Tasmania - a first for me

I have slept in all sorts of places, including igloos, and on top of mud huts in Africa, but before this week, I have never slept in a tent. All change! 7 nights in a tent here, in 5 different locations.

First night, we stayed at the Mount Field National Park campsite. We hadn't bought food in advance, so we needed to drive 35 minutes to the next shop. I was pleasantly surprised that the very thin camping matress was actually comfortable. What was less pleasant was getting out of the sleeping bag as overnight the temperature dropped dramatically to about 5C from over 20C. These rapid ups and downs in temperature are normal here and in nearby Melbourne. Might have something to do with Antarctica.

Mount Field itself has magnificent walks through the ancient woods. Very tall trees, beautiful streams, and waterfalls.

Unfortunately, the fun was spoiled for Flo, as she twisted her foot. We didn't find a place to assess it until 2 days later, and even then, we just got an opinion since they didn't have any X-ray equipment. Probably a torn liganent. Treatment lots of painkillers and rest. Not the best starting condition for the next 3 days of hiking at Lake St Clair and Cradle Mountain, which Flo largely spent reading.

Lake St Clair walks were OK, but not exceptional, whereas Cradle Mountain really is quite special.

We continue to encounter animals we had never seen in the wild before. This time, wombats and various possums . The kids were particularly excited to find wombat poo because it's square shaped.

I was less charmed by the overnight temperatures, "real feel -1C". So camping is quite fun, but maybe limited to overnight temperatures above 10C.Read more