Tasmania - to us it felt like a strange mixture of New Zealand, Australia and the UK. Often we weren't sure exactly where we were! Visited a lot of National Parks here and did a lot of tramping. Some of the highlights were:
- Freycinet National Park. About 150-200km east of Hobart. This area was a series of picture perfect bays and white sands among rainforests walks.
- Bay of Fires (north of Freycinet). Called this due to the huge boulders and stones that surround the beaches are covered in an orange fungus thing which contrasts against the white sand.
- Cradle Mountain. Did a couple of walks here; one from the north side and one from the southern end. In the rain we got up to crater lake and saw whispy views of Cradle Mountain.
- Mt Field National Park (80km west of Hobart) Did some lower rainforest walks here and got to see the spectacular Russell Falls but also did some more Alpine trecks to the Tarn Shelf (a series of mini lakes high up where the glacier cut into the side of the mountain).
- Saw heaps of wildlife here including our favourite the Tasmanian Devil. They are quite small like a puppy really but very strong and rather aggressive for their relative size(Chris kept comparing me with them!). Also saw playpus a number of times in the lakes and rivers of Tasmania - just swimming around and diving - very cute
