TasMANIA

Tasmania and Iceland - my two favorite places so far. Let's look at some comparisons:

• Island size - 68,400 sq. kilometers / 103,000 sq. kilometers
• Population - 512,000 / 320,000
• People per sq. kilometer - 7.5 / 3.1
• Percentage land held as park or refuge - 5 / 19.9

I think I'm seeing a pattern emerging. I like relatively large islands with low populations, a high percentage of public lands... and unfortunately, high costs of living. Good to know for future relocation searches, although with two new islands on the list already, I don't think I'll need to keep looking for my next place to move when I hit the lottery.

A rainbow at sunrise, what further proof do you need that it's an awesome island?

The Bay of Fires. Don't be fooled by the crystal clear water, it was COLD!

Moonlight on the beach, waiting for the penguins to come ashore. No photos of the penguins themselves though, they apparently are easily blinded by the flash

Like several of my favorite experiences, going to Tasmania was unplanned and a bit of a last-minute decision when I couldn't make the west coast of Australia work within budget and time constraints. I decided to go to Tassie instead because it was supposed to be beautiful (it is), outdoorsy (check), and cooler than the Northern Territory (important at the time since I was tired of sweating my days away in 95+ humidity). Going from Darwin in the Top End to Tassie was like going from the Florida panhandle to Portland (either one) and the change in climate, scenery, and vibe was perfect.

Bay of Fires again, named for the cook fires seen on the shore by the first European explorers

Sunset in Strahan

Wineglass Bay, considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world

The capital city, Hobart, reminds me a bit of a quiet suburb of West Coast city; it's very walkable, with a laid-back college town mood, good restaurants, and the kind of hilly terrain that make for great views and tired calves. I spent about 2 days in Hobart wandering around, enjoying the coastal climate, and planning the best way to see the rest of the island.  Although only 3% of the tourists who visit Australia make it to Tassie, it was still high season when I arrived and for the first time since leaving DC, I encountered some trouble finding available rooms at reasonable rates and open spots on the tours. In the end, I had to create a rather ridiculous itinerary of going from Hobart to the 2nd largest town, Launceston, just to catch a tour that passed through Hobart and ended back in Launceston, and then taking the bus back to Hobart for my flight out to Sydney. Ridiculous, yes, but the bus ride was cheap, the timing worked out perfectly, and in the end I wouldn't have wished it any different.

View from the top of Mt. Wellington, part 1 - looking down on Hobart

View from the top of Mt. Wellington, part 2

A waterfall in west Tasmania

The tour I chose was a 7 night loop of the island that hit all of the major scenic sights, as well as Hobart and several smaller towns. Since it operates on a constant schedule of picking up and dropping off people in Hobart and Launceston, the group changed halfway through the tour, but I feel very lucky in that every one of the 22 or so people I met on the tour were friendly, fun, and interesting to talk to, including the 3 tour guides we had over the week. This is always an important thing when you are cooped up in a van together for hours at time. During the 7 days, the group had members from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, the UK, Australia, Mexico, Colombia, and probably a couple of countries I've forgotten. Typical for most of my traveling in Asia and Australia, I was the only American in the group.

One of my favorite exhibits from the MONA - a shower of illuminated waterdrops that spelled out random words selected from web news sites

Another beautiful, two-step waterfall from western Tasmania

Walking the suspension bridge to the waterfall

If you're planning on visiting Tassie, I'll be happy to tell you all the names of all the towns and natural wonders we stopped at that I loved, but I'll spare you all the details for the blog and just hit the highest of the high points. Although now that I think of it, the highest of the high points is still a pretty long list. I guess I'll start with Hobart since I've already mentioned it, even though it happened in the middle of the tour. The day in Hobart was one-half walking around Mt. Wellington, the mountain that provides spectacular (or spekkie, if you prefer) views of Hobart and the surrounding valley, and one-half walking around the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), which has put Hobart on the international art scene. Both are visually stunning in different ways and it's really fun to start off the morning with some physical exertion and end the afternoon with some mental exertion... and a glass of wine. The MONA is the private collection of a Tassie eccentric millionaire who basically built this amazing, beautiful building just to have a place to display his art (and make a bunch more money, I assume). The collection is huge, inconsistent, and tries too hard to be shocking, but it's also been a while since I've spent four hours in a museum and enjoyed it that much.

Looking down from the suspension bridge

It's pretty rare that I'm able to look up at a waterfall from the base. I know it looks like a river, but it's almost a straight vertical shot up

The beginning of our trail up Cradle Mountain

The rest of the 7-day tour was split between the east and west sides of the island. The highlights of the east side were the Bay of Fires and Wineglass Bay, two world-class beaches that looked more like the Caribbean instead of edging into the polar latitudes, until you got into the water. Even though it was in the high 80s to low 90s most days, the water was probably a brisk 60, which was bearable once you fully got in, mainly because you were working so hard to keep from being knocked down by the hefty waves. A 15 minute swim/body-surfing session was about all I could handle before getting out and basking in the southern summer sun to bring my body temp back up. And if the water was too cool for you, Bay of Fires had some great boulders to scramble around on, and you have to hike downhill for about 40 minutes just to get to Wineglass Bay, so there are several ways to stay occupied.

The view after scrambling up the Henty dunes near Strahan - very bright, very hot

Our guide walking the sand dune - I wish I had thought of taking this photo at the time with me as the subject

The edge of the Henty dune is slowly growing outward and consuming the nearby trees. It's a very strange thing to see the tops of trees sticking out of a sand dune

The west side tour, on the other hand, focused on forests, waterfalls, and hikes than beach life. Every stop had amazing views of the mountain ranges, prehistoric-feeling woodland walks, or little mining towns that had me thinking I was in the American old west (compete with saloons). The west side tends to be a little drier that the east, and since temperatures were pretty steady in the 90s the whole time, ice cream breaks became a daily requirement... sometimes twice daily. Aside from the hike up Cradle Mountain, one of the highlights for me was the Henty sand dunes, which is a strange formation of 70-foot high sand, nowhere near the beach, and slowly eating the forest next to it. The Henty dunes gave me the unexpected opportunity to engage in one of my favorite activities: fighting my way up a sand dune, and then running down it like a maniac. It's so much fun, I even did it twice, even though the climb up the second time was brutal. If you've never run down a sand dune, you don't know what you're missing; I've done it in Colorado, Jordan, California, and now Tasmania.

From the top of our trail on Cradle Mountain

The group taking a well-deserved break at the top of the trail

Looking down at the valley

There were lots of other smaller activities on the tour, and once I was back in Hobart, like visiting a wildlife center and feeding kangaroos and petting baby wallabies, but the other great thing I'll mention about Tasmania is visiting all the small towns scattered around the island. Most of the towns only have a few hundred people in them, and touring around the island meant we stopped in at least two of these (mostly) quaint little villages for lunch and dinner every day. Many of them were founded in the late 18th and early 19th century, and you could almost believe you were suddenly transported to the middle of the English countryside, since they all had pubs, neat little houses with neat little gardens, and streets named after English aristocracy and English towns. Just reading the street and town names is enough to really give you a sense of how much the early colonists must have missed the British Isles.

Feeding the 'roos at the wildlife center

Eating for two

So I was very sorry when my time was up in Tasmania, but I hope to go back again someday and explore more of the beautiful island. It may not be very easy or quick to get to, but it's well worth the effort.

One of my favorite things in the world to do - running down a sand dune!