Tasmania Part 3

This has taken me way too long to post, but I finally had some down time. These are pretty much my coolest pictures from my entire trip. Enough excuses, here is what I had to say a few weeks ago:

Sunday:

I got up bright and early, eager for my Wine Glass Bay cruise tour. I drove down to the meeting place which was only about 1 mile from where I was staying. It was much calmer than the night before, but it was still pretty windy and the cruise got canceled. I was disappointed that it was canceled, but I was quickly reminded of how sick I felt while on the boat in Cairns...and then I was glad that I wouldn't be experiencing that again.

The tour was going to take up the majority of my day so it was the only thing that I booked...but now I had nothing. So I jumped in the car, stopped at a cafe for some breakfast, and then headed to the national park. I talked to the lady at the information center and she told me that if I had the entire day open, that I should do the entire 11km hike. Feeling very optimistic and over confident as usual, I agreed. I quickly stopped at a few beaches and observation decks for a picture or two, but then I headed to Wine Glass bay. The way the Freycinet nation park is set up is that you have to park pretty far away from the actual beaches. Basically they just have a bunch of hiking paths which all end up at some beaches...but not just any beaches, the most beautiful beaches ever.












I was a little out of place when I showed up at the park entrance. Everyone was wearing very outdoors gear...like boots, windbreakers, huge backpacks, canteens, walking sticks...etc. I was wearing the same baggy blue jeans I wear all the time, my New Balance classics, a rugby jersey, and I had my Brooks track and field backpack. Whatever. I also had a sandwich and two bottles of water.
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So I started my hike. The first sign said 40mins to the Wine Glass bay look out...and it also gave recommendations about the other trails. I had nothing else to do all day, so I wanted to do the long one. The sign showed the trial I wanted to follow...and it said something about it being “difficult” and for “experienced” hikers. Haha, what I joke, don't they know who I am? I was a division 1 athlete, this is going to be easy. *Severe over confidence alert

I got on my way. The first couple hundred meters were pretty tiring, but had some great views of Coles Bay. I was moving at a really good pace and I made it to the look out in 25 mins...15 mins faster than the sign said. This particular look out was definitely the highlight of the day. Stunning. I took a ton of pictures because I was paranoid that maybe they weren't coming out. I decided to take a few minutes and soak in the view, so I stuck around and ate half my sandwich while talking to a couple from Canada and another from New Zealand.









I then started my trek down to the beach. It was really steep and way more effort than I expected. I was pretty tired, but I made sure not to show “poopy face”...especially while other people were around. When I finally made it to sea level I started to run into a few wallabies. They had no fear of humans so you could walk right up to them. The beach was beautiful so I decided to take yet another break and have the other half of my sandwich. Again, I took a ton of pictures.













After a half hour or so I decided to get moving on my long journey. I walked through the woods for about 30 or 40 mins and then I hit another beach. At this point I thought I was about half done with the hike...way way wrong. It took me another 25 mins to walk down the beach before picking up on the trail. About 15 minutes later I saw a sign that said the end of this particualr trail was 2 hours away. I didn't have anything else to do all day, but at this point I was pretty tired and only had half a bottle of water left.












I kept on going, stopping less and less to take pictures because I just wanted to get back to my car. I finished all my water when I figured I had an hour to go. I hadn't seen anyone else on the trail for over an hour. I wasn't worried, but I was starting to regret choosing the longest hike. I guess I figured that if McDougal can run a 10k in under 30 minutes easy, I should be able to hike a slow 11k without any problems. Turns out that there were a few errors in logic when thinking like that. 1) Josh is an NCAA cross country champion, I am an NCAA fat kid thrower. 2) Hiking doesn't imply flat easy trails. 3) I never actually walked or ran anywhere close to 11km...so I have no concept of how far it really is.







At one point I decided that if the trail didn't end in the next 15 minutes, I was going to need water really bad. Like stop the next person I saw and ask them for their water...or knock them out and just take it. Survival of the fittest right? Well luckily for the rest of the hikers, the trial ended, I got my water and found my car. I forget exactly what time it was, but I decided to start heading back to Hobart since I was already tired and I had a 2 and ½ hour drive.

I got back to the Old Woolstore and decided to keep the car instead of returning it. I packed it in early since I had a few more tours the next day before returning to Sydney.

Monday

There is a huge mountain in Hobart called Mt. Wellington. I got picked up by a downhill mountain biking company who drove about 20 of us to the top of the mountain. At sea level I was wearing a t-shirt and shirts. At the top of the mountain, where we started, there was snow on the ground and it was freaking windy. I had a sweater with me and they also had some gloves and stiff to had out. Turns out we covered over 22km, but it was all down hill so we didn't have to pedal once. It was for sure one of the best tours of the weekend. They actually took us through some pretty fast and rocky paths, I was surprised...I almost crashed a few times....mostly because they told us to go slow, which I thought meant go fast.

After the sweet bike ride, I went on a short kayaking tour which was weak...pronanny at best:) The rest of the day was spent walking around the city trying to see as many things as I could before leaving. All in all the trip was a blast and I'll never forget it. I would definitely go back and recommend it to others. I really would like to hit a few more of their mountain biking trails and then spend a few more nights in Freycinet. Anyway, I ended up making back to Sydney in one piece, with lots of cool experiences and a ton of pictures.