Melbourne to Tasmania

We rocked at travelling today! We sat smugly listening to a couple who had a 'great day' and had driven up the coast from Hobart and were sat having oysters with us. We have done so much today, walking, bus, aeroplane and car! We were up at 5am, to fly from Melbourne to Hobart, and by 10am we were in our hire car exploring Tasmania.

Tasmania is stunning, quite English in climate and scenery but slightly more dramatic, with lots of water ways and big open rolling hills of trees and vineyards. We were on a strict time scale to make sure we did everything in time before the Tazzies shut up shop for the day at 4/5pm.


We started with an artisan food market which luckily wasn't too big, but what it lacked in size, it made up for in quality, every stall had beautiful produce, home made jams and honey, the best looking doughnuts, weird dried kangaroo meat and incredible smelling cheese. If we weren't in a hurry and hadn't had two breakfasts already we could have spent a lot of money there! The hot food section was buzzing with people and the food looked amazing, we left drooling 15 minutes after arriving.

Next was Richmond, Edd says we went there because it's rumoured to be lovely but to be honest I didn't care what it was like you can't pass your home town without popping in. It reminded me of a small village in Cornwall or Devon, one road with a great bakery and a few art/craft galleries. I have to say I'm glad we live in our Richmond. We did however go to Richmond bridge, it really was lovely, the oldest bridge in Australia. For lunch we had a couple of local specialities, Edd had a curried scallop pie and I had a cauliflower cheese pie! A quick stop for local beers and lemon bonbons for the road and we were on our way.

We dashed in to check-in at our B&B in Swansea before continuing our drive up and around the coast to Freycinet, a stunning national park on the coast. There is an hour and a half walk up a ridge between two mountains to look down on a bay called the 'wineglass bay'. It's supposed to be postcard picturesque stunning and in the sun, I can imagine it is.

In the warm, clammy drizzle it is still lovely! We didn't hang around and were up and down within an hour. I seem to have been getting travel sickness recently, the ride up to the national park was pretty windy so I was very grateful for the fresh air and the walk, we've also been eating very well so a quick stomp felt very good.

The main reason for all the rush was that we needed to get to Edd's last stop of the day before they closed. We stopped at the Freycinet Marine Farm with an hour to spare for some fresh oysters. We sat under awnings on wooden benches and I watched whilst Edd tucked in. He was in his element and had half a dozen oysters with trout roe, wasabi mayonnaise and seaweed. He finished and I could tell he was desperate for more but didn't want to be extravagant.

In my opinion if you're this far from home, having the best oysters you have ever had for extremely good value and you can fit more in then you should go for it!! Edd had another 6, with salmon and some sort of salsa. The farm was lovely, a family run business where they breed and grown their own oysters and mussels just off the coast.

They had boards up explaining how the oysters were grown, it was hilarious, whilst Edd was enjoying the education all I could focus on was the sign about how these creatures grow by filtering sludge, bacteria and viruses from the water! They really turn my stomach!!

As we got back in the car Edd commented that it was up there as one of his best food experiences, along with eating Gillian's pigs and our own veg. You can't get fresher than that really!

We made our way back slowly, the speed limit changes at dawn and dusk as the wildlife wakes up and becomes a danger on the roads. We are staying in a lovely seaside B&B which is highly rated on trip advisor and I can see why. The bedroom is lovely, very 'beachy' and the bathroom even has a heater switch which turns on two massive heater lamps to warm you as you get out the shower!!

For dinner we had two choices, fish and chips or the local pub, they take last orders at 7.30 so there's limited choice but I have to say the pizza in the 'pub', more like a local community centre, was pretty good. We're now tucked up at 8.30 ready for another busy day and an early start!