Fishers Point Walk, part two
Recap. Best walk ever, along the coast in Tasmania, as far as south as you can go. Part one is here. There was a giant pile of rocks at the end of the walk. It begged to be climbed. 
We walked around the bend, both of us girls had our gorgeous pink laces on. 
We were greeted with a beautiful scene of lichen-covered rocks. And a fairy house or two. 
I do try to convince the kids they are fairy houses. They humour me by at least calling them by the same name. 
The kids commenced exploring. Plenty of tide pools to examine. 
I’m not sure I can call this a fairy house. We’re told this is part of a fishing boat. 
It would have been nice to walk to that next point but it would have added too much to our walk that day. 
So beautiful! 
On our way back we followed the path to the ruins of the pilots station. 
This is a pant-a-log. In case you were wondering. We keep an eye out for these wherever we go after seeing them months ago at the Sawpit Camping Area in Victoria. LadyBug gets the credit for the name. 
A whaler’s grave. A man who was also doing this walk told us that a grave for a whaler is rare, usually they were ‘buried’ at sea. I don’t know how true that is, but it was interesting to see. Much whaling occurred in this area. The whale population is still recovering. 
The kids had been begging to put their feet in the water so we told them they could on the return trip. The water was cold! 
We found numerous shells with perfect round holes on them. I read somewhere this is due to snails. They inject something into the shell which dissolves it so they can slurp up the contents inside. 
Did I mention this was the best walk ever? 
On the way home we saw these big ferns. At the time we thought they were big, anyway. Later walks in Tasmania showed us we were wrong, these aren’t that big in comparison! 
Here we go down the dirt road again for the long drive back. So worth it. 
We were advised by another family that the kids wouldn’t enjoy our trip to Cockle Creek since there’s not much to do there. A long drive from Snug for a quick look. They recommended some other activities. I think what they meant is that their kids wouldn’t enjoy it. We all had a lovely time, truly this was one of the most beautiful walks we’ve ever done. Such tranquility walking along the beach and so much to explore. There was another walk which would have taken us in a southwest direction to the coast. I would have loved to do that, but it was something like a five hour return. Not enough time in the day what with the car ride and the extra time it takes to hike with young kids. We definitely plan to return to Tasmania at some point when the kids are older, I hope to do the other walk then!
FIshers POint Walk, part one
Whoever has been hiking with young kids knows that the time estimates don’t apply. I’m not sure how long this walk was for us, but it was definitