Tasmania and Melbourne

Tasmania and Melbourne 22 May to 4 June

We (or maybe it was I, haha) was so captivated by the beauty of New Zealand that I really wanted to find another place like it to visit. Maybe can see if can retire there anot too haha.

Tasmania seemed like a nice and cool place to visit, with its rugged scenery. Plus Melbourne is supposed to be one of the top livable cities in the world! So off we went to plan a trip to these two places and do a road trip again!

We flew to Melbourne by Qantas and took an internal flight to Tasmania. Hobart was our first stop and we planned to drive up the East Coast to Launceston to take the flight back to Melbourne.

Qantas air tickets for two to Melbourne: $1196.60
City Tempo Melbourne: $297.37

Our first stop was Hobart and we visited the Hobart old prison which is a main highlight of Hobart (although admission ticket was expensive, haha). I also learnt during the trip that Tasmania has quite a sad history and realised the reason they have so many old prisons for visit is because they were treated as a dumping ground for convicts. While it is not happening anymore today, the standard of living of the Tasmanians are also lower than the mainland Australians. Quite sad.

We also took the time to visit the Hobart's Museum of Old and New Arts. It was one of the few times we visited a museum during our trips. But the Museum was really quite interesting and eye-opening! Not your arty-farty kind of museum.

We also spent a day to visit the famous Hobart weekend market (but we will find it meh, cos I guess we won't buy a lot of those farmers' market like kinda stuff) and drove up to Mount Wellington to see the sunrise.

After spending about three days in Hobart, we started our road trip! First stop of the road trip was Curringha Farm which was supposed to be a key highlight of the trip but the stay still feel a bit short of expectations. The room was pretty, the scenery was nice, we did chase some sheeps, but we found that the room was too pricey and there really was not much to do. And NO wifi!!!!

I think we felt a bit let down mainly because we didn't see anyone when checking in and out of the farm- we had to drive up and down to try to find a person at the reception, in the end we just took and left our own key at the reception. A bit like no hospitality. Hurhur.

On the road to Wineglass Bay after we checked out of Curringha Farm! We met a group of Singaporean aunties who are staying in Australia during our hike up to Wineglass Bay. So we all chit chatted a bit on the way up.






And, we met a wallaby in the carpark at Wineglass Bay! It was just there in the car park to see if anyone would feed it and it was very friendly, not scared of people who went to take photos or pet it. The close proximity that one can have with wildlife in Tasmania was quite amazing!

The view of Wineglass Bay from the top. It is called Wineglass Bay because the shape looks like a wine glass.

Then we drove around a bit and Dear brought us to go eat Oysters at this place he saw his friends also went to. Haha.

Fresh and cheap oysters! Very scenic, we ate it by the sea somemore haha. Dear ate most of it cos I'm not a very oyster kind of person.

Then we headed off to Bicheno by the Bay where we stayed for the night. Today's drive was all along the coast, so a lot of seafood in our meals today. Dinner was fish and chips at the Gulch where the food is supposed to be quite good. It was not bad but we have learnt from this road trip that when you are on the road, it is A LOT of burgers and fish and chips. We were quite sick from these though- everyday was really literally either burger or fish and chips haha. 

Oh, to make the chips more yummy without paying for the sauces, I bought a spicy habanero sauce from the supermarket and used it for my dips. HAHAHA. Cos I don't think I can survive without spicy food for so long and really quite wasteful to keep paying for sauce at the restaurants leh. I am very proud cos I really appreciate Dear going along with my life hack. Hehe.

We had a National Geographic moment when we went to get our dinner on one of the nights. We had wanted to visit Bicheno for the penguins but didn't see any. BUT, as we were walking to the car park after dinner, we saw a penguin in the bushes at the back of the shed. AND, a predator (we thought it was a Tasmanian Devil but the owner later came out and told us it is a furret cat cos they frequent the area) was on the window ledge waiting to jump onto the penguin.

We stood there trying to protect the penguin cos the furret cat was also scared to jump down as he sees us around. The two of us was also like errr, how ah. Then after a few minutes, the cat decided to jump down but missed and the penguin took the chance to run away in the bushes. Hope the penguin really managed to get away!

From Bicheno, we drove towards Cradle Mountain and I was really looking towards it cos it is really magnificent and almost New Zealand-like. But lo and behold, it actually started snowing on the day we are in Cradle Mountain! Raining somemore! And since we didn't expect it to snow, Dear was also a bit under dressed and too cold!

The weather was really quite bad that the park rangers recommended visitors to take short walks only, so that we can turn back if the weather really gets very bad. So no choice, instead of doing the Dove Lake hike that we had planned to, we took the 20min walks.

 Very pretty but so cold! And it was drizzling too! It was cold and wet walking outside!

See the snow!

While we had dreamt of a more pleasant hike in the greenery, I guess hiking in the snow and rain was an adventure of its own. Hurhur.

From Cradle Mountain, we drove to Launceston to stay for one night before heading back to Melbourne.

Had our meal at Burger Got Soul which Dear said was good. It's just another burger to me cos I don't know how to appreciate :/ Haha

The next morning, we had breakfast at this place that Dear found online and it was really not bad. All the items are have a nice chargrilled flavour to it. Since moving into our own place, we don't really eat this kind of brunch food often, heh.

The Cataract Gorge is Launcston's main attraction:

And we spotted wallabys hanging out in the park too! Like nobody's business. We took photos and fed it with leaves for a while before continuing on our way.

We had lunch at the Saltwater Cafe nearby and headed to the airport to take our flight to Melbourne. Bye Bye Tasmania!

We stayed in the Hilton hotel (free one cos we had Amex card promo!) on our first night in Melbourne cos we are going to the Great Ocean Road for another road trip! It's gonna be a 3D2N trip! Ya we really planned everything in haha.

It was an early start the next morning cos we had lots to cover on the road- we visited Dear's colleague and did a tour of his neighbourhood before hitting the Great Ocean Road proper. The Great Ocean Road where you can see the waves of the sea and the curves of the mountains.

We visited the lighthouse, 12 Apostles etc. All the works. It was nice but similar after a while haha.

After 3D2N, we are back in the city and since we had the car with us, we went to the Brighton Beach to see the famed bathing boxes. Really a lot of ppl, cannot get a good photo! Plus the sun was setting when we reached, so the lighting a bit bad to take photos but at least we managed to see the famous bathing boxes!

We spend the next three days exploring the city of Melbourne- visiting the weekend markets (I fulfilled my KPI of buying Buddy a Fuzzyard bed!), the Melbourne Goal (which was really fun) and had brunches cos we needa try out the Melbourne coffee.

One thing that impressed me about the Melbourne city is their free tram ride and wifi in the central city area. Really cool!

And of cos, we visited the graffiti art too.

One good thing about the Melbourne city is that it has loads of Asian food (Chinese, Jap, Korean, Thai etc) that are good and quite reasonable prices! Just nice for us to feed our Asian stomachs after all the burgers and fish and chips!

We tried out one of the popular ramen shops. Not bad lah.

We finished our last day with a brunch at Higher Ground Melbourne and walked around a bit at the Spencer Outlet store opposite. Then it was time to go back home and see Buddy!