This is a brief account from my to Tasmania from March 26th to March 31st, 2005. We spent a day and a half in Hobart, the state's capital city (pop about 130,000) and then drove around for three days, one day to the Freycinet national park on the eastern coast and two days into the Cradle Mountains national park's southern end, near Lake Saint Clair.

After catching a morning flight to Hobart, we set off to explore the waterfront and surrounding neighborhoods by early afternoon. We trecked through quaint Salamanca Market, a Saturday marketplace for local produce, arts and crafts and food stalls, past Battery Point and through Runnymede back down to the water front, the University of Hobart School of Art exhibit, and then dinner, a large seafood one, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment considering the price we paid. This we compensated for by spending the evening sampling various Tasmanian white wines, which where generally great.

Initially we had intended to use this day for a treck/drive up to Mount Wellington and/or a boat ride to Port Arthur (Tasmania's oldest settlement - a prison.) However Sunday turned out to be quite foggy and rainy, so we continued casual activities in Hobart and planning our drive and hikes across the island from Monday through Wednesday.

Our first day on the road was blessed by sunshine which broke through mid-morning and stayed around all day. We drove up the eastern coast of Tasmania from Hobart to Coles Bay at the top end of the Freycinet Peninsula, a national park. First thing to get used to, after left-hand traffic, were the number of dead animals on the road. Mostly Wallabies, which are essentially small kangaroos, but occasionally birds, such as crows, that are feeding off the roadkill as well. The sad count for this Easter Monday was 44 dead animals, 4 of which birds - and I thought there was lots of roadkill on Quebec's roads.

After lodging into our cabin, essentially a well-equipped prefab motor home w/out motor or wheels, we decided to start the week with a moderate hike through the park. The chief attraction of the Freycinet peninsula was clearly Wineglass Bay and its long stretch of sandy white beach. The seven kilometer hike climbs about 200 metres over a pink granite hillside and back. At the top, the view of the bay is fantastic - the beach itself is white as sand gets and the water a pristine calm blue. Longer walks sounded enticing, but given our ambitious three-day hiking schedule, the short option sounded wisest.

At night, after cooking outselves a well-deserved steak dinner, we were rewarded by a clear sky with deep orange sunset over Oyster Bay, which flanks the peninsula on the other side from Wineglass Bay.

Day Two of our overland drive started early, since this was the longest stretch of driving and we wanted to get a solid two days of hiking at our destination, Cradle Mountain national park. The park has been a UNESCO World Heritage area for some years, thanks to the ambitions of Gustav Weindorfer, an Austrian-Australian who settled there an the early 20th century and spent much time fighting for the parks preservation.

We arrived at Derwent Bridge on the edge of the park (there are not settlements within the park, obviously) early afternoon. Our lodge was a giant log cabin hotel with a humongous fireplace, which unfortunately never got lit. The lunch menu featured Wallaby, but I had been busy not hitting them while driving, so I decided not to endulge. After lunch, we headed for the park, and picked the 13 kilometer hike to Shadow and Forgotten Lakes, which climbs over roughly 300 meters, though subtropical rainforest at first, then subalpine marshlands. While there wasn't much of a panoramic view from the lakes (they both lie at around 990 meters, while the surrounding peaks are between 1200 and 1600 meters,) the view was serene and the highland eucalyptus forests made it worth the hike. We paced ourselves well but made our way back timely before sunset.

We left the toughest for last and decided to climb up one of the areas' tallests peaks, Mount Rufus, which stands roughly 1450 meters above sea level. The hike featured a 700 meter climb over just under eight kilometers (one way), and since we had little hiking practice other than the last two days (which we started to feel) we had to plan well and pace ourselves. The climb, like the one the day before, started through rainforests and subalpine marshes, eventually ended in a higher, dryer climate above the treeline, mostly rubble littered with heather and shrubs. At the top we had lunch. Coming down took a bit of a toll on my knees, but we got back in time to drive to Hobart in daylight (the roads seemed to have been cleaned the night before, so the dead animals had disappeared, though the hordes of crows by the side of the road were still lurking.)

That's a dead Wallaby every six kilometers. The Tasmanian Department for Infrastructure cites 24,000km of paved roads in the state, meaning around 3800 dead Wallabies at any given time. Drive safely, Tassies!