This was out view this morning from the breakfast table in our apartment. The clear sky allowed us to see Mount Wellington in full splendor.
Today our route (above) took us from Hobart to Bicheno with a few stops and detours including the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens before we'd even gone a kilometre from our overnight stay.
Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens
The gardens are fairly impressive with a number of very different environments.
Harry got in some photography practice in prior to us getting into the adventure properly.
Richmond
And so we set off on our adventure. Richmond was the first tourist stop on the way to Bicheno. Richmond is about half an hour's drive from Hobart. Richmond has two main historic sites, the jail and the bridge.
We did a tour of the gaol which was both interesting and horrifying. It is the oldest intact gaol in Australia.
A bonus for Harry was a fire truck parked outside the gaol.
The Richmond bridge is Australia's oldest stone span bridge. Harry seemed more interested in the water birds.
Orford
We followed the narrow windy Tasman highway along the Prosser River valley to the east coast. Orford is a small holiday village located where the Prosser River meets the Pacific Ocean. We thought it was the perfect place to eat our picnic lunch.
Three Thumbs Lookout
After lunch we took a short detour into the state forest south of Orford along a steep and windy dirt road to the Three Thumbs Lookout.
The view from the lookout was surprising. We could see across to Maria Island (above) and along the coast north to the Freycinet peninsular (below). We would follow the same coast for the next couple of hours. Tomorrow we plan to visit Freycinet tomorrow.
Harry was busy with his camera again trying to capture the perfect shot.
Raspin's Beach
A kilometre from Orford is the lovely Raspin's Beach which has brilliant powder white sand and tranquil clear water. (Three Thumbs lookout is at the top of the small hump just to the left of centre of the photo above.)
The drive north was fairly unremarkable until we were alongside the bay just out of Swansea. We could clearly see the Freycinet Peninsular across the Great Oyster Bay.
Swansea
We stopped at Kate's Berry farm just outside of Swansea for a cooling ice cream while we enjoyed the view across at the peninsular. There was no berry picking to be done, I think because it isn't that kind of berry farm but the ice cream was well worth the stop.
We did pull in briefly to the Swansea township, but the wind was howling so we kept going.
Bicheno
We reached our base camp for the next two nights in Bicheno around mid afternoon. We have the entire top level of the house below which was more than adequate to spread ourselves out and be comfortable for a few days. The view from the deck of the coastline is nothing short of stunning. The photo above paints about half the picture.
While Kerri & mum hit the supermarket, Harry & I headed for Waubs beach for some much anticipated digging & splashing in the Pacific Ocean.
As the sun set, the animals around the house started to come out of their daytime hide-outs. There seems to be a family of Bennett's wallabies that call the area home. Tomorrow we are off early to Freycinet National Park to beat the crowds to Wineglass Bay.
