Spirit of tasmania
Now this was a bucket list activity! To travel on the Spirit of Tasmania and then explore Van Diemen's Land. A place where we hadn't really travelled before except for a fly in fly out trip to Launceston to visit friends many, many moons ago. But first, we needed to see if these salty dogs had sea legs!
As soon as we had the idea of visiting Tasmania for the September / October school holidays, we jumped online to book our tickets for the Spirit of Tasmania. This was in the January mind you, but we are so glad that we did as the ship was almost booked out, particularly for a car and caravan. We booked it without really a mud map for our travels but knew that we would use the two weeks of the school holidays to explore the state. We totally underestimated just how vast Tasmania really is! Once we pulled out the ol' fashioned Gregory's map and did some research, we knew this trip was going to be more adventurous rather than relaxing. But hey, it isn't everyday that you drop just over two and a half grand to get your van over the Bass Strait so we were going to see as much as possible with our set timeframe.
Before we delve into our sailing adventures, let us share with you some free camps that we stayed at as we traveled from the South Coast of NSW to the Port of Geelong. Our first night was at Gundagai at a free camp called Morley's Creek RV Rest Stop Reserve which was just off the highway. There are no amenities here however the township is a small stroll over the bridge. Here you can find a supermarket, restaurants, cafes and speciality stores to name a few. As we rolled into town just after sunset, we parked the van and walked to the pub for dinner. Great pub grub and kids menu!
Before we delve into our sailing adventures, let us share with you some free camps that we stayed at as we traveled from the South Coast of NSW to the Port of Geelong. Our first night was at Gundagai at a free camp called Morley's Creek RV Rest Stop Reserve which was just off the highway. There are no amenities here however the township is a small stroll over the bridge. Here you can find a supermarket, restaurants, cafes and speciality stores to name a few. As we rolled into town just after sunset, we parked the van and walked to the pub for dinner. Great pub grub and kids menu!
We were up with the morning sun to hit the bitumen since we had just under 600km in front of us. With the lunchboxes filled to the brim with snacks and copious amount of playlists to crank, we just got on with the task to make it to Bunjil Lookout before sunset, and that we did! Bunjil Lookout is a camp run by volunteers so small donations are appreciated. Here you can find toilets, a communal firepit, BBQs with shelter and a children's playground. It is pet friendly and the views are stunning! There are limited spaces, particularly for a van of our size, but if you get there early enough, you should be right. Just be sure to have your car facing the direction of an easy escape as other campers could possibly make the manoeuvre tricky. The lookout is in the shape as Bunjil, who is a wedge-tailed eagle that created Kulin Country according to local Dreaming. There was something quite moving about this place. After watching the sunset and placing an online Woolies order for our arrival into Devonport, it was time to eat all of the fresh produce before our quarantine check in the morning, and then bunker down for the night.
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geelong - devonport
With a 6am check-in time at the Port of Geelong, it was an early morning start amongst the mist. It is only a 30min drive from Bunjil's Lookout to the port, and an easy one of that! We probably didn't need to be at check-in so early but we weren't too sure how the process was going to go with our car and van. It was pretty smooth including the quarantine check which was extremely thorough but necessary. It also made for the perfect opportunity to get sick sickness tablets into us before we boarded the ship! Rob was the only one that had been on a ship before so we decided to book a suite for our day sail across Bass Strait. The suite had a queen bed, a couple of arm chairs, an ensuite, tv, mini bar and 2 windows looking over the bow of the ship. We booked the suite and 2 day tickets to meet the 4 person booking. The best part is that we had space and privacy to deal with any sea sickness should it arrive. We won't lie, the ten hours to Devonport felt like forever and we started to feel squeamish around the halfway point. That's when we hit up another round of sea sickness tablets, canceled our onboard movie tickets and instead chewed on mini ice cubes then slept it off. The front of the ship does tend to bounce around a little so not sure if we would have felt like that if we were in the middle of the ship. Just after sunset, we docked into Devonport and our eldest couldn't of been happier!
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devonport - geelong
We had a night sail on our return trip. To avoid feeling squeamish on the way back, we made sure that we had a jam-packed day traveling from the Bay of Fires, through Launceston and arriving back to Devonport in time for sunset pizza. The plan was to have full bellies and tired bodies so that we slept like babies on the way back to the mainland. We parked the van on Wheeler Street at East Devonport, ordered some pizza to be delivered to the van and watched as the Spirit of Tasmania arrived into Devonport. We left Devonport at 9:30pm and not long after that, crashed out for the entire night! We booked a porthole cabin with bunks which also had an ensuite. It was closer to the middle of the ship so less buoyancy. With a good nights rest, we were able to drive the whole way home after docking into Geelong at 7:30am.
With a clear, calm day and the average fuel consumption sitting at 16.6 L/100, we decided to drive the 10hrs home. Straight from the ship to our beds! We had the most amazing adventure around Tasmania! We are still stoked that we managed to see everything that we had on our list and that we managed to score some amazing campsites! We’re also thankful for the fantastic weather we had. Our Amarok worked like a horse and our van, again, reminded us just how happy we are with our investment! We clocked just over 4000km return trip from our home on the South Coast of NSW.
Our amazing Tassie adventure had come to an end, but we were absolutely blown away by what Tassie had to offer, especially for caravanning families!
Peace + love,
Our amazing Tassie adventure had come to an end, but we were absolutely blown away by what Tassie had to offer, especially for caravanning families!
Peace + love,