Tasmania - Sydney to Swansea! - 5th Jan

An early start today with me going for a final run (for this leg of our trip) back over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We left our hotel at 7:30 to catch the train to the airport where we checked in for our Virgin Australia flight to Hobart, Tasmania. We landed in our third Australian state at midday and collected our bags and then the rental car that we have whilst we're here.

For the next three days we are on a bit of a mini road trip around part of Tasmania. The first section is up the east coast of the island and after leaving Hobart we picked up the Tasman highway. The first section through to Orford was through some beautiful countryside. At Triubunna, a sleepy town where we stopped for a snack.

The road darted back inland here before re-emerging at the coast not long after passing through Pontypool! From here the road snaked along the coast of the Great Oyster Bay, stopping at Spikey Bridge, so called because of the way that the coping stones are arranged at the top of the sides of the bridge.

Not long after this we arrived at Swansea, our stop for the evening. We checked in to the Waterloo hotel, overlooking the bay and as it was only 4pm we headed straight back out to drive about an hour around the bay to the Freycinet peninsula and its national park.

The road doesn't follow the bay but eventually comes back and meets the coast near Coles bay. We continued on to park in the car park to walk up to a lookout for Wineglass Bay. The path traced its way through bush with occasional glimpses over the opposite direction to Coles and Honeymoon Bays. Towards the top the path became mainly steps, eventually culminating after about half an hour, with magnificent views over the beautiful Wineglass Bay. We spent some time admiring the view before heading back down the hill to our car.

From here we drove back around the coast to Coles Bay where we had a quick drink and some fish and chips. By now it was past 7:30 and we decided to drive 20 minutes or so back along the road to a place called Friendly Beaches where we tried to look for wildlife, including wombats and wallabies. We didn't have long as we wanted to be back at Coles Bay for sunset. Driving back to the town we spotted quite a few wallabies on the roadside, most too quick to capture in a photo.

The sunset at Coles Bay, overlooking the peaks of the Hazards was not as spectacular as promised, mainly because of some cloud in the area, but was still a beautiful site nonetheless.

Finally, just before 9 we began the journey back to Swansea, with another quick stop at the Friendly Beaches where we did manage to spot a little wallaby.

We arrived back at Swansea at around 10am and had a quick beer while we planned our route for the following day.Leggi altro