3-day road trip itinerary in Tasmania

It all started on the night of December the 15th. While Gorka and I were warming up, before heading to see Amelie Lens (more than a month ago, when we went to Melbourne), I checked my Facebook wall and saw a post stating that a soccer team from Tasmania was looking for players. I was a little bit hesitant but Gorka encouraged me to do it and so I sent an email to the guy, stating that I had some experience playing in my region. Who would have thought that I would end up having some soccer tryouts in Tasmania?! I took advantage of that experience to embark on a 3-day road trip in Tasmania 🙂

Well, after eight emails and a phone call, I booked my flight to spend a week over Launceston, the second biggest city of Tasmania. The guy told me that I could spend one week over there while doing a couple of tryouts. He also told me that, if it didn’t work out, I could still spend the whole week in the house they were offering for free to the imported players. That, plus the fact that I wanted to go to Australia to experience “different” stuff, helped making up my mind.

Arriving in Launceston

And so, on the morning of January the 4th, I flew over to Launceston. “Marshall” (that’s how the “guy” was called) was waiting for me at the airport and he drove me to the city, where I met “Tiki”, an american guy who joined the team like 2 years ago and who would be my roommate for the following week. After showing me around and paying for my lunch (thanks Marshall!) he left me home.

Before that, we had a conversation about the level of the team, the league and how they changed their way of playing after Spain won the world cup. We might don’t realize it but, to the world, what Spain did (winning the World cup and the two European cups in a row) was crazy. So crazy that many teams (even at that level) within the world changed their way of playing. Regarding the league, they were playing on the second division of the Premier League of Tasmania. The league was played against 8 teams and the winner would get to play against the rest of the teams in Australia.

After getting some rest, Tiki drove me to the field where we were going to have the first tryout of the pre-season. The season was going to start in March and it would last just until September. The pre-season was starting in January and it would last just until March. Before flying to Launceston, I had already told Marshall that the league was kind of too long for me. Even if they picked me, I didn’t feel like spending more than 3 months over there, since I was going to spend a year in Australia and I wanted to get to know other areas.

First tryout and walk to the Gorge

After meeting the rest of the team and the coach we had our first tryout. I had already had plenty of soccer tryouts, but never in Tasmania! It was good, we did different exercices and then we played a game at the end. I felt like I did well enough. Even if I didn’t score, I still provided some goal chances. The level was good enough. There were some good and skillful players and some other more “normal”. With the tryout done, we went home, had some dinner and went to sleep.

Next morning Tiki took me to see the “Cataract Gorge”. The Gorge is some sort of a natural formation along the Tamar river. It reminded me a little bit to our “Chorreras” (a beautiful natural space back home). The landscape was beautiful, and the weather was just perfect. We saw some kids playing around at the different ponds and, further up, by the lake, there were plenty of people chilling and having some food. There was also some sort of a small cable car connecting the top of the mountain with the lake. While walking around, you could find animals as different as peacocks or wallabies. We had a nice walk, took some photos and then went home to have lunch.

Since my next tryout was not taking place until Tuesday (I had the first one on Thursday), I had thought about renting a car and getting to know Tasmania as well as possible. Having soccer tryouts in Tasmania was nice, but getting to know Tasmania had to be even better! At the beginning, I thought about trying to find some trip mates so I wouldn’t feel “alone”. But then, I also thought that (again) one of the reasons why I came to Australia was to do things that I wanted to do and I had never done before. Thus, I spent Friday evening buying food and getting everything ready so on Saturday morning I could just get my car and start my adventure around Tasmania.

One thing I would like to mention is that, the week that I got to spend over there, was probably one of the busiest in Tasmania. Many people came over to enjoy holidays, which triggered prices of car rental to rise a lot. In some places they even had run out of cars, because the few they had were already taken. So, just to warn you, if you plan on going to Tasmania the first or second week of January, book your cars way in advance. If not, be ready to spend a lot of money (if you are lucky enough to find some cars left).

My first-ever solo trip: conquering Tasmania in 3 days

Tips apart, on Saturday morning I got my car along with its welcome package. The lady came with me outside to make sure that the car was just fine and suddenly she started screaming. I turned back and I saw a huge spider stuck… on the pilot’s window. Now that I think about it, thank God that she saw the spider at that time. Otherwise, if I had saw it while driving… Anyway, I found a stick on the ground, opened the door and kicked the spider outside the car. The first dangerous animal that I saw since my arrival in Australia was… a huge spider inside my car 🙂

In case anyone was considering a little trip around Tasmania, I will share my route here. So, Launceston is in the north of Tasmania and it was there where I had my headquarters. By Tuesday afternoon I had to be back, so my trip was 3 days and a half in length. I read that the west side of the country was worthier in winter, like the national parks on the west side had more to offer in winter.

