Welcome to Tasmania!

One interesting fact: Tasmania has roughly the same area as Great Britain (the island), but instead of having 90 million people, it has about 500 thousand. The result is lots of small towns of 300 and 500 people. Can you imagine? It’s hard to believe that such places still exist today!

We got to Tasmania at around noon but we could only get the car at 8:00 pm, and we wanted to see the Salamanca Market in Hobart on Saturday morning anyway, so we caught a shuttle bus to Hobart.
We got a place to stay – one of the crappiest places I’ve slept in my life (shared bathrooms included).
As we had until 8:00 pm to get the car at the airport, we’ve spent the day in Hobart. Maxi’s… not even their shadow…


(the Mures on the right upper corner, just next to the fishing harbor)

(A house in Hobart upper part)

(The same street on the upper part of Hobart)

(A park that was a Cemetery. It got too crowded so they decided to rearrange the graves and transform it into a park. People are still buried under the grass where others make their barbecues, but the gravestones are all in a couple of walls they’ve built for the purpose)

(just like that!)

(Hobart’s post office)

At 19:30 we’ve headed to the airport to pickup the car. The lady at the Thrifty desk informed us that despite the insurance we had already bought through the website, if the car had as much as a tinny paint chip she would charge us $5000, and then we could take it up with the website guys.
We said ok, and used the Australian card (which is not even a credit card… so good luck trying to charge something on it!)

(here’s our amazing set of wheels!)

We had dinner at the mythical Mures in Hobart (where all the Sydney – Hobart maxi racers have their drinks and foods after arriving in Hobart), and went to sleep at the crapy “Pickled Frog” (that’s the name of the dump we found to sleep), and we’ve discovered what Tassies do with their nights… they get really drunk and learn to play guitar!
Neither of us got much sleep…

From Hobart to Launceston

After a few hours of almost sleep we got out of the Pickled Frog joint we had found to sleep in Hobart and went to the Salamanca market that runs on Saturdays.

(the Salamanca market)

After that we headed toward Launceston in the amazing car we rented the day before.


(on the road)

On the way we’ve stopped at the Wine Glass Bay – one of the most spectacular sites in Tasmania. We took a short walk, and met some of the locals.


(wine glass bay)


(almost wild wallaby)


(is this for real!?!)

This city is described in the Lonely Planet guide as being the home of all rednecks in Tasmania. It’s not true. It’s the home of all rednecks in Oceania! Just unbelievable!
The city itself is very nice. It looks like it has been frozen in time for the last 200 years. All colonial buildings are intact, and there are almost no pre-fab’s made out of tin sheet.
Close by there are some falls (whose name I can’t recall) that are an amazing place. A nice display of British intervention over the local landscape (fortunately they’ve preserved the place, only builded a coffee house). You can almost see the 19th century people going around in their silly (by today’s standards) clothes.

To the Nut!

We left Launceston and headed toward Stanley, on the norther tip of Tasmania. The objective was to look at “The Nut”.
Before getting back on the road we stopped at the amazing site I’ve talked about before, with the falls, near Launceston.

(lake and water falls near Launceston)

(lake and water falls near Launceston - 2)

It was an amazing place.
And we got back in the car.

(random photo along the way)

After a few hours, we saw it… The Nut (I couldn’t figure out why on earth they call it that… maybe it’s an “Aussie thing”)!


(the nut)

Yes, I know there are some spots on the photo, and no, it’s not the lenses, it’s the sensor, so I can’t clean it properly…
We actually went all the way up the rock formation. They have some ski resort like lift, but it was stopped (It had passed the 5:00pm, and they weren’t working anymore).
The view was absolutely amazing!
From one side…


(left view from the top of the nut)

… and the other


(right view from the top of the nut)

It was freezing cold, so we took some pictures and rushed back to the car.
On the way we met this little one.

