Ghosts and other things in South-East Tassie

Our next stop was the historic Port Arthur area. We watched the Tassie Devils get fed at the Unzoo, realising that the ungodly howls we’d been hearing while camping were actually the devils. We explored the convict settlement and did the night ghost tour which was quite fun and interesting, though the gore had been toned down a fair bit since I did the tour last time.

We did the famous Cape Hauy hike to see the Totem Pole, a bucket list item for Rein. The hike had a LOT of stairs, but overall wasn’t too challenging.

While crossing the bridge out of Port Arthur at Dunalley, we made sure to check out the Tasmanian devil proof grates on the bridge to keep the disease free devils safe from the mainland devils (thanks to the Unzoo for letting us know about that cool fact!).

In Hobart we treated ourselves to an apartment stay, mostly because there were no caravan parks close to the city and public transport in Hobart sucked. It was a great chance to do many loads of washing and have a much needed shower.

We were in walking distance of Salamanca so we checked out the markets and had a walk through the city. The next day we went to MONA. We were shaking our heads at just how WEIRD it was. We both decided it definitely wasn’t the kind of art for us.

After two nights of the apartment, we moved on going South of Hobart to the Hastings Cave and Thermal Springs. We did a tour of the cave, which was beautiful, despite having the most annoying tour group possible. After the cave we had a dip in the hot springs fed pool. It was very relaxing swimming in the warm pool surrounded by forest on the cool day, definitely a highlight.

We did some more unsuccessful trout fishing and hiked Hartz Peak. This was a very challenging but rewarding hike, it’s definitely made it into my favourite hikes of all time list. The first half lulls you into a sense that “this will be easy” as it’s mostly on boardwalk through the alpine heathland. But as soon as you start the vertices climb is where things got interesting (essentially like climbing a rock ladder). We had lunch sitting on the peak an as we climbed down, we stopped at one of the alpine lakes and Rein jumped in (in his undies!!) for a swim. Rein thought the water was about 8 degrees and there was no way in hell I was getting in!! Besides, Rein didn’t have to hike down in a soggy bra.

Because of how the roads are in Tassie, to get to the next destination we had to go back through Hobart so we stopped in at Cascade for a post hike beer and dinner. Our destination was Ted’s Beach on the edge of Australia’s largest dam, Lake Pedder. We did some more (unsuccessful) trout fishing and took the kayak for a spin across the lake.

The next day we attempted the Mt Sprent summit and this had to be the gnarliest hike we’d ever done. The track was so steep and muddy it was insane. We ended up turning around after about 40 minutes of hiking as the alpine weather was beginning to turn and we didn’t want our descent to become unsafe. It really bugged me that we didn’t finish, so it’s on the list for next time!!

We checked out the phenomenal Gordon Dam. The photos speak for themselves. It was jaw dropping and my knees were definitely shaking a bit looking down the colossal edge of the dam. The wonders of engineering.

We complete the rest of the west coast, once again we had to backtrack and go via Hobart, this time stopping past LARK distillery for some whiskey tasting. The whiskey distillery is the oldest in Australia and the drinks were incredible.

Oh, and we caught an aurora.

We are over halfway through our Tassie trip now, with the plan to tackle the west coast (the part I’ve been looking forward to the most!!)