I knew that I wanted to go to the south to see Hobart, the capital. So, I thought, I could drive a little bit further up to the northern part of the country to see the Lavender fields and, from there, start heading east to cover as much as possible from the East Coast (which should be worthier in summer). After travelling through the East Coast I would stop at Bonorong Sanctuary to see some animals (I couldn’t leave Tasmania without seeing its famous devil) and then, from there, I would head to Hobart to spend my last night there.

So, may my 3-day road trip itinerary in Tasmania enlighten you 🙂

Itinerary for the first day of a 3-day road trip in Tasmania

• Picking the car at 10:00 a.m.
• Leaving Launceston at around 10:30 a.m.
• Heading towards Bridestowe Lavender Estate, which opens from 10:00 to 17:00 and whose price is 10 $. We’ll be driving through B81, which should take around 46 min (51,5 km).

• From Bridestowe Lavender Estate to Bay of Fires. We’ll drive through B82 and C843. It takes around 2 hours and it has 130 km.

• We’ll try to get to Bay of Fires by 16:00-17:00. We’ll chill around and then we’ll start heading to Swimcart Beach (through C848), where we’ll spend the night for free. It has public toilets 🙂 P.S: Before stopping there, we’ll stop at “The Gardens”. From Bay of Fires till the camping is like 15 km (25 min).
• Total kms day 1: ~250 km.

Itinerary for the second day of a 3-day road trip in Tasmania

• From Swimcart Beach will drive all the way down till Freycinet park, where, after paying 24 $ dollars, we can stay for up to 24 hours. We’ll be stopping at St Helens, Scamander and Bicheno before parking in Freycinet.

• From Swimcart to St Helens: C848 and C850, around 20 min (18 km).
• From St Helens to Scamander: Hwy A3, around 30 min (20 km).
• From Scamander to Bicheno: Hwy A3, around 45 min (55 km).
• From Bicheno to Freycinet park: Hwy A3, around 20 min (20 km).
• Total kms day 2: ~130 km.

Itinerary for the third day of a 3-day road trip in Tasmania

• From Freycinet park to Bonorong Sanctuary: Hwy A3, around 2h 30 min (200 km).

• Bonorong Sanctuary: 29 $. Devil Talk: 10:00 a.m. Tours at 11:30, 14:00 and 15:30. 30 minutes away from Hobart.
• We could get there to start with the tour at 14:00 and, on the way stop at Swansea, Tribunna and/or Orford.
• From Bonorong to Hobart: Hwy B32 and National Hwy 1, around 30 min (30 km).

• Hobart: Salamanca Market, Battery Point, Mount Wellington.
• Total kms of day 3: ~250 km.

Of course I did change a little bit what I’ve shown you above, but at least it gives you an idea. It was weird having the wheel on the right side of the car. The same goes to driving on the left side of the road. But, what took me longer to get used to, was the fact that the blinker gear was the one of the windscreen wiper and viceversa. So for some time, when I wanted to signal that I was gonna turn left, I ended up starting up the windscreen wipers :).

Lavender Estate and Bay of Fires

The road up to the Lavender fields was changing quite a lot. From flat landscapes to stepper ones, from views without a tree to forests full of palm trees and eucalyptus. Unfortunately, what it didn’t change was seeing dead animals (mostly wallabies) now and then on the ditches. Not sure if you know it but kangaroos crossing the roads is one of the highest death causes in Australia…

I got to the Lavender fields at around 13:00 and I spent a couple of hours there. It was worth going. The landscape was beautiful and the taste of the lavender ice-cream was delicious. I took some photos and then I sat down by a huge tree to start eating some of the tupperwares I had brought with me. Backpacker mode ON.

Once I felt satisfied with the time spent at the Lavender Estate, I started to drive towards the Bay of Fires. The road and the landscape changed a lot again. It felt great driving after so long, and even more with those landscapes. I realized I started to get closer to my destination after seeing the road becoming narrower. As I drove, I started to see nothing but eucalyptus forests and, suddenly, I found the entry to Swimcart Beach.

There were some people already there with their camping set up, ready to spend the night. After checking the different spots available, I parked the car and went out to the beach. The views were amazing. Beautiful white-looking sand and crystal-clear blue water. If that was not enough, some of the orange “spots” on the rocks made the view even nicer. I walked around the different bays amazed by the contrast of colour in the landscape. I then chilled a little bit an when the sun was setting, I came back to the car to have some dinner and catch some sleep.

