TasMANIA Day 3

Up and out of the cabin in record time this morning, considering that there's 6 of us to get moving actually being on time for things is an accomplishment! First mission of the day was to find somewhere to breakfast, because turns out our makeshift dinner form the night before really wasn't filling come morning time. We decided to suck it up and wait for a slightly bigger town called Sheffield (much to the Brits delight) that was about 40 minutes away. After touring the quaint little town nestled in between mountains (really was a beautiful place) we settled on getting some pretty awesome food from a little window in the convenience store. The random places always seem to have the best food it seems. 

From there is was off to Launceston for a bit of a day trip to split our very long drive in half. One of the bigger cities in Tasmania meant there was quite a few things to do! We somehow failed at finding the "Batman Bridge" despite being at the exact spot the map said it was. Who knew a massive bridge could manage to hide somewhere? We decided instead to head up the the basin and tour around there for a bit. A ride on the chairlift over it was definitely in order, such a cute little thing with a great view! Did a little nature walk after that and explored around the basin, saw everything from a mama and baby wallaby (smaller version of a kangaroo) to a bunch of live peacocks roaming around.

Definitely a little bit worrying dangling over the water on such a rickety little chair!

Best thing ever - see the little joey tucked inside the mama's pocket?! Eeep so cute :D

After that it was time to hit the road again! Good thing we had such a nice car because we sure spent a lot of time in it. We were making our way to the Bay of Fires on the east coast to spend the night. Turns out the drive there was even more of an adventure than the one the day before! Apparently crazy skinny, winding switchbacks are a common thing in Tasmania. And it started pouring rain so all the roads were slippery. That's a drive that I don't particularly want to do again. Finally made it to St. Helens (town right by the Bay of Fires) quite a few hours later because the rain really slowed us down. We were renting camping gear from a hostel there so we needed to pick that up and set everything up before dark. Campgrounds were surprisingly farther than expected and also full of people, so it was quite an adventure to find one far away from everyone that was still sheltered from the wind (there was a massive storm about to roll through). We ended up lucking out on a site about 10 steps away from out own private beach - definitely one of the nicest places I've ever camped at. Made up for the fact that we had old school canvas tents to sleep in and it was raining for the entire night from the minute we started setting up! Thankfully we had thought of picking up a tarp so we set that up over the campfire to have a makeshift shelter to cook and eat under. Have to say that everything tastes better cooked over a campfire, and despite the rain it was tons of fun!

Irony was that I was the only girl, and the most experienced camper. So the fire for cooking was my job and I think I did quite well!

We did have a little scare though of hearing bushes rustling all of a sudden right next to us, in the pitch black. Turns out it was a Tasmania devil! Apparently it's almost impossible to see them because of a disease that's been killing them off there so we were incredibly lucky. It was however a little too close for comfort, because they can be very aggressive, and we had a bunch of food that it probably very much wanted to eat. Needless to say everyone was a little afraid of venturing into the bush for a pee before bedtime…