Prior to going to Tasmania, a tiny island (actually Tasmania is slightly bigger than Latvia, 68k vs. 64k square km, so not that tiny) off Southern Coast of Australia, the only thing I knew about was the famous little animal – Tasmanian Devil, that only lives on this island. After 7 days on the island that remained the only thing we did not see in the whole trip. Funny how it works. But here is what we did see:
Amazing beaches – Wineglass Bay, Binalong Bay and many others, white sand and deserted most Tasmanian beaches are as good as they come, with a little bit of sunshine they are the perfect place to be.
Amazing wineries – we visited 3 or 4 of them, most offer up to 8 wines for tasting free of charge, my favorite was Bay of Fires winery. Also I totally changed my opinion about Riesling. In Tasmanian cooler climate they do it very fresh and dry, nothing in comparison to sweet stuff you’d normally expect from German/Austrian ones.
Lots of animals – dead and alive. There is so much road kill in Tasmania that it makes me sad, but that is just a further proof how healthy the eco system of this island is, as animals are everywhere. On our hikes and early drives, we saw plenty of wombats, wallabies, opossums and other random things, crawling, jumping and just sitting lazily around in the wild, its definitely their territory and we are just the visitors.
Art – MONA art gallery in Hobart is privately owned and definitely in my top 3 in the world, probably only Saatchi gallery in London would come close. If you like modern art, this alone is worth a visit to Tassie.
Food – there are some top notch eateries for foodies. We had steak from Black Cow in Launceston and it honestly is as good as any top NY or London eatery.
So that’s that, I can highly recommend visit to this far out place, if you get a chance to come to Australia. Here are a few pics for the trip. Hope you’re having good start of the year!
Posts Tagged 'australia'
Tasmania without the Devil
Published January 4, 2012 Travel Leave a CommentTags: australia, devil, island, Tasmania, Travel
Wedding @ Wolfies
Published December 20, 2011 Photography Leave a CommentTags: australia, Photography, sydney, wedding, wolfies
Last weekend I did something I have not done in a while, a photo shoot for wedding. It was last minute gig with not too much preparation and planning, but still lots of fun. Quite challenging settings, all indoors with limited natural lighting, continuous rain outside and venue at maximum capacity with not much room to juggle my camera and get the right angles, but think I managed to pull it off quite OK, you can be the judge. As always, for me the most exiting part is informal banter and emotions on the day, not the formal exchange of bows, but all has its place.
Like this:
Down Under
Published December 21, 2010 Travel Leave a CommentTags: australia, backpacking, bush, rtw, sydney, Travel, trip
In Australia it is indeed all upside down. The trees shed bark and not the leaves, its summer here whilst UK is covered in snow, you have blue/red/green parrots instead of pigeons sitting on park benches and kangaroos are roaming wild (once you leave the city) instead of being locked in the zoo.
Good coffee can be had almost everywhere, even the tiniest hole in the wall will do a decent flat white. It was a pleasant change after 3 months in SE Asia, where dry/powdered or condensed milk is a norm (except Singapore and Bangkok), here you get a nice full fat. Also coffee is just the right temperature, around 60-70C, perfect to get the best of aroma and flavours, not the overheated stuff that you get elsewhere. I now understand why most of the good quality/independent coffee shops in London are run by Ozzie’s or Kiwis.
Sydney has a good feel to it, a bit too neat for my liking, but very pleasant to be in, the weather is warm for most of the year, lots of nature nearby, good pay (if you can get a job). A walk across the harbour bridge is great way to get some scenery in and burn those calories, highly recommended.
I also had a chance to get out into the wilderness for a few days, driving a car in Sydney’s traffic and narrow mountainous roads is no fun (or lots of it, depending how you look at it). I went fishing for the first time in a very long time, that brought back lots of childhood memories. I even caught couple of carps around a kg each. And did I mention about the stone wall that I helped to pull together? For my efforts I got a chance to engrave my name on one of the stones, as can be seen here. Thanks Justin for arranging all this.
Here are some pics from Australia stopover. Christmas is coming, I can smell it in the air, greetings from far away New Zealand.
