Tasmania is our favourite place in Australia. You could easily spend a month or two exploring this place.

 

Spectacular landscapes, beaches, natural beauty, pretty little townships – this is the east coast of Tasmania. It is one of the most scenic coastal drives with something different at each twist and turn.

We started from Hobart driving towards Coles bay and our first stop was the Devil’s Corner – The Cellar door and lookout. We enjoyed the panoramic views across the Moulting Lagoon to the Hazards mountains at Coles Bay from the top of the tower. It is the perfect place to enjoy a glass of wine looking at the stunning view except the cold wind was getting a bit uncomfortable!

We continued our drive towards the Freycinet National Park – a beautiful peninsula of pink granite mountains (the Hazards) surrounded by turquoise bays, white beaches, and eucalyptus forest.

There are several walks and drives to various bays. We found the staff at the visitor centre very helpful with user-friendly maps and classification of walks as easy or medium or hard.

The most challenging walk was to view the beautiful Wineglass bay. It took a bit of effort with a 3 km return walk. The others were shorter:

Sleepy Bay – with some great lookouts and photo opportunities.

Honeymoon Bay – a cosy beach popular for swimming, or relaxation or even a picnic.

Another view not to be missed is Cape Tourville Lighthouse and lookout which has sweeping views over the Tasman Sea. It is a 15-minute steep drive and then a short walk around the lookout and up to the lighthouse.

We drove further north towards Bicheno, which happens to be a popular holiday destination in Tasmania. It is a lovely little seaside town but we did not stay here. We wanted to check out the famous Bicheno Blowhole but that did not work out. We decided to keep it for our next visit.

As it was getting dark, we rushed to check into a B & B at St. Marys. The next morning we set out to explore a cheese factory and a waterfall, located a bit inland. 

Pyengana Dairy located in the beautiful Pyengana Valley was an interesting visit. They produce handcrafted cheese and dairy products. The Farmgate Café provides visitors an opportunity to see the cheese-making, enjoy cheese tasting and relish their gourmet platters and tea.

 

There was another attraction!

It was fun to watch the cows lining up to get milked.

They got rewarded with massages with an automatic back-scratcher!!

Next was a short drive to St. Columba Falls. These are said to be one of Tasmania’s tallest permanent falls at 90m. The falls themselves were amazing. From the car park and the trailhead we were able to get distant views of the falls from across the gorge.

It is a lovely walk of about 45 minutes to the main falls through a rainforest. The walk was easy while going down but much harder going up! Probably a sign informing people about the difficulty of the walk would have been useful to older citizens or people with bad knees.

We then drove back on the coastal drive northwards – first to the azure Binalong Bay and then to the stunning Bay of Fires! The views were jaw-dropping – rocks covered with bright orange lichen which look spectacular in the daylight, especially with their contrast against the turquoise of the ocean water.

That was the end of our lovely two-day drive in the east coast of Tasmania!

Tasmania
Bay of Fires in Tasmania, Australia

Related Posts

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This