Beach

Freycinet National Park

Heading for calmer and warmer conditions we drove straight back up North, through Hobart with only a brief lunch stop at Richmond to see the oldest bridge in Australia, built in 1823. Then on to our next camp at Friendly Beaches, close to Coles Bay. Here we captured photographic evidence of Xavier completing an easy challenge of patting a local animal, we think it is a Forresters Wallaby – let us know if this is right or not.

XwithForrestersWallaby

Friendly Beach saw the first landing of an edible, legal size fish, with a salmon and wrasse caught from the rocks. Xavier and I had an early morning jog to the end of the beach and back.

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A trip into Coles Bay saw us visiting Honeymoon Beach, Lighthouse Lookout and Sleepy Cove. Once again the crystal clear waters and colourful landscape is hard to capture in photos, especially when you have a speck of dust on your sensor! Hannah seized the moment, donned springsuit, mask and snorkel and dived in, whilst everyone else was still feeling the cold a little too much.

At the lookout we discovered Freycinet was the place to find lizards in Tasmania and we saw two different types, everywhere!

Hannah and Oscar lay down to measure how long a Bluefin Tuna is, and Oscar eyed up how hard his challenge to catch and eat one is!

The twitching highlight was the scarlet robin and green rosellas but we also found what appears to be a small dead possum by the track.

Categories: 4WD, Animal Action, Australian Outback, Beach, Big Lap, Camper Trailer, Car, Discover Australia, Explore Australia, Journey Narrative, Kids Travel, Location, Mitsubishi, National Park, Photography, TAS, Tasmania, Travel, Travel Adventure, Twitcher | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Huonville to the end of the road

From Huonville we drove through Franklin and Geeveston and shortly afterwards the road became gravel once more. We passed through a few sleepy settlements, Lune River, Ida Bay, and Moss Glen before entering the campgrounds at Cockle Creek. This is the furthest south you can drive in Australia. Crossing the bridge into the National Park the road turns North for a kilometre then ends. A short walk takes you to an impressive sculpture of a Southern Right Whale. From here if you want to walk further south you can, but we took the short walk to Fisher Point, where the ruins of a cottage mark the point where a pilot used to reside. Back at Camp the Roaring Forties blew their best and showed us how bleak the weather can be.  The fresh oysters from the rocks were as large as I have ever seen and they tasted beautiful. Whilst there the winds blew, it rained and then the glimpses of sun we got showcased what a fabulous place the whole area of Recherche Bay is. It was still cold though, barely reaching 17 degrees during the day.

Categories: Australian Outback, Beach, Camper Trailer, Car, Discover Australia, Explore Australia, Journey Narrative, Kids Travel, Location, Mitsubishi, National Park, Photography, TAS, Tasmania, Travel, Travel Adventure, Walks | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Trial Harbour (Heading south)

Trial Harbour with Whale bones

Boys behind Whale Bones at Trial Harbour

Disappointed with our lack of Tassie Devil sightings at Arthur River we headed south towards Strahan, deciding on advice from the rangers to stop at Trial Harbour. This quaint little village used to be a tin mining village but even now has a scattering of houses and shacks behind the dunes. The history room has a fascinating collection of minerals, animal bones, bottles and memorabilia from the mining days. Well worth a visit for a donation to the flying doctor service. Once again we found Tassie Devil footprints on the beach! Back at the campsite we tucked into chicken fajitas followed by marshmallows cooked on the campfire. The kids went to bed, while we sat and watched the stars and listened to the ocean. When Amanda went to bed she let out a shriek as a Tasmanian Devil was at the trailer tucking into the rubbish. In a mad flurry, this Devil was going to disappear quickly we tried to rouse the kids, get cameras and stop him taking the rubbish away. All I could muster was a couple of shots from the phone camera and Hannah and Oscar blearily appeared to glimpse him lope off. Success at last!

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Categories: Animal Action, Australian Outback, Beach, Challenges | 1 Comment

Boat Harbour

Our first stop at Boat Harbour was a relatively short drive west from the port of Devonport. Our camp couldn’t have been closer to the sea! We are all loving the NW coast of Tasmania, the kids are keen fossickers, scouring every shoreline for treasures.

Our second day there saw Fifty Toes take on the challenge of the Stanley Nut, a large volcanic lava plug that dominates the port of Stanley. A very steep walk, rather than chairlift saw us at the top in 10 mins. Different lookouts grant you a mutton bird’s view of the town below, where filming was just about to commence for a movie called “The Light Between Oceans” based on the book. We found our first Pademelons (tiny wallabies) in a little forest up there, dozens of them squatting below the bracken. We explored the harbour, then headed inland to explore some of the roads less travelled on the edge of the Tarkine forest. These ancient forests are full of giant trees, tree ferns lining the roads, and the humidity allows a fecundity of mosses and ferns to cover dead and living trees. The kids loved the first river crossing!

On the way back we did another detour to see Little Dip Falls and the Big Tree (it was big and impressive).

The evening treat was another drive east to Burnie, on a tip-off from or neighbours, to see the penguins coming in to feed their chicks. What a great end to the day to see the little blue penguins hopping out of the ocean and up to the chicks who were sitting in their nests only metres from us, and in some cases below the boardwalk we were standing on.

 

Categories: Animal Action, Australian Outback, Beach, Car, Challenges, Journey Narrative, Location, Mitsubishi, National Park, Photography, TAS, Tasmania, Travel, Travel Adventure, Walks | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tasmania adventure begins

The Spirit of Tasmania has whisked us safely across the Bass Strait from Melbourne and we find ourselves camping in a little village resembling something out of a remote corner of the Mediterranean. A relatively short drive from the ferry found us in a camp spot that fronts the shoreline, where the water colour is brilliant pale blue and the houses in the village are all painted blue to match. Photos don’t do it justice but the area we drove around locally is very photogenic, with flower farms (daffodils, tulips, pyrethrum daisies, lighthouses, craggy cliff-faces. We even found a tree stump with a snow white and seven dwarves sitting on it beside the road. We also encountered our first big icon today – The Big Penguin in a town called Penguin.

Categories: Australian Outback, Beach, Camper Trailer, Journey Narrative, Location, Mitsubishi, National Park, Photography, TAS, Travel, Travel Adventure | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Photographic farewell to Wilsons Promontory

As we bid farewell to Wilsons Promontory and Tidal River campground some final photos from our enjoyable experience there.

Let us know if you have any challenges for us on our trip – bear in mind we all have to be able to complete them.

 

Categories: Australian Outback, Beach, Journey Narrative, Location, National Park, Photography, Travel, Travel Adventure, VIC, Walks | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

Booderee National Park

Jervis Bay is beautiful! The birdlife at Green Patch was fantastic. In a couple of days we have seen variegated fairy-wrens, endangered eastern bristlebirds hopping through the dense bush, ospreys, sea eagles, king parrots, eastern rosellas, wood ducks and much more. There are swamp wallabies, kangaroos and echidnas around too, some even tame enough to pat. At the derelict lighthouse we found a snakeskin (brown snake!) almost 2m long.

We played a variation of Pooh Sticks with pumice pebbles we found on the beach – Pooh Stones.

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Categories: Animal Action, Beach, Camper Trailer, Journey Narrative, Location, National Park, New South Wales, NSW, Travel, Travel Adventure | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

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