While in Australia, my main goal was to travel, explore, and experience life outside of what I have already come to know. I wanted to be able to tell people, "Yeah it was crazy at the time, but I did it", rather than "Man, I wish I could have done that."
Basically, I would take every opportunity that was presented and run with it. This was how I ended up in Tasmania, and boy, am I glad I bought that plane ticket.
And thus, begins our journey.
From the start, Tasmania had such gorgeous weather. We flew into Launceston on a Saturday afternoon.
And here is our brand new Kia we rented for the stay. It only had 400KM on it when we got it.
The Arthouse in Launceston. Our hostel for the first night.
The first day was very quiet. Even though the flight was only 45 minutes long, it took a lot out of us. We decided to have a quiet night with some beers and good food and just relax for our coming days.
Our first pitstop on the side of the road. Perfect photo opportunity of a cement road.
This was the first creek we saw. Cool huh?
The cool mirror photos.
Our first wildlife encounter was with an echidna. It pissed itself because it was so scared when we got near it.
The men.
It was this big. The valley/gorge/mountain, whatever you want to call it, was massive.
Chris, Shane, and I bonded quite well during our visit to Tasmania. Definitely got a lot closer to these brothers of mine.
And the girls, Lindsey and Megan.
Wildlife encounter #2: Wombats. They were everywhere!
The path to Cradle Rock.
Cradle Falls.
A lake near the top of the mountain. The water was so refreshing and clear. Basically, the lake was from the melted snow from the top of the mountains.
Cheers, Shane.
The next day, we drove to Hobart, the capital of Tasmania.
We started our morning at Mt. Wellington, one of the coolest views of Hobart below.
Then, it was off to the Royal Botanical Gardens.
10second timers are so hard to use.
As we were driving down to Port Arthur, Megan and Shane spotted something on the side of the road. Lindsey was driving at the time and she veered onto the shoulder of the road and pulled over.
What we found there was one of the coolest and most beautiful natural sights I've ever seen.
It didn't have a name, so we named it Shagan Beach, after it's founders.
It was lowtide.
Wildlife encounter #3: a crazy starfish.
tracks from a critter, but not sure what it was.
We drove off and continued our path to Port Arthur.
There weren't any hostels in Port Arthur, but we found lovely cottages to stay at just about the same rate of a hostel.
So, we stayed in a cottage that night.
Later that night, we went to the historic site of Port Arthur to go on a ghost tour. Now, you may think that was silly because ghosts aren't real and such. Let me just say, it was still very scary and creepy going through old prison cells, churches, and hospitals during the dark of the night.
Here was our tourguide, John. He was a lunatic.
After Port Arthur, we decided to drive 4.5 hours back to Launceston.
And yes, there was a lot of driving during the four days we were there.
As you can see from the backseat.
On the way, we stopped at Freycinet National Park to see Wine Glass Bay.
Chris took this photograph with his DSLR. Probably one of the most beautiful photos of the four days.
One of the nicest beaches I've ever been to, and yet, not a soul to be seen for miles.
Our last stop before hitting Launceston was this random hike through the woods, which took us to the river.
And from that river, to a basin.
It wasn't too soon before we decided that we should go for a swim.
Super cold water, but the sun was beaming so we dried off well.
Not much of a sight, but this is Cataract Gorge in Launceston. Pretty cool, but you could tell its a huge tourist spot. A lot of the natural beauty was taken away due to manmade lookouts, benches, and things like that.
Wildlife encounter #4: a wallabee. I fed him an apple.
Wildlife encounter #5: a wild peacock.
Right before our flight, we booked a tour through Boag's Brewery. Boag's is one of Australia's leaders in beers. We weren't allowed to take photos inside the brewery, but we still got some cool pictures from the outside and the bar.
Having 5 beers before our 2PM flight isn't too bad.
Luckfeldt, Fitch, Burtch, Hong, Malmquist.
I'm very glad I got to experience what I did in that small island south of Australia. I witnessed God's glory and his artistic touch in the most remote location, and most importantly, my relationship with the friends I traveled with grew immensely. God bless them.
