launceston
Right, we had a plan! To avoid any sea sickness on the night sail back to the mainland, we made sure that our day was jam-packed with adventure. Check out what we managed to fit in during our last few hours in Tassie!
We woke up at sparrow fart at the Bay of Fires to begin our last full day in Tassie. We had to make it from the east coast all the way back to Devonport before 7:30pm. Since the day sail over made us feel a little icky, we wanted to make our day a busy one so that we would all crash out once our heads hit the pillows in our sleep cabin. We hit the road headed towards Derby which included traveling up Weldborough Pass. Be sure to have your two-way on as many trucks use this road and it can be bendy and narrow in sections. We quickly stopped at Derby for a toilet break. This town was buzzing with mountain bikers. Great location with clean toilet ammenities at Trailhead Park. It wasn't long until we made it to our first destination.
bridestowe lavendar estate
We couldn’t leave Tasmania without visiting a lavender farm! There are 650,000 lavender plants at Bridestowe Lavendar Estate and all of the rows of lavender equal the distance from the farm to Hobart! 25,000 lavender ice-creams are sold per year so we needed to do our part! It is very creamy and delicious, it doesn’t taste like soap as we predicted it to be. As we were visiting in October, we missed seeing the fields in their full purple glory but the views were just as beautiful.
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treetop adventures hollybank
Our next stop continued with a visit to Treetops Adventure Hollybank. Our eldest warrior added this to our list of places before we left. He has a goal to visit all of the treetop adventure parks around Australia and since this was the only one in Tassie, there was no way we were missing it! A couple of hours of fun with our warriors taking on some challenging courses. There is a bunch of other action-packed activities to do including segway tours, mountain biking and a zipline canopy tours. Be sure to book to avoid disappointment. There is also caravan parking making it even easier to visit.
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launceston
Our last pit stop before we arrived back into Devonport was Launceston. We visited City Park to check out the Japanese macaque monkey enclosure then into town to send a postcard back home. You do require some pretty hectic caravanning skills to safely tow your van through the city, plus parking is difficult, but we managed to score some parking down the street from the park.
We then jumped back into the car and headed to Cataract Gorge. Some of the streets we were driving on looked like something from San Francisco but there is oversized vehicle parking once you arrive. We bought our tickets to ride the world’s longest single chairlift across the gorge. You can choose a return ticket, or a single ticket and walk back on the short visit circuit which takes you across the Alexandra Suspension Bridge.
We then jumped back into the car and headed to Cataract Gorge. Some of the streets we were driving on looked like something from San Francisco but there is oversized vehicle parking once you arrive. We bought our tickets to ride the world’s longest single chairlift across the gorge. You can choose a return ticket, or a single ticket and walk back on the short visit circuit which takes you across the Alexandra Suspension Bridge.
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With an easy 1hr freeway drive back to Devonport, our 'zipping before shipping' had come to an end. It was a pretty solid effort from starting on the east coast at sunrise to arriving into Devonport just before sunset. Our time in Tassie was coming to an end. Everything was a highlight, from penguins, to bushwalking, to beachside camping, to a climbing lighthouse and seeing Tassie Devils. If you’re short for time, we would probably of skipped Hobart and spent more time at Cockle Creek or Bay of Fires. Hobart was a great city but somewhere you could fly to. It was time to jump back onto the Spirit of Tasmania for our sail back to the mainland.
Peace + love,
Peace + love,