Hobart, Cradle Mountain and Beyond

Once in Hobart we ditched the tent and checked into a hotel. 7 nights in the tent had been a lot; fun but full on!

We had a dinner reservation at a fine dining restaurant called Aloft. This restaurant is not open Sunday’s or Monday’s (our other 2 nights in Hobart) so we had actually re-jigged our plans to arrive in Hobart one night earlier so we could go here. It offered a 10 course tasting menu which we decided to accompany with matching wines, lucky there were only 5 glasses of wine and not 10. To my pleasure, 3 of them were white, one sparkling rose and only one red. The food and wine was delicious and the view and atmosphere was amazing. From here, we wandered into town and stumbled across Van Diemens Land Ice Creamery. I think it was the amount of alcohol we’d consumed but somehow we still had room for some ice cream. Our final stop for the evening was Gin(bar) which is owned by Lark who as well as whisky also make Forty Spotted Gin. I tried the gin flight before we headed back to the hotel.

The following morning was a wet one and I was glad we’d booked to do an indoor activity – MONA. This is a modern art museum and Jordan had previously commented “I’m intrigued to see what your tolerance is for modern art”. Well it turns out it’s greater than his so I’ll let him write a guest section and describe his thoughts on this experience so here goes, the first ever guest section:

“What better way to start a day than at the local patisserie just a gentle stroll from our motel. Our breakfast of champions: rhubarb danish, croissant with raspberry jam, concorde (dark  Belgian chocolate mousse, cocoa meringue layers and meringue garnish) and a Portugese tart. Safe to say our glucose tolerance test was a challenge and we couldn’t wait to indulge in something savoury later in the day.

Next stop, MONA (Museum of Old and New Art).  However, I’ll affectionately call it the Museum of nothing appropriate. Despite an ‘Adults Only’ warning appearing once, I’d question the appropriateness of many of the exhibits throughout. Our favourites package include a water word creator highlighting the futility of modern life and the inability to process or comprehend the steady flow of information; inspired by an artist in residence at CERC an homage to the Large Hadron Collider was designed in which lights/beads/strobes replicated the attempts to understand the Higgs boson (collision of accelerated atoms) and lastly ‘walking the plank’ an artistic impression of a gangway surrounded by black paint creating the illusion of depth and stepping off into the darkness.

Otherwise, MONA was an experience. Whilst I had previously enjoyed fine arts and culture suffice to say that modern and contemporary art is currently a bridge too far. ‘Art’ is open to interpretation but recreating the human digestive system (mechanical vats and pipes including feeding and expulsion), whacky creations and a wall of vaginas was probably enough for me!

To reclaim our sanity we ventured to Derwent Estate for a delicious meal inclusive of a 25% discount. Lamb ribs, cheese and pork was just what was needed along with some tastings and wine. To further enhance our recollection of MONA we finished off the day tasting our way through Lark Distillery and Forty Spotted Gin. Regrettably, our attempts at saving money were unfounded with a rather expensive purchase but you only come to Tassie once right? (Knowing Em, if nothing else we’ll be back to bring back the entire ice cream collection in our car).”

The following day we were booked on a Bruny Island Gourmet Food tour. We were collected from our hotel and jumped on a bus with about 20 others and headed to the short ferry over to Bruny. Our first stop was Bruny Island Cheese and Beer (it was 10am!) Here we learnt all about their cheeses and beer before tasting 4 of the cheeses and one of the beers. This was our third (I think) dairy of the trip and this was our favourite so of course we came away with 2 blocks of cheese, only one of which actually made it back to Geelong with us but mainly because it had to be baked to be eaten. We stopped at Neck Point and the rainforest for a short wander before reaching our lunch spot. Here we were treated to 3 local oysters each. Still not my thing, Jordan got to enjoy 5 while I had one. These oysters are different to normal ones as they remain constantly under water and we had driven past the oyster farm on route. We then had some local crumbed fish (trevalla), and chips along with local drinks (a local cider and a Spirit of Bruny gin and soda). On the way back to the ferry we made a couple of stops, first of which was the Bligh Museum, the smallest museum I’ve ever been to. In the garden there was a rare white wallaby which are only found on Bruny. Next up was Two Trees point on the beach before Bruny Island Chocolate, a very small chocolaterie. Here we had a tour of the owners English Garden, in the rain, how fitting, and tasted some of the chocolate. Our final stop before the ferry was Bruny Island Honey where as well as 10+ varieties of honey, we tried some honey ice cream. Here we also added to our food supplies.

