Tasmania, travel
Posted on by Debbie

Tour de Tassie #3 – A circuitous route in more ways than one

The circuitous route ends here:

We are now home from our two weeks travelling around Tasmania and it all ended as it started.

Confused? Don’t be!

Tasmania Map, travel, touring
Tasmania Map – the yellow lines show our trip

We started our trip in Melbourne, meeting up with my sister and her husband on the boat, The Spirit of Tasmania, as we sailed across Bass Straight on our way to my niece’s wedding.

It was funny as we had both booked separately, without knowing when each other was planning to travel. So when we ended up on the same sailing we thought it was mere coincidence.  But when we were given cabins right next door to each other we started thinking…what’s going on??  Yes that’s right, out of all those many cabins available, on a very quiet sailing, we ended up in adjacent cabins! How bizarre.

Adjacent rooms
Sisters

We then started reminiscing and realised that the last time we had travelled to Tasmania together on the boat was 40+ years ago as teenagers, on a family holiday.  We thought we were very cool at the time and one of our favourite songs was Sailing by Rod Stewart.  As we sat listening to the on-board entertainer we decided to ask him to sing ‘our’ song, telling him some of the back story, and although it wasn’t in his repertoire, he obliged. We were taken back to all those years ago…

So we arrived back into Melbourne early Saturday morning, met up with Sharon and Tim for breakfast and they drove home with us to stay the night. As they’d lived in Tasmania for many years they were very interested to hear about our travels.  They also don’t need much encouragement to get out of the city for the weekend.  What’s a mere 5 hour drive??

So we started our trip with them and ended our trip with them 🙂

The circuitous route starts here:

As I’ve said before we had no real plans – we had the car, the bikes, some basic food supplies, a map and time. After the family wedding in Scottsdale we had a day with my sister and husband taking in the sights of Bridport, Derby, Blue Tier Forest Reserve, the Holy Cow Cafe at Pyengana, and the beautiful St Columba Falls set in the middle of the rainforest.  We thoroughly enjoyed the day of touring and seeing such amazing nature.

Rainforest at St Columba falls
Carved trees at Ledgerwood
Halls Falls at Pyengana Tasmania
Derby
On the rocks

The next day we set off on our own driving down the East Coast taking in the towns of Derby, where we sampled the amazing Mountain Bike trails; the carved trees at Ledgerwood; the little town of Ringarooma where my sister had once lived; Hall’s Falls; and the ancient Weldborough forest. We drove through coastal towns of St Helens, Bicheno and onto Coles Bay in the Freycinet National Park for the next two nights.

Wineglass Bay Tasmania
Hazards Beach Freycinet National Park Tasmania
Coles Bay Freycinet National Park Tasmania
Friendly Beaches Freycinet National Park Tasmania
Hazards Beach Tasmania

I will be writing more about these places so stay tuned!

The circuitous route:

We drove approximately 3000kms in the two weeks we were away and enjoyed every second of our holiday.  The map above shows the circuitous route (marked in yellow) we took around the island.  We basically stuck to the outside edges and enjoyed everything we did.  The scenery, the weather, the people, the history, the accommodation and the roads were all great. Tasmania maybe small but there’s so much to see and do, we already have a list of other places to visit when we return.  We have been to Tasmania before so we are no strangers to the offerings available.

So many people think Tasmania can be seen in a short amount of time but you really need more than a few days.  We could have stayed for much longer!  We decided to try to stay in places for 2 nights when we could and this worked well.  Being out of holiday season (coming into winter) we were able to get some good discounted prices on accommodation and crowds weren’t a problem, but the down side of travelling out of season was that many places were starting to close.

We were lucky with the weather but we knew it would be variable – we had sunshine, rain, and snow during our time away.  It wasn’t as cold as we had anticipated but we were well prepared.

The best advice we were given was to breathe – apparently the air in Tasmania is so good for you every breath adds 10 seconds to your life and it’s very good for your complexion.  What more could you ask for??

Final words:

The best part of being retired is we don’t have to come back from a great holiday and head back to work 🙂

I’ve started a series of Tour de Tassie travel blog posts highlighting our travels throughout late May 2017 and will be updating this series with stories and photos. Here’s what I’ve written so far:

Timeless Tarraleah

Maria Island

Wordless Wednesday

I hope you’ve enjoyed visiting with us and the circuitous nature of our trip.  Stay tuned for more posts in the coming weeks.

Tasmania, travel
Feel free to pin this image

Have you been to Tasmania? Any favourite places we should add to the list for our next visit?

Until next time!

Deb 😊

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39 Replies to “Tour de Tassie #3 – A circuitous route in more ways than one”

  1. Pingback: Tour de Tassie #6 – The white road through the Wilderness to Stanley – Deb's World
  2. Pingback: Tour de Tassie #5 – A convict journey – Deb's World
  3. Pingback: #Top10 Tips for Two weeks of Travelling in Tasmania – Deb's World

    1. Thank you so much for the emphasis!! I think I got it 😊 I’ve just posted story #4 today with a few more to come. Hopefully I’m not spamming everyone but I like to remind myself of our trips and this helps me a lot. I’ll make a photo book and transfer all the posts into it later. Hope you are going well. X

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  6. Pingback: Tour de Tassie #4 – The Wild and Wonderful West Coast – Deb's World

  7. Oh, what gorgeous pictures and some wonderful memories. I’ve only been to Tassie once in 2009 or so I think – with my bestie – and we didn’t do a lot of tripping around. So many people I know love it as a holiday destination however.

    I had to laugh at the Rod Stewart reference as I have very firm childhood memories of that song playing on Countdown and my brother setting up our cassette player (and microphone) in front of the TV!

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    1. Thanks for visiting and commenting Deborah. Tasmania is certainly a beautiful place to visit.

      I’m so glad you enjoyed the Rod Stewart reference, my sister and i were obsessed!

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  8. You’ve just reminded me of how long it’s been since we were in Tassie – 1997…yep, 20 years. Your pics (especially the ones of Freycinet) made me want to go back. #TeamLovinLife

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  9. Tasmania is on my bucket list (along with Qld) and your photos make me want to go even more. Love the idea of a boat ride over with a cabin as well. I might even keep a copy of that map of yours for future reference!

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    1. That’s great to hear Leanne, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The trip over on the Spirit of Tasmania makes it feel like you’re really travelling overseas! I’ve got a new post about it all coming up later this morning.

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  10. Lovely to meet you Debbie and thank you for linking up with the Lovin’ Life Linky! Fabulous photographs and isn’t Tassie fantastic! My husband and I hired a car and travelled around it in 13 days in late April/early May 2015. I fell in love with the place. So beautiful! I will definitely be going back! 🙂 #TeamLovinLife

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  11. Yes I agree! Tassie has so much to offer that a few weeks barely scratches the surface. Coincidentally we followed the same route as you in 2015, except for Bridgport. I absolutely loved the place and could easily return to see more. #TeamLovinLife

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  13. Sounds like you are using your retirement time very wisely, Debbie. Family, travel, adventures and lots of room for serendipity….sounds perfect!!

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