We went to Hobart over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend last week, we had a rough itinerary planned, we arrived on a Saturday, so the plan was to hit the Salamanca Market in the morning, and then head up to Mount Field National Park in the afternoon to see some waterfalls. Day two was our only full day so we would spend it at Port Arthur Historical Site (about 95km from Hobart), and day three we would drive up to Mount Wellington to get a view of Hobart. We arrived a bit before 9am and got into our rented car and headed for Hobart city centre.

Mount Field National Park

I’m not sure if it was because it was a public holiday weekend, but there was no traffic heading into Hobart, and none really to speak of in town either. We hit the market but didn’t buy anything, it was quite good but souvenirs in Australia are just as tacky as they are anywhere around the world, maybe the local gourmet foods and condiments might have been good to buy, but we decided against it. After that we headed up to Mount Field National Park, mainly to see Russell Falls, but I guess also to see what else was in the national park. About two-thirds of the way there (65km drive) we noticed this most beautiful of hills, it was green with deciduous trees lining half of it, the sun was shining and clouds were hovering, the scenery was fantastic, too bad we couldn’t find anywhere to stop and take a picture. At the park we found a nice 2.5 hour walk around that would take in three waterfalls, Russell Falls, Horseshoe Falls, and Lady Barron Falls, as well as some comfortable walking through lush forest.

Mount Field National Park

Russell Falls seemed a bit dry, whereas Horseshoe Falls and Lady Barron Falls looked really good to me. After that we headed back to Hobart for dinner, we went to Blue Eyes where we both had fish, which was yummy.

Russell Falls, Mount Field National Park

Lady Barron Falls, Mount Field National Park

Day two consisted of the 95km drive to Port Arthur, taking in the Tessellated Pavement, Tasman Arch, the Devil’s Kitchen, and the Blowhole, three naturally occurring geological formations of similar descriptions, basically they all were caves that eroded away and now ocean water smashes through into a small enclosed area. They were a little underwhelming to be honest, but perhaps it was low tide, one of them (I think it was Tasman Arch) had a really nice lookout next to it where you could see the pretty coastline with high cliffs. I thought the Tessellated Pavement was quite nice, the weather was quite dreary all day with periods of drizzle and some very short bursts of sunshine.

dtra at the Tessellated Pavement 

Coastline at the Tessellated Pavement

Port Arthur Historical Site

Port Arthur is obviously a significant historical site but if you know me, you probably know I found it a little boring, nothing especially photogenic there. Again, we went back to Hobart for dinner, this time at the Customs House Hotel, which just seemed like a standard pub in terms of the seafood.

Our final day in which we were to drive up to (the peak of) Mount Wellington, and also have some fresh oysters for lunch at Barilla Oyster Farm, and fit in whatever else we could be bothered doing. First we went to the oyster farm for lunch where we shared a 30 oyster platter which was yummy (except there were too many cooked cheesy oysters and not enough uncooked pear ones). After that we went back to Hobart to pick up a couple things before heading up to Mount Wellington. it was a bit of an overcast day and driving up I don’t think either of us held out much hope for a nice clear view at the top. By about midway the mist started creeping in and by the time we were pretty much at the top it was clear (not!) that the cloud cover was well and truly in and we would not be seeing anything. Visibility was about ten metres and the temperature was about three degrees, we didn’t hang around for long and headed back down and looked for any other lookout points of note, not really finding anything in the grey afternoon. After that we headed back to Barilla Oyster Farm to get some fresh oysters to take back to Melbourne. And that ends our three day trip to Hobart, we fit in quite a bit, saw the main things to see in (and around) Hobart, although we didn’t really wander around the CBD at all (not that there seemed to be much to see from what we saw driving through there), and didn’t stay out at night, neither of us can drink much so not much point by ourselves. I didn’t take any photos of it, but I did notice that there is a lot of road kill on the Tasmanian highways, not just small possums either, I reckon there were just as many wallabies and bigger animals on the side of the road too.

A rainbow at Rosny Park Lookout

Good thing for me we didn’t hit any, the excess on the car was a whopping $3K. Overall happy with what we did, but we had hoped for a bit better weather (out of pure luck I guess) but it was not to be, it was the start of Winter I guess, amazing scenery down there, similar to New Zealand I would think, on a smaller scale, but would be amazing in any other season although you’d have to deal with a lot more people like me (tourists) then. I was actually surprised, I’d heard a lot about the two-headed Tasmanians expecting to see them around every corner, but in the end I only saw a couple, I guess they’re not as numerous as the sayings say they are.

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