Tag Archives: travel

Where are we now?

A lot has happened since the last post. We are now in Darwin and plan on remaining here at least for the next 12 months. Hubby and I both have decent jobs and have moved into our own place. However, inspiration smacked me in the head this morning and told me to finish our story, so here it is.

Thankfully our journey back into civilisation (Cooktown *cough*) we relatively uneventful. The next plan was to head back down to Cairns to collect our roof rack that had snapped off the car in the roll over two week prior. However, as we have skipped Cape Trib on the way up, due to the unseasonal weather, we made the decision to stop there a couple of days on route to Cairns.

View from Cape Tribulation Camping

Morning sunlight pouring through the trees at Cape Tribulaiton Camping

Morning sunlight pouring through the trees at Cape Tribulation Camping

Besides the scary, bumpy, windy road into Cape Trib full of speeding cars, we had a lovely 2 full days.

The same owners that owned Punsand Bay at The Tip own Cape Tribulation Camping, which is where we stayed.

So what did we do in Cape Trib? I got up early and took some stunning photos of the sunrising over the water and through the rainforest 🙂

We also went Jungle Surfing through the Rainforest.

And visited a fascinating Exotic Fruit Farm for a tasting, which I loved, and tried some really interesting fruits including:

Tahitian Lime
Pommelo
Yellow Sapote
Dragon Fruit
Sapodilla
Black Sapote
Jaboticaba
Rollinia
Atemoya
Guanabana (soursop)

Check out the weird fruits below! But seriously, this was awesome! And for around $25/pp including transport to and from the farm, great value for money!

Black Sapote ripe and green, Pommelo and yellow Sapote

I wish we had more time to spend at Cape Trib. The activities we could do were nearly endless. Next time we will horse ride on the beach, explore all of the other beaches and natural springs and relax.

Next stop Cairns to fix our car.

Snorkeling The Great Barrier Reef

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Unfortunately as the weather turned bad we decided to skip Atherton Tablelands and drove from Paronella Park straight to Cairns. Apparently they have have a really late wet season up this way we’ve been told by every tour guide, receptionist, tourists e.t.c. The four days we were in Cairns it rained and rained and rained. For the first three days we sat in the camp kitchen at our Caravan Park and played on the internet.

We really, really wanted to go snorkelling so on the 4th day we went out on the boat, regardless of the weather.

The ride out to the reef was horrible with at least 75% of the boat puking out the back deck, Johny included. Thankfully the outer reef was calm and visibility was pretty good. Here are some of the pics I took with the underwater camera we hired.

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The dive company we went with was Down Under Dive who were just fantastic. They had free sea sick tablets, really friendly and entertaining staff, well organised and monitored dives and snorkeling and great value for money!

Note 1: Cairns Holiday Park is the closest to the CBD; however it’s full of backpackers. Usually this wouldn’t worry me except when they are obnoxious, messy, rude, slamming doors and screaming at 3am. We had to be moved into the powered (and much nicer) section of the caravan park for 2 of the 4 days.

Note: we hired the camera at the caravan park. Quality turned out to be fairly average and I’ve had to enhance these pics. There were more expensive cameras on the boat for hire and the quality of their pics was way better.

Exploring Five Rocks Headland

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Looking behind us towards Stockyard Point

At about midday the tide was going out, so armed with our wet suit boots, drink bottles and a camera we traversed the rocky crop on the north side of Little Five Rocks Beach.

Yesterday during our exploratory trip to Stockyard Point Lookout we could see that there was another tiny remote beach. A quick check of the maps confirms this to be the case. So with a hop, skip and a jump were on the second beach.

From here we weren’t able to positively ascertain whether or not we would be able to reach the headland. The rocks were all different sizes and we couldn’t see if there were any obstacles that might stop us from getting across. We decided that the only way we would find out is by attempting it, then we could always turn back if we got stuck.

Climbing over the rocks

Over, across and through the rocky outcrop we went for about 30 minutes and finally we came to the channel separately us from the headlands. On the other side of the rocks was another perfectly remote beach.

The channel separating us from the start of the headland

As the tide was nearly at its lowest point, we were able to walk the short distance to start of the headland. It soon became apparent that the headland is actually separated by small channels. We traversed 3 channels, about half way along, before calling it a day and turning back around to our campsite.

Back onto Little Five Rocks Beach. When the tide is out there is a huge sand plain

The View From Up Here – Stockyard Point

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The little township of Stockyard Point is named after Stockyard Point, which makes sense. Stockyard Point, the lookout, is a short 1 minute drive on the outside of the township.