Back in Hobart we were dropped off in the city centre for our last taste of Van Diemens Land ice cream. Back at the hotel we had an exciting dinner of cheese (all the varieties we’d acquired over the past week) and crackers. It also gave us a chance to organise our stuff which was hung up all over the room having done a big load of washing when we arrived in Hobart.

The following morning was a lazy one. We drove into the city and hit up one of bakeries, Pigeon Hole, for some coffee and breakfast and we also picked up some bread and treats for later in the day. We had also parked conveniently close to Nutpatch Chocolaterie so we stopped in there on the way back to the car too and acquired some more treats.
We had hoped to make it up Mount Wellington but the weather in Hobart wasn’t great and this morning was no different so we hit the road and headed towards Cradle Mountain and opted to take a hefty detour to The Wall. This is something that we had no prior knowledge of but was recommended by quite a few people we’d met in Hobart. I don’t even know how to describe this as whatever I say won’t do it justice and we couldn’t take photos in there. But in the middle of Tassie an artist has created a 100m timber wall into which he has carved the most intricate of stories. The detail was insane and the way it was presented was just stunning. It isn’t even finished but even the unfinished bits tell a story. It was well worth the detour. On our way we had also driven past a distillery called “Lawrenny”. Stopping 5 minutes down the road to use the bathrooms I did a quick Google of this distillery and we made the decision it was worth going back. It certainly was although it cost a fair bit but I do now have a good gin stash and some coffee liqueur; espresso martinis are on the menu when we’re back!

Originally we had intended to camp at Cradle Mountain but the forecast was cold (like England Winter cold) and wet (again like England) so we decided to book an air b n b and know we would have a warm place to return to after any hiking. This was a great decision! The air b n b was in Staverton and we arrived just before dinner.

We had two days for walks so had a look at the visitor guide and maps in the air b n b and headed to Cradle Mountain the following morning. One thing I really liked here is that they have set up a shuttle bus so you have to park at the visitor centre and the shuttle bus runs roughly every 10 mins between 8am and 5pm. This frees up the road and very small car parks at the starts of the walks. Places like Snowdon should really consider this…..
The weather really wasn’t ideal to be honest; very wet! We opted to stay down low as the forecast the following day was meant to be brighter. We did the 6km walk round Dove Lake but started from Ronny Creek so added about 2.5km to the loop to walk along the boardwalk and spot a lone wombat. The walk was decent but Jordan found it a bit samey and boring. Probably not helped by the fact it was so wet and cloudy that we couldn’t even see Cradle Mountain! We jumped on the shuttle bus at Dove Lake but jumped off at the Rangers station to do some of the short walks around there. We’d spotted a Tassie Devil conservation centre just past the visitor centre on the way in on the shuttle bus so after we got back and picked up the car we headed there. Given we’d only seen dead ones on the side of the road it was good to see some alive and learn about them and the centres conservation and rehabilitation efforts. They also had two types of quoll as residents – the European quoll and the spotted quoll who eventually came out of their dens to say hi. We had hoped to have some time in the afternoon to explore more of the tasting trail we’d explored when we first arrived in Tassie but unfortunately the only place still open was Spreyton Cider. We could get there about an hour before it closed and the late afternoon saw the clouds disappear and the sun came out so we headed there for a nice drink in the sun. Certainly not as good as Red Brick Cider but it was still decent and I did the tasting paddle. Heading back to the air b n b we stopped off in Sheffield which is known for its murals. There were so many!!! We just wandered a bit and looked at some of them before heading back to the warmth or the air b n b.