(some sort of possum)

I have no idea what it is, but it was cool it was alive. We had seen a buch of them already, but all of them were roadkill…
We got into the car, and drove back to find a place to stay for the night (not in Stanley… it has 200 people living there so…)
On the way we went to check out this Tulip field. To bad the weather was so crappy…


(tulip field outside the nut)

Anyway… here are some more photos of our Tassie trip!

The Devil, the Koala and the Kangaroo

We haven’t seen any of these in the wild (not alive at least – we’ve seen a couple in the side of the road, quite dead) so we decided to stop at the Tasmania Zoo.
First the Devil:
As you can see, the thing doesn’t really do much. It just lies there, sleeping.


(The sleeping devil - no, it's not your wife sleeping...)

So we decided to look if any other was available in the grounds. After wondering around for a while we found another one, and as you can see, the behavior is consistent…


(another sleeping devil)

Finally the beast realized it had an audience, and decided to make his routine, and so we actually were able to see a moving Tasmania Devil
Check out the red eyes!!!


(yawning devil)

Yeah, I also thought they were black, but as it turned out they’re brownish!


(charging devil)

Now the Kangaroos. They really look like humans! Check it out!


(kangaroo scratching his balls)


(kangaroo lying on his side)

I started taking photos of the small kid feeding the Kangaroo, and the kid was used being photographed, because he kept smiling to the camera. This anoyed the mother that was trying to get a photo.


(kid ignoring his mother)

After the Kangaroos we decided to check out the Koala (there was only one), and it too was really sleepy:


(koala ignoring everyone)

I wonder if they give the animals something to smoke every morning… (they’re supposed to be wild beasts! And in the end… they just sit or lye there).
And this was the Tasmania Zoo!

Tasmania Wildlife

Do you know what’s the best way to look at the local wildlife while you’re in Tasmania?
Ok, I’ll tell you!
Forget about the Zoos (that exist every other corner) or the wildlife parks (that are even more frequent than Zoos).
The first thing you need to do is to get a car. A robust 4×4 is even better. Then get a full options insurance.
After this, just drive around Tasmania’s roads… The wildlife is all around you! Specially in the middle of the road, or in the sides of the road. And the great majority of them aren’t squashed beyond recognition!
As roadkill is such an issue around here, you have at all times a fresh supply of dead animals on the sides of the roads. From kangaroos to tasmanian devils (and parrots, and crows, and wallabies, and all other animals!)
The best part is you don’t need to pay a ticket! And as all these animals that are kept in zoos are always lying down, sleeping, the experience is pretty much the same!
Now seriously… It’s unbelievable how these people didn’t came up with something to stop this phenomena… it is not roadkill anymore, it is road massacre! Every kilometer of road has dozens of dead animals, and seriously, from kangaroos to tasmanian devils! (it was even an issue with the rent a car lady that insisted we buy another insurance (on top of the all coverage we already had) because we would almost certainly kill some animal on the road! (and we’re not talking mice, we are talking 20 plus Kg animals…)
No wonder they are getting extinct!
And… ofc we didn’t kill anything beyond a few mosquitos and the occasional bee…

The Tasmania Road Trip - Intro

So, I was living in Melbourne, Australia, with my girlfriend, studying at the Melbourne Business School for 6 months in an exchange program with our university.
We didn't study a lot, but we've traveled as much as we could.
The Tasmania Road Trip was the first one, so I'll begin with it. Follow the next posts to see how it was. Nice pictures, idiotic text, but read on if you feel like it!
As a previous note, I should tell you that you shouldn't expect to have cell network coverage in most of the roads you'll be traveling on. Tasmania has cellphone coverage on populated areas, but not outside, and as it has almost the size of Great Britain and about 500k inhabitants (instead of 90 million) you can imagine that there aren't too many inhabited areas.
If you have a road problem, just wait for someone to pass along and give you a hand. This may mean you have to spend a night on the side of the road, so always have water and cookies with you. At least you wont starve to death.