G'day! Hope you enjoy my adventures from Down Under!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Freycinet

Australians celebrated Anzac Day this weekend to honor current and past members of the country's armed services. Monday was a public holiday in Victoria, so there was no school. Charlotte and I took advantage of this and went to Tasmania. We arrived in Launceston, where we were greeted by a torrential downpour and Verdi, the owner of a camper van rental company. Despite Charlotte's repeated requests for the only automatic camper van the company owns, there was a mix up and only manual camper vans were available. We were already nervous enough about driving on the left side of the road, let alone the fact that neither of us can drive a stick. Luckily, Verdi made some calls and we were able to meet up with our automatic camper van on our way to Freycinet National Park.

We got to Coles Bay around 6:00 PM and the entire town was shut down. Literally. Before going to Tassi we were told that it is really beautiful, but can also be kind of boring. With nothing else to do, we found our campsite and spent our first night in Tasmania.


In front of our "Little Devil" camper van

Since it was raining so much, we decided to make tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner in our camper van.

While it tasted good, it definitely was not our smartest decision in terms of dishes. Pumping water is NOT fun.


Charlotte in our tiny bed


The next morning we woke up and went on a hike.


The mountains here were unlike any I'd ever seen before. Throughout the hike we saw huge pink granite rocks that make up the mountains. The color was really pretty, especially when the sun was shining (which didn't happen very much while we were there).


The hike to Wineglass Bay is supposed to take 1-1.5 hours, but we were a little rushed and did it in 40 minutes. I still managed to take entirely too many pictures of rocks.

More rocks


Unfortunately, it was kind of cloudy when we got to the overlook, so we got an overcast view of Wineglass Bay.


By the time we made it back down the mountain and had coffee, the sun was shining. Here's a view of the bay from the beach.

More pinkish rocks

We left Freycinet and drove south to Port Arthur. Some of the roads were kind of sketchy but Nugent Road beat them all. There were times I seriously doubted we would be able to get the van up all of the hills. We drove for 15-20 minutes before we even saw another car. Both of us were glad to see a completely paved road again.

Nugent Road

We got to Port Arthur that afternoon and visited Tasman Arch before going to the historic convict settlement.

Tasman Arch

Pics of the convict settlement are coming soon!

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