decided to head up to Mt Wellington, which overlooks Hobart.  There were quite a few others with the same idea, but still plenty of room for us.

Great views were abundant and we took them all in, along with a strong breeze.

It was a cracker of a day, with a top of 35 Celsius (do the math if you want to know 9/5C + 32 = F).  So, we headed to the beach and even went all the way into the fairly frigid water.  No sharks or crocodiles were seen.

After enjoying the sun an water for a bit, we headed back to the hotel.  Then we found a wonderful Indian restaurant for Christmas dinner.

A cool change swept through on Christmas night and we awoke on Boxing Day to a rainy 18C day.  We had another drive in front of us so we had made a pact to do the Hobart parkrun in the morning – a free, timed 5K.  It was rainy and miserable, but it made us get out and run on a day we were otherwise destined (by weather and our drive) to do very little activity.

After a nice warm shower, we packed up the Yaris and pointed it north towards St Helens.