We had breakfast the following morning in Hobart at this GREAT cafe recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was in the old part of the city with really great character, hardwood floors, high ceilings and big windows. It was full of fresh bread and pastries, croissants and amazing coffees. It was a nice change from the usual milk made from powder and museli (that Dan has started called "weesli" and has pretty much refused to eat at this point despite my trying to convince him that it's delicious, nutritious and filling). I couldn't even finish my almond croissant because it was so rich! They don't really have filter coffee here so whenever we have coffees in a cafe we usually have cappucinos...ahhh....it was all in all a blissful breakfast. Then we headed off to Freycinet National Park on the east coast. It is famous for a bay called Wineglass Bay that is a perfect crescent shape with turquoise water and white sand. We hiked into our free (yay!) campsite that took us about 2.5 hours and provided excellent views of the bay. We found a secluded campsite sheltered by trees and about 20 metres from the beach! I can't believe I am saying this, but this beach was even more beautiful than at Abel Tasman in NZ...and you can only get there by boat or hiking in so there were very few people there. We spent the evening relaxing and reading our books before boiling up some spaghetti for supper. We watched the sunset from the rocks on the beach. We also got our first marsupial encounter which was very exciting! There are these little Bennett's Wallabies everywhere! They are little miniature kangaroos about 2 feet tall. We quickly discovered that they are the raccoons of Australia and there are signs everywhere not to feed them because they can become a little pesky......the story gets better....
So the ranger at the desk told us not to leave our food out and we should just put it in the tent. This seemed a little odd to us since this is a big no-no in Canada and I even asked him "will they try to break into the tent?" and he assured me this was not an issue. So we figured he's a local, he should know what he's talking about and put the food in our tent when we went to sleep. We were awoken at 4am by these pesky little wallabies scratching at our tent trying to get in! Our tent in predominately made of mesh too and we could see them right through it! We were not sure exactly what animal it was but let me tell you, in the middle of the night they look a lot like ROUS's! (For those of you who haven't seen The Princess Bride, ROUS = Rodents of Unusual Size). There was one peering in right beside Dan like "oh hi guys!". So we tried to wrap the food up in cloths so they wouldn't smell in and Dan kicked the one in the head! He came back a second time but the second kick sent him away for good. I stayed up to keep an eye on things for the next hour and actually witnessed a mom and her baby come out of the bushes. They I passed out again until 10am. The next morning we also realized that one of them had pulled out a bag of parmesan cheese that was in Dan's backpack underneath a whole bunch of cloths! The little rascal had somehow got under the buckle and under all of Dan's cloths to pull out the chesse! We hiked out the next day and spent the evening in St. Helens, a cute little town on the coast. So the moral of the story...stick with the Canadian rule of hanging your food on a tree!!!
The next day we headed to Mt. William National Park on the North East part of the Island. It's known to be the home of a kind of Kangaroo (whose name escapes me at the moment) but the park was created to protect them because their numbers were down and according to my book "they've been breeding themselves silly ever since." We did see them on our way out the next day which was very exciting! And this particular campsite we drove into so despite their being lots of Wallabies, we were not bothered by them since we put all of our food in the car!
Yesterday on our way to Launceston (a city in the north) we stopped by this Lavender Farm, which is apparantly the biggest in the southern hemisphere! The Lavender was brought over from France in the 1800's. The fields were huge and all in bloom and smelled heavenly. After walking around the grounds we stopped for chocolate and lavender cake with ice cream...yum!
We are taking it easy this morning and don't really have a plan yet especially since the weather is a little funny today. Dan was in serious need of some new shoes so we got that sorted out this morning...so he is happier because his feet feel better and I am happier because his feet are not so stinky now :>)
Well we hope that you are all well...lotsa love xoxo
Hanna and Dan
Best bakery and coffee shop in the world!!!
Wineglass bay - we camped just off the beach on the far side of the picture
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