A bit of history. Tasmania was discovered in 1642 by Abel Tasman - another travelling Dutchie
- and originally named it Van Diemen's Land. In the 19th century an important funcion of the island was serving as a prison, of which the settlement Port Arthur (based on the principle's of Benthem's penopticon) is most renowned.
One of the most amazing things of Tassie is that it holds an enormous variety of landscapes, flora and fauna within a relatively small area. From white beaches to raging oceans, from rainforests to desolate mountains and from kangaroos to Tasmanian devils...
My trip started off in state capital Hobart, from where we drove southeast towards the Tasman peninsula. The peninsula is connected to the rest of the land via Eaglehawk Neck, a stretch of land that's only about a hundred yards wide. In the 19th century, this land stretch was guarded by vicious dogs; this, in combination with the shark-infested waters, made the peninsula a perfect natural prison.
The coast line of the peninsula is simply wonderful and unlike anything I'd seen before: pillar-shaped rock formations abound. We hiked from Fortescue Bay to Cape Pillar, climbed Mount Fortescue and headed towards Cape Huay. Our lifestyle was not very dissimilar from my Wilson Prom trip earlier: completely self sufficient. Luckily, the weather gods were much more benevolent to us this time. Accordingly, the views we had were absolutely amazing. There's something absolutely exotic about being in the middle of nature, not meeting another soul for the entire trip, and just enjoying the amazing sights!
At night possums crept around our tents as they smelled our food, and legions of leeches kept us company continuously (with the latter I had a disturbing encounter at some point, but I won't go into the details. The horror... The horror...).
After the tiring but very very rewarding 3-day hike, I began my Tasmania 101 tour. On the peninsula, we visited exotically sounding places like 'Devil's Kitchen' and 'Remarkable Cave'. In Port Arthur we explored the ruins of the prisons with their dark yet interesting past, and did a nightly ghost tour where we were treated to a number of disturbing accounts of ghost sightings in the ruins.
Of course a visit to the Tasmanian Devil Park could not be missed. To my disappointment I came to find out that Tasmanian Devils do not spin around really really fast, but they do produce bone-chilling screams and have red pointy ears like Devil's horns, so the naming is quite understandable.
Oh yeah, I shot and uploaded a nice video of a couple of young Tasmanian devils in action. Check it out!
Off we went to the amazing white-sanded Wineglass bay after that, named after its shape, but also because whalers were once active there, coloring the waters red with whale blood.
Via Launceston (the second biggest city in Tasmania - population 90,000) we headed towards Cradle Mountain, our final destination on the trip. The famous Overland hiking track ends in this amazing nature reserve, crowned by a cradle-shaped mountain formation (hence the name eh
). Temperatures there were below zero, ponds were frozen and we walked through the snow at some point. At sunset, wombats come out of there holes and come looking for food. How funny are those animals! Only in Australia will you encounter such a varied collection of rather weird animals!
A final interesting stat: only about 3% of Australia's visitors makes it to Tasmania. I can't possibly understand why not more people go there. Tassie's a beaut mate!