You might have been wondering why the rocks have some orange spots and whether  that has something to do with the name Bay of “Fires”… In the beginning I thought it was because of the “lichen”. And yes, I was right in a way. The lichen found their homes on some of the rocks of the Bay of Fires beaches, and that’s what makes the rocks have the orange colour. However, the name of the bay doesn’t come from the colour of the rocks, but from their Aboriginal people 😉

I felt annoyed when the first sun beams started to knock on my car’s windows. I then realised I hadn’t brought any curtain or sunshade to cover the car. I hadn’t brought any sleeping mask either so, I found myself in a difficult situation… Even if I did want to sleep for longer, the sun didn’t agree. I then did what most of our ancestors had been doing for ages, I woke up as soon as the day started. To be honest, it didn’t feel that bad, because, after walking for a couple of minutes, I arrived to the beach, and then I saw this:

After having breakfast, I went to the beach to have a walk and take a bath. It was a beautiful day and the beach was empty. It was like walking in paradise. The perfect spot to relax and enjoy life. After chilling out for some time, I decided it was time to hit the road once again to get to my next stop: Freycinet National Park. I stopped at different places on the way. I guess that’s one of the best things about travelling on your own: you can stop wherever and whenever you want.

I do remember I stopped at a lake to have lunch. I remembered it because of the nice views but also because of the seagulls. The way the behave in Australia it’s a little bit scary. They surround you like if they were wolves and start getting closer and closer to try to steal your food. At the end, because in their DNA there is the “fear” towards us, if we move, they will fly away. But, if they were “smart” enough to know how afraid we are sometimes, they would have forced me into running away and leaving my food to them.

Freycinet National Park

When I arrived at Freycinet, the weather was not the best. I thought I would find some sort of camping like the ones I had previously found but I was wrong. Basically, paying the entrance to the park allowed you to park your vehicle, but then, if you wanted to spend the night there, you had to find some camping areas within the park and pay more money. So, I decided not to spend the night in the park but in another free camping, like 10 km away. It turned out to be a good decision.

A little after parking my car and wandering around, I started to talk with a guy from England. His name was Jeremy and he was also travelling by himself. There was a subtle difference between our travelling ways though: he was travelling by bike. He had already rode his bike from Sydney to Melbourne and he was travelling at that time around Tasmania. He wanted to spend some months travelling by bike in New Zealand and then, after flying to South East Asia, he wanted to go “back home” by bike. Crazy. After talking to him I realized we had a similar mindset. He also thought that there is no “perfect” time to leave everything behind and follow your dreams.

After chatting for some time, I brought up the fact that I wanted to wake up early in the morning to see the sunrise and then head to Freycinet to do the Wineglass Bay hike. He told me that, from the area where we were staying, we couldn’t see the sunrise very well and so, we agreed upon waking up at 04:00 in the morning, drive to Freycinet, do the 45-minute hike and see the sunrise from up there. And so we did.

But, before that, once we said goodbye and I went to my car to eat my humble food, I saw some guys who just arrived at the camping area. As one of them was passing by, I asked her if she was French. She wasn’t. She was Swiss. After talking with her for like 15 minutes, she joined her friends to have dinner. I was in my car and I was going to go to sleep but then I went outside and I heard them playing some music. She was playing Hallelujah, a song that I love, and, after asking if they were going to sing it, they invited me to join them.

We shared some wine, sang some songs, share some stories and saw the Milky Way without any light pollution. It was beautiful. It was also funny how we missed some of the constellations we could see back home from the North Hemisphere, like the Great Bear. Right before standing up to go to sleep, one of the girls started screaming. We turned our flashlights on and… there it was, a little beautiful black snake around my feet :). After letting it follow its way, I followed mine and went to my car to sleep under a beautiful starry sky.

Hiking to Wineglass Bay

We started driving at around 04:15. It was completely dark. But, thanks to the lights of the car, we could see some wallabies crossing the road. Thankfully, we didn’t run over them. We got to Freycinet, parked the car and started the “D” trail. It was a great feeling. It was almost dark. There was no one around and the only sound other than silence was our tiredness exhalations accompanied by the sounds some animals were making.

We got to the summit right on time. The views were breathtaking and so the feeling of calmness and peace from up there. It is “funny” how sometimes we have so many amazing things for free and yet we don’t appreciate them but just take them for granted. We should enjoy sunrises and sunsets more often! 😉

The only “little” issue was the hundreds of mosquitos that tried to bite us ever since we arrived. I do want to emphasize this. In case you go there, please, bring some mosquito’s repellent with you. Otherwise, you will enjoy the views, but you will have a hard time enjoying them with pleasure.