One of the days we were exploring Byfield, we drove up to the Point and found that we had phone reception, everyday for the remainder of our visit we drove up there to get our technology fix. Besides the phone reception, we had the most stunning uninterrupted views of the coastline.

To the left of us was Little Five Rocks Headland and our own private beach.

Little Five Rocks Headland

To the right was Nine Mile Beach. As a side note, we drove along Nine Mile on our explorations. I really don’t rate the beach, it was scummy, full of rubbish, barren and obviously used for driving only. But, from up high it looks lovely.

View of Nine Mile Beach

In my previous posts, I mentioned that near our campground there was a corridor of butterflies, well, we found more at Stockyard Point!

More beautiful butterflies

Off the man made track we found a couple of memorial plaques. Both men died in 2005 in different months, one was definitely in an accident in Byfield and the other memorial plaque had no explanation.

Stockyard Point, what a great view from here!

Memorial Plaque

Byfield National Park Stockyard Point_A Girl A 4WD And A Trailer-18-2

Second memorial plaque

Hitting the Road Jack

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We are finally on the road again. Have you ever felt held back, anxiously waiting in anticipation and lost? Having spent the past 3 weeks in Brisbane, waiting to leave has been a mixing pot of emotions. Some great, I love staying with my family, but it’s had its stresses as well. But, knowing that you are effectively stuck in a place you don’t want to be, waiting to go is horrible.

But, the day is here and we are finally packed, fuelled, have said our goodbyes and as we speak we are driving down the Bruce Highway towards Maryborough and Wongi Waterholes.

This is the beginning of the next chapter in our 12 month trip around Australia. I really can’t wait to share the experiences of our travels around this amazing country with you. Stay tuned!

Tasmania – Trip Costings & Stats

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Starting Point: Brisbane
NSW – Griffith
SA – Adelaide
VIC – Melbourne – Ferry across to Tasmania
TAS – Right around – Ferry across to Melbourne
SA – Adelaide
NSW – Griffith
Ending Point: Brisbane

Total Km’s: 10,000

Total Time Away: 28th February 2014 – 22nd April 2014 (7.5 weeks)

Average spent per week: $940

Budget: $800

Category	Budget	Actual	Difference
Fuel	$2,200.00	$2,043.83	$156.17
Alcohol	$400.00	$515.50	($115.50)
Food	$1,450.00	$2,035.67	($585.67)
Accommodation	$500.00	$614.50	($114.50)
Touristy stuff	$850.00	$899.00	($49.00)
Personal Items	$100.00	$131.00	($31.00)
Other	$500.00	$814.50	($314.50)
Total	$6,000.00	$7,054.00	($1,054.00)

Notes:
1. I budgeted more fuel then I think we will normally need. This was due to the long, detoured trip we took to see friends and family.
2. Alcohol – should have guessed that would happen with all of the wonderful wineries in Tassie
3. Food – same happened with food as with alcohol above
4. Accommodation – we stayed with friends and family until we got to Tassie and once we came back over to the mainland. The last 4 nights in Launceston we also stayed with friends so this helped to keep the cost down. We did take advantage of free/cheap camps in Tasmania.
5. Touristy Stuff – lots of free things done. We blew the budget with the expensive cruise around Strahan.
6. Personal – ok
7. Other – this was mainly car servicing and repairs.
8. note: this budget didn’t include the ferry fare of $700

Route Around Tas in Purple

Three Wishes Vineyard

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Rosemary with her wines

When we travel through a wine region, I love to go to cellar doors of some of the better known wineries whose drop I enjoy. I also love to just drive around and pick small random wineries, that I’ve never heard of before, and pop in just to see what’s on offer.

A couple of days ago we were going through the Tamar Valley which is full of wineries. The first couple of cellar doors we stopped into were Pipers Brook and Jansz, fantastic cellar doors, great wines and fantastic staff. The third and last stop for the day (I’m on cellar door rations) was a winery we were driving past and I asked hubby to stop into so I could do tasting. Please note: Hubby doesn’t drink so he drives me around when I wine tasting, perfect!

The winery is called Three Wishes Vineyard and wow! We drove up to a stunning manse with a quaint side building. We seemed to be the only ones there as the car park was empty, perfect for a chat with who ever was running the cellar door that day. We were lucky enough that Rosemary, the owner, was on cellardoor duty, she called us in and launched into a history lesson about the property and what an amazing tale!

