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 'island'
Tasmania without the Devil
Published January 4, 2012 Travel Leave a CommentTags: australia, devil, island, Tasmania, Travel
To the moon and back
Published May 3, 2011 Life , Statistics , Travel Leave a CommentTags: antigua, Caribbean, island, rtw, sailing week
My trip around the world is over, I’m back in sunny (but windy) London, Prince is happily married and things are back to normal, sort of. The trip went pretty smoothly, it was on budget, I managed to visit 3 more countries than initially planned and had no serious issues or injuries, kind of boring almost, but the little things kept me entertained along the way. Here are some statistics from the trip, you know I like numbers:
Time on the road: 7 months
Countries visited: 33
Total trip cost: £10,300
Flights taken: 30
Things broken: 1 pair of flip flops
Things stolen: 1 pair of swimming shorts
Monies lost: £60
Strange foods eaten: shark, snake, crickets, lama, cactus, frog
Muggings, robberies: 0
Medical help needed: 0
New friends: 100′s around the world
Talking about the little things, I often get asked, what’s my favourite place I’ve been to, and I always have to stumble through with some semi-answer, as the truth is, I don’t have favourites. Just as I don’t have a single favourite author, singer or a movie. When I travel, it’s the little things that excite me, like interesting local foods or a good conversation with new couch-surfing friends or monkey stealing my breakfast. Every single country I’ve been to has its bright side and its dark side. I love beaches and night life of Rio, but transport is expensive, city is overpopulated and dangerous. I love the natural wonders of Bolivia, but its cold out there, most places lack even the most basic infrastructure and people are often rude. For me its the sum of things, good and bad, that I experience during travels, that keeps me going, exploring and learning further. And this trip was no different.
For me travelling is like an education you can not get at university. I just spent 10 grand travelling, which is quite a lot of money. You can by a new car or put it towards down payment for a new mortgage, but I choose to invest it in travel as I believe in the long term, the experience and memories that I get from my travels will be much more valuable to me than things I can buy in the shop.
On the trip like this you realise just how little of the stuff you really need. I’ve been living out of 30 litre back pack, no mobile phone or TV and the truth is, I missed very little of the stuff left at home (stuff here refers to things only, not to friends and family who I missed dearly), things that make our daily lives comfortable. We surround ourselves with things that we feel are important, almost necessary to lead a decent life and then, when you don’t have them for a while, you realise just how irrelevant most of them are.
Ask me again in 3 months if I feel the same, I’ll probably be back in a rat race, acquiring and accumulating, comparing and consuming, thinking that my current philosophical approach is total bullocks. But then again, I’m only human.
