Tasmanian Devil Tour

After leaving Wollongong and heading to Melbourne to see the end of the Australian Open Tennis Tournament I caught a flight to the southern island of Tasmania! I met up with three fellow travelers online, Paulina (Germany), Red (Hong Kong) and Roy (Dutch), and we all met one evening and rented a car the next morning to start our 8 day camping trip around this beautiful state. We started in the south in Hobart, the capital and headed west and eventually completed a circular route.  We slept outside every night, made all our meals on the campfire and devoured over 25 loaves of bread. It was amazingly gorgeous, surprisingly variable and unfortunately quite chilly at times :)

Paulina, Roy, Red and myself - starting off the trip strong!

There are tiger snakes all over the island and on the mainland. They are the worlds 5th most venomous snake but never attack humans if they are just left alone.  We ran into several, beautiful!

 We headed to Mt. Fields National Park for our first day.  Rock mountains everywhere

 The Tarn Shelf and Lake Seal.  We enjoyed lunch at this look out.

We had just started the three hour hike back down the mountain when a wombat stumbled in front of me!  I freaked out, screamed and was quite scared. Embarrassing. I though it was something much scarier. 

 We had a relaxing hang out on an overhanging tree on a calm, tranquil lagoon.

While taking photos of the others on the tree, I slipped and got a major soaker! Hence why I'm lacking a shoe.

We headed south to Scott's Point to camp for the night. Had to dry my shoe :)

Hiking into the South Western National Park. An area with no roads and only accessible by foot. Many people attempt the 8 day over land journey to the coast where they get picked up by a boat. wicked! I'll have to go back and give it a try

Hiking that day was very muddy. Everyone except Paulina ended up with a foot in the mud. Women.

Before we headed north we had to take a dip in this freezing cold mountain lake. It was very cold but worth every chill.

We drove for the rest of the day and made it to St. Clair National Park. We collected some wood(the previous night, our first night, was cold, so we wanted to keep the fire going all night) and made camp. As simple as possible and with as little as possible!

The eucalyptus trees get so big!  Then they burn, regenerate and fall.

A rock wallabee

Felt like I was 8 again! Flipping over rocks and searching for crayfish :)

Echidna!  This guy didn't care at all when we were watching him, he just chilled out and when we got to close he tucked his head away under his spikes. Wicked creature!

Exploring some tidal pools.  Sea Star

Decorator crab!  He sticks things he finds in his environment to his shell.  It makes them very hard to find.

Paulina enjoying the wester coast's ocean.

Massive waves crashing on the rocks

The "Edge of the World"

We ate dinner on the rocks under a beautiful sunset. 

An historic prison

Stanley Rock on the north coast 

Wallabees everywhere!

Sisters Beach

Craddle Mountain!  We started our 6 hour hike at 8 in the morning this day. It was cloudy, rainy and cold. And we couldn't see the mountain at all!  But by mid day the sun had burned off the clouds and we lost the ponchos!  

We ended up climbing to the top.  What an amazing view

Red on a rock pillar 1600 metres off the ground.

We were on top of that mountain!

We then headed to Kings Solomon's Cave.  

Stalogtite (top) almost meets its stalogmite

Massive column 

Sleeping bag jumping photo!  West coast Tasmania, Policemens Point

Breakfast on the beach with the pelicans. Couldn't ask for more.

We started driving to a lighthouse but had to bail on the car when the road turned to sand. So we started walking and randomly ended up at this beautiful beach. No body around for miles, we had it all to ourselves.

The Bay of Fires

These guys were so friendly!  Momma and baby!  They were even licking my hands, it took some persuading to final get me to leave them and start hiking.

Wine Glass Bay.  This and Craddle Mountain are Tasmania's two most toured site. We slept on the beach for our final night.  Stellar!

We spent 8 days doing whatever we wanted in Tasmania and saw some truly incredible sites. I headed back to Melbourne to start school after we finished.  Not nearly exciting.