The cellar door, converted servants quarters

Rosemary and her husband have been on the property for about 20 years. They have only a small farm which produces about 500 cases of wine a year comprising of chardy, riesling and pinot noir varieties.

The magnificent manse next to the cellardoor was built in the late 1800’s and added onto in the early 1900’s. No one currently lives in the manse; however, there is said to be a resident ghost that has been known to open doors.

The haunted manse

The cellar door is a building along side the manse and it was an old servants work building, which was once separated into male and female work quarters; however, Rosemary has knocked out the dividing wall and created an amazing space for receiving visitors. You can now walk through the cellar door and onto a back deck to stand in awe of the sweep views of the surrounding hills speckled with vineyards, herds of cows, ancient trees and a winding river.

Views from the cellar door

All of this before I’d even tried the wine and I wasn’t disappointed as the wines were fantastic!

My ratings for the winery:
Service: 5/5
Wine: 5/5
Estate and grounds: 5/5
Overall Experience: 5/5 – great winery, will definitely visit again!

General Information:
Charges for tastings: there was a sign saying there was a charge but when I asked about it Rosemary said not to worry
My favourite wines: Pinot Noir
Address: 655 Craigburn Rd, Hillwood Tasmania
Website: http://www.threewishesvineyard.com/
Other amenities onsite: Lovely back deck where you can enjoy a glass of wine and the views, toilets.

Freycinet National Park

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We drove to Freycinet National Park (pronounced frey sin aye) for the 3 hour Wineglass Bay walking circuit, one of Tasmania’s 60 short walks. We were so lucky to have amazing weather, perfect for photos.

Originally we were just going to walk to Wineglass Bay lookout; however, I really wanted to walk down to the bay. I always see the lookout view photos, but never any of down in the bay.

View of Wineglass Bay from the lookout

I’m so glad we did! Perfect beach white sand and clear azure waves, paradise! The extra walk down to the bay, and back up again, is pretty challenging which I loved! I will leave hubby behind next time, he did not love it so much 🙂

View from the rocks in Wineglass Bay

We stayed for 2 nights at the national park campgrounds. Both nights we had noisy neighbours who were up until all hours of the morning. There is nothing worse then camping next to inconsiderate people. Rant over!

On the upside, the campground was right on Richardson beach it was just like having a private beach. After the Wineglass Bay trek I decided to get some colour so I walked right to the end of the beach, over some rocks and onto another empty beach, I could really get use to this!

I also managed to get a couple of lovely sunrise shots at Richardson Beach. Unfortunately I missed out on the mountains been lit up red from the sunrise just by a couple of minutes. It’s amazing how you can miss a stunning shot just by being 2 minutes late, damn! There was still enough colour for some pics anyway.

Wineglass Bay, Freycinet

Port Arthur

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I hadn’t planned on visiting Port Arthur on our trip as I’m not terribly familiar or interested in Australian history. I did however, want to see The Isle of the Dead in Port Arthur. Can’t see one without the other so we went for a day and I’m so glad we did.

I could go on about the history of Port Arthur in this blog; but, really you could research that in your spare time. There were a few things that did really fascinate me while we were here and so I will make mention.

The way the tourists are managed throughout Port Arthur is very well done. I have a degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management which really doesn’t get much of a workout. What I do like to check out while at tourist attractions is how the attraction manages the tourists and I thought Port Arthur did this very well. As part of the bronze ticket, the cheapest ticket you can buy, you get an ipod with a self guided tour so you can walk around on your own and have all the information at your finger tips. You are also entitled to participate in an introductory tour which goes every hour and a guide will walk you around and provide you with the information found on the ipod and other relevant stories.

I also found the tour guides and staff in general to be fantastic. They are obviously passionate and very knowledgable about Port Arthur and liked to share stories about the convicts, the jailers and their families to really make the experience come alive for us visitors.

As the main motivation for visiting Port Arthur was The Isle of the Dead tour we booked and went on it first. The Isle of the Dead is a small island off the Tasman peninsula. It was used as the graveyard for Port Arthur from 1833 to 1877. Around 1100 dead are buried here. Basically anyone who died was buried here so not only the convicts but officials, soldiers and their families. On the lower side of the island the convicts were buried, mostly without headstones in mass graves. It was forbidden to place headstones on a convicts graves; however, there are a couple of exceptions to the rule. The soldiers, officials and their families were buried on the higher north-western corner of the Island, class rules were strictly enforced in life and death for these people.

