Tasmanian Devils....

Monday, we left Singapore in the early hours of the morning to complete our long haul to Australia. The flight to Melbourne took 8 hours. Then we had to connect with a flight to Hobart arriving there at 5pm.

Tuesday, we picked up a Mitsubishi Lancer and set off to Port Arthur. This was Australia’s most infamous penal settlement dating back to 1830. We visited the ruins of the Penitentiary, the Asylum the Hospital and the Solitary Cells where multi offending convicts would be left in a cell 6 foot square in total darkness for up to 3 months. We also had a cruise around the bay and saw Dead Island where those who perished were buried. The centre was closed in 1849. Our accommodation for the night was The Fox and Hounds a motel styled after an old English pub.

Highlight of the day: Our ground floor room faced the inlet from the sea, a lovely view to wake up to with the sun sparkling on the sea and surounded by tall eucalyptus trees.

Wednesday started bright and sunny but by noon, the rain had arrived. We called in at Sorell for supplies and had a late lunch by Spiky Bridge that had been built by convicts in 1840. Arriving in Bicheno, we settled into our room at Harvey Farm Lodge before visiting the Blowhole; we had seen this back in the Seventies.

Highlight of the day: was that we revisited the rocks by the Blowhole after dark to see the Fairy Penguins coming out from the sea and waddling up to their burrows in the bushes to feed their young. We saw more than twenty penguins passing within a couple of feet from us and we could hear their young crying out from their burrows to be fed.

Thursday morning, the sun streamed in at 6.00 am so we made an early start for the Freycinet Peninsula National Park. We did a bushwalk up to the lookout point above Wineglass Bay. (The advice was that the walk was not suitable for the elderly or the infirm. What an invitation!!). It was a hard walk, steep in places but after an hour, we reached the lookout and it was well worth the effort looking down on to a wide bay with pristine white sand and azure blue sea. We had camped there 45 years ago so very memorable. Walking through the bush, the scent from the eucalyptus trees was strong and being early spring, the wattle had bright yellow flowers. By noon, the temperature was up to about 20 degrees, very pleasant.

At the end of the walk, we were greeted by a very tame little wallaby. It was so cute.

Back in the car, we stopped off at Honeymoon Bay, Sleepy Bay and walked around the headland at Tourville Lighthouse where we saw another wallaby.

We drove back to Bicheno in the afternoon, to get more photos of the Blowhole, this time with blue sky! Then we headed across towards the main central highway leading north towards Launceston where we are staying at the Hideaway Boutique Hotel (formerly Fiona's B&B).

Highlight of the day: definitely the view of Wineglass Bay.