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Brr! Its cold down here! The weather here is like March at home, very windy but sunny.
Tasmania is a very beautiful place, apart from the weather I think this is one of my favourite spots. It has stunning scenery.
We started in Hobart where we looked for loads of dentists as I had bad toothache - wisdom teeth are annoying! We walked round Battery Point which is the fashionable place to live and it looks for Scottish with the stone buildings. The waterfront is also very nice with a newly done up pier - bars and restaurants bit out of our price range! The shopping centre recently had a fire so there wasn't much to do here. I did have the best pizza ever for lunch here - properly homemade in an Italian restaurant - chicken and brie yum!
We then randomly decided to sign up for an Advanced Open Water course after saying we would cut back on the spending! It was so cheap here though. The water was freezing, we had to where 7mm wetsuit with a 7 mm jacket and hood on top with gloves and boots! The course was ok and it was a beautiful bay called Tinderbox. The deeop dive was scary - the water was murky and I couldn't see the seabed or surface or much around me. I hyperventalated and used up nearly all my air in about 2 minutes when ascending - oops! When I was on the bottom we managed to do all our tasks, it was just going back up that freaked me out! the instructor got me to go straight back in and just go to 12 m and we were fine. we saw lobsters, urchins and a small shark. Neil got to hold the shark - I wanted to but it swam away! We passed the course, but now a bit nervous about going deep again just in case I do it again! Neil wants to go wreck diving in Melbourne now - not so sure about the coldness of the water here though!
We have driven around Huon, which is a pretty coastal area - loads of nice beaches with no one on. Then we went to Port Arthur, which is where they kept all the convicts and its where Oz started apparently. This was interesting but the historic site isn't very historic in comparison to Europe! The settlement is on a really pretty bay.
Yesterday, we went to wineglass bay on the Freycinet Peninsula. This is like paradise and the weather had warmed up to which helped! We did an 11km walk up the mountain, along the beach and around the base back. It was tiring but well worth the views. The beach was amazing, long white sands and clear turquiose water. There were dolphins in the bay too and they cam really close to shore. This particular area is absolutely beautiful.
We are now in Launceston which is a bit further north. We were driving up here when we found out there was a tsunami warning over Tas and SE Oz, so we were very relieved to be heading in the right direction. I was a bit stressed but Neil kept saying we would be fine and then the warning was cancelled - phew! We've had a bit of excitement this week!
We went for a walk around Cataract Gorge, which a pretty place in Launceston. Its quite strange having an area like that 10 minutes walk from the city centre. We walked along the rim of it to the basin at the end and then along the other side. Neil wanted to take the lazy chair lift back but I thought it didn't look very safe so we ended up walking back up a steep hill - he wasn't impressed and insisted on calling me a wimp all the way!!
We then drove to Cradle mountain via Marakoopa caves. These caves were really noisy as there has been a lot of rainfall recently, so the underground streams were really full and gushing through. The stalagtites were really impressive and so was the cathedral cave.
when we got to Cradle Mountain it was snowing. We couldn't believe it! So we decided we couldn't camp in this but everywhere seemed to be booked up. We were following the same people round from hotel to hotel gradually increasing in price!!! We ended up staying in a wilderness spa room in a posh hotel! We thought we'd better enjoy it rather than worry about the price so we went in the spa, ate loads of food and drank read wine!! Although we looked out of place in our jeans and the posh guests in nice clothes! I said it could be our 6 month wedding anniversary celebrations as it actually fell the day before!! Godd timing.
the next day we climbed up Cradle Mountain in the snow - the views were amazing and worth the wet cold toes at the top. It was breath taking and not just because of the cold wind! Crater Lake was beautiful too.
Definitely recommend Tasmania to visit - just as beautiful as around Port Douglas but in a completely different way!
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