The tour guide was engaging and obviously loved her job, she told us stories of some of the dead, the grave keepers, families and interesting burial facts.

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The other place I wanted to make mention of in this blog is the Coal Mines Historic Site. Port Arthur is on one side of the Tasman Peninsula and the Coal Mine is a drive to the other. It’s free to see, you just drive up and park. We didn’t know anything about the Coal Mine; but, a guy at the caravan park said that we had to go and see it so we did. We were the only people there at the time so had the whole place to ourselves and it was spectacular.

We had a detailed information brochure and map of the area so we self toured around. It was worth the short drive out to see it.

Port Arthur Coal Mine Ruins

A Foodie / Boozie’s paradise – Bruny Island

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Bruny Island is an island off south east Tasmania. It has a bit of something for everyone, beaches, forests, driving tracks, cruises, holiday shacks, camping, fishing, hiking, restaurants, food and alcohol products. We came over late one afternoon via the car ferry, set up camp ready for exploring the island the next day.

Unfortunately our trip over to Bruny Island was cut short due to bad weather. The thought of leaving the comfort and warmth of our 4WD to brave the cold, wet and windy weather that was plaguing the island was somewhat unappealing. Unfortunately that meant that instead of hiking, sightseeing and relaxing for 2 days we spent a day eating and drinking our way around the island instead, it’s a tough life.

Lookout near our campsite, at the neck.

Places we visited:

Bruny Island Providore

We found this place along the way to the berry farm, It wasn’t listed on the tourist map provided to us so we didn’t know it existed until we nearly drove past it. We did stop in though to sample some fudge and OMG! The fudge is all made by hand from local products, a video was playing in the store, very interesting. We bought some choc mint fudge and kept going.

Bruny Island Berry Farm

Our first stop after leaving Bruny Island Providore was the berry farm. Unfortunately berries are out of season; but, they make sauces and jams when the berries are in season and always have that on hand. We sat down to some real coffee (seriously missing good coffee while travelling) and hot scones, just out of the oven with jam and fresh cream. Melt in your mouth amazingness! I sampled some of their Blackberry sauce and had to buy a bottle to take with me.

Bruny Island Cemetery

This deserves a small mention as this tiny little cemetery had some rather interesting gravestones that I’ve never seen the likes of before. On a few of the graves were these tiny little cement crosses, about 20cm high just sticking out of the ground. The inscription seemed to just be the name of the deceased, strange.

Bruny Island Premium Wines

A lovely café and wine tasting shed on the other side of the island from the berry farm. The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes are grown on the island and the Sauvignon blanc and Riesling grapes are grown in another part of Tas; but, all of the wines are made onsite. The wine was fantastic and I managed to walk away with just one bottle, if that doesn’t show restraint then I don’t know what does!

Bruny Island Cheese Company

I tried a couple of their cheeses at the Salamanca markets in Hobart, very pricey for cheese – $16 each for the 2 I purchased and well worth it! We went through a tasting of 5 cheeses on site and I wasn’t disappointed, the cheese is just sensational. You can eat a load of freshly made goodies onsite but I bought a freshly baked sourdough loaf with my cheese to enjoy later.

Oysters and wine from Get Schucked

Get Schucked

You wouldn’t have thought that I would need lunch at this point; however, there is always room for fresh oysters and wine. The oysters are locally grown and freshly opened which I paired with a glass of Jansz bubbles, felt like I had died and gone to heaven! A dozen naked oysters and a glass of bubble was about $23, bargain!

Bruny Island Smokehouse and Wine bar

And our last stop enroute to the ferry was the smokehouse where a couple of platters of the locally made products (smoked in the back paddock) were waiting for me to taste, yum! We ended up with smoked chorizo pork sausages and hot smoked salmon.

This was the last stop on our foodie / boozie’s tour of Bruny Island, now off to Port Arthur. I would love to come back again to do the hiking, there is always next time.

Drive through the forest in the centre of the south island

a girl, a 4wd & a trailer

One girl's adventure around Australia

Tag Archives: travel

Where are we now?

Snorkeling The Great Barrier Reef

Exploring Five Rocks Headland

The View From Up Here – Stockyard Point

Hitting the Road Jack

Tasmania – Trip Costings & Stats

Three Wishes Vineyard

Freycinet National Park

Port Arthur

A Foodie / Boozie’s paradise – Bruny Island

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