After admiring the views for a while, we started walking down to get to the beach that gave name to the Wineglass Bay. Again, beautiful white-looking sand with crystal-clear water and, no one on the beach. I do also remember how cold the water was but it was worth taking the bath and laying on the sand as the sun started to rise. After that, we went back to the top to enjoy the views one last time and then back to the camping, where I dropped Jeremy. If you ever get to read this blog, I hope you are having a good time travelling around the world with your bike 😉

Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary

I started driving to try to get to Bonorong before 14:00 so I could join the 14:00 tour. Although I had to stop on the way several times to have some breaks and avoid falling asleep, I made it on time. I did also stop to enjoy some nice landscapes :). Bonorong was nice. I am against zoos but that wasn’t the case with Bonorong. It was some sort of sanctuary where they take care of animals that have suffered some injuries, are about to become extinct or need some recovery before going back to the wildness. I got to see plenty of cool animals like a wombat, a koala, some weird birds and several kangaroos.

The cherry on the cake and the animal I wanted to see badly was one of the characters from the Looney Tunes… I was lucky enough to see it before it went back to its burrow. I was able to see a Tasmanian Devil! And now you can see it too 😉

Off to Hobart: the capital of Tasmania

After enjoying mother nature as its best, I had lunch in my car and headed to Hobart, where I would be meeting Jeff, Marco’s cousin. Hobart is surrounded by water, which is something that, from my humble’s opinion, makes a city even more beautiful. I crossed a bridge, drove through some motorways and some streets and finally I got to Jeff’s house. It reminded me to “El Papel” from back in Valdepeñas :).

His house was nice. He was living with a couple of dogs and a couple of human beings, his friends. We chatted for a while and then they went to his football training. In the meantime, I drove my car to the city and got to see some areas like the Salamanca Market, Battery Point and the Port of Hobart. It was nice wandering around the city. The roads were wide, there was not too much traffic and the ambience was relaxed.

I was pretty tired by the time I went back to Jeff’s house but I made it to have some beers with them, let them explain to me how cricket worked and share some stories from back when Jeff and I met in Barcelona. Thanks a lot for letting me crash on your couch ;).

Next morning I needed to head back to Launceston because I had my second tryout in the afternoon. Before that, I drove to the Botanic Garden of Hobart and then to Mount Wellington. Both places were nice but the Mount Wellington, specially the drive up there, was amazing. It got really cold and foggy as I drove towards the summit but, before getting there, I stopped  on the way to take some pictures.

Once on the summit, I could see several Chinese people taking photos of the city, regardless of it being covered by clouds which didn’t allow you to actually see anything. Nevertheless, they seemed to be enjoying it quite a lot.

I walked around, checked a couple of viewpoints and, luckily enough, I was able to truly appreciate the city of Hobart as the fog went away. The views were amazing and I told myself how lucky I was to be able to say goodbye to Hobart from a place where I could see it all 🙂

I went back on the road to drive to Launceston, but that time, instead of driving through the East Coast, I drove through the middle of the island. The landscapes were less nicer and the fact that it was raining and I was running into a lot of areas under construction did not make it better.

So long Tassie!

After stopping a couple of times to get some rest, I made it back to the house and met Federico, an Argentinian guy who had just arrived to also do the soccer tryouts.

The second tryout went well as well, or, at least, that’s how I felt about it. I even scored a header lol. I didn’t know it just yet but that tryout was the last one of my soccer tryouts in Tasmania series. That night I “went out” with Federico. We tried to have dinner in a couple of places but it was 22:00 and it was “already too late”. Luckily enough, we found an Irish pub which was still open and at least, we were able to have a beer. The guy singing there was really good, by the way. Before going home we stopped at Domino’s to eat what has been one of my wild cards since I got to Australia, a 5 AUD pizza. God bless Aussieland!

Next morning, Tiki took us for a walk to the Gorge and then he drove us to Green’s Beach, a beach 1 hour away from Launceston. We spent the morning there chilling and then we went back home. I spent the evening getting my stuff ready and, on the next morning, before going to the airport, I went out to follow the Heritage walks to get to know the city a little better.

My last glimpse from Launceston were the Japanese monkeys at Launceston’s City Park and the face of a beautiful little baby girl, who, as I was leaving the park, was staring at me. I guess she could feel what I was thinking: So long Tasmania! I will always remember you as the place where I went on my first solo 3-day road trip 🙂