We made sure we were all packed up as the following morning we were planning a slightly longer walk so wanted to get in to the National Park early. We got to Ronny Creek around 7.30 and parked up here as we’d got in before the barrier came down (which is perfectly allowed, we’d checked) and headed off towards Cradle Mountain. The first 1.5km were the same as the previous day but it was much clearer and not raining which was a novelty. We turned off down a different track and headed on upwards. Our aim was to the complete the Cradle Mountain Summit hike hut we would assess the conditions as we went up. We came past Marion’s lookout at the weather was average; cold a bit damp but nothing too treacherous. From here it was a relatively flat and easy few kms to the emergency hut where we caught up with another pair who were doing the same us. The weather was still much the same and we kept telling ourselves the cloud would lift soon so we ploughed on. From here the sign stated it was a 2.5hour return to the summit which I initially thought was a hit of a pessimistic view but I was so so wrong. The next kilometre or so was steep but along a fairly decently maintained path. After this however it turned into a scramble, which I am not against. In fact the one on Maria Island was quite fun at the end of the day but it was short lived and not extremely technical. This one was getting more and more technical by the metre. At points I was clinging to the edge of a rock hoping I didn’t slip because in between the big boulders were massive voids that had broken bones written all over them. We struggled on until we reached a point that quite frankly was out of our depth, or mine at least. My upper body strength and flexibility aren’t great at the best of times but this was just not the one today. There was a bit of a pit stop area, ironically when you thought you’d done the worst bit, where you could then see what was to come. The fact we were basically in a cloud, the rocks and boulders were slippy and it was cold probably didn’t help. But the next bit wasn’t going to happen for me today and even if I did make it up I’d still have to make it back down as well. We’d been overtaken by someone I can only describe as a mountain goat, a fair while back and the fact we had yet to see him come back down suggested to me we still had a fair way to go to get to the top. As we sat contemplating what to do we watched some others traverse the next section fo scrambling and one bit in particular was causing me concern. Noone was able to get across without the assistance of the others, and one slip and you had a very long way to fall…. In the end we decided to call and head back down. The cloud wasn’t really showing signs of clearing at that point anyway. It took us 2 and a half hours to get back to the sign and we’d not even made it to the top!

After we reached the emergency shelter it finally started to clear and the views back to Cradle Mountain and over Dove Lake from Marion’s lookout were significantly better than they’d been on the way up. All in all  we’d clocked 12.5km by the time we reached Dove Lake car park. Our shuttle bus ticket from the previous day was still valid so we jumped on to get the 1.5km to Ronny Creek because we were both wrecked. Back at Ronny Creek all the wombats had come out and I found some new energy to go along the boardwalk and watch the wombats for a while. One of them decided to scratch itself against the boardwalk which was super cute. What awesome animals. Elephants are still my favourites but these are definitely second!

From Cradle Mountain we drove up to Penguin for our final night. We were staying in a homestay which was quite cute. We wanted to try out Penguin Brewery as it was on the tasting trail and it also did burger which we really needed. So we headed here for dinner where Jordan tried the beer paddle and we sat outside enjoying the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. It’s right on the beachfront and during the day I can imagine it would be a gorgeous spot. We did feel quite bad for the honestay owner as I think he runs it to meet new people as he lives there alone and we’d gone out for dinner and would have to leave early the next morning. So we ensured we headed back and spent a bit of time getting to know him. The house is awesome, a few blocks back from the waterfront up a hill, with a view out the living room to the sea, what a place to live.

That rounded off our trip to Tassie and we left Penguin early to get the 8.30am ferry back to Geelong. At the time we thought we might want to see the view so booked this instead of the overnight ferry but really all you can see for 10 hours is the sea….. We had booked recliner seats this time instead of a cabin which for a day time crossing was a great idea. It was a nice quiet area and we had comfy allocated seats rather than fighting for space in the busy canteen and bar areas. We suprised ourselves and slept for the first 5 hours, must have been an exhausting trip! Otherwise we just wandered the decks, had some lunch, read books and snoozed some more. Not sure what all the fuss is about, our ferry crossings were great. And it meant we could bring back so much produce in the car, although I’d say this probably counteracted any savings we’d made by camping and driving instead of flying and hiring a car.

There was still so much left to explore so we will just have to go back to explore the West Coast and more of the tasting trail. But what a place. Completely different to my recent trips to WA but amazing nonetheless.