Abandon Ship

We are Ridiculous! I don’t know how both of us managed to sleep through this, but we did. We woke up on the ferry in an absolute panic because the lights were on, everyone around us had cleared out already and the boat had docked in Devonport. We could hear announcements being made for specific people to return to their cars as cars were already driving off the boat. We frantically packed up our stuff and started running down the stairs, only to realize that we had failed to take note of what deck we left our car on. We ran by a door that was open and spotted Ted!

Everyone was in their vehicles waiting and just as we threw our stuff in the car and started the engine, the cars in front of us started to pull forwards. We were half asleep and couldn’t really comprehend what was going on. As we were driving off the ferry, we realized a few critical issues.
1. We still had a bag of fresh fruit/veg that we were supposed to eat for breakfast/leave on the boat because of strict quarantine restrictions in Tasmania.
2. We hadn’t picked up our LPG cylinder and we don’t know where to pick it up.
Needless to say, the quarantine officer was less than impressed with our bag of fruit we handed over, and then informed us we could pick up our propane tank ahead.

After that whole debacle, we were officially in Tasmania – and had no idea where to start, but we knew we had to end up in Hobart (on the other side of the state) to extend our VISAs before they expire in 3 days. We drove down the midland highway and satisfied our cravings for some scones at the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm. We drove a little further to Deloraine and stopped at 41° South Salmon Farm to sample some smoked Tasmania salmon. We entered the town of Launceston, but nothing was really open because it was a holiday. We visited the Cataract Gorge that is just minutes away from the town. We crossed the gorge via the suspension bridge, and then hiked along the edge of it to the old power station. It was a really beautiful gorge, but you can hardly call it a gorge compared to the ones we hiked through in Western Australia. On the way back, we saw a blue tongued lizard, which was cool because we haven’t seen one since we first moved here (we had seen one at the university).
We made a quick stop in Cambelltown because we saw these sculptures that had been carved out of massive tree trunks. Nearby, there was an old red bridge built in the early 1800’s, but I was more interested in feeding the ducks in the water below. I didn’t have any bread, but I think they enjoyed the rolled oats just as much.
We drove into Hobart late afternoon and took a walk around the harbour, the Salamanca Place and Battery Point. Again, it was a holiday and not much was happening, so we’ll have to come back to explore the shops tomorrow. It was a COLD night, perfect for a hot pot of chilli and beer. We met a Swiss couple who had been travelling Tasmania for the past 2 weeks, and they shared all of their favourite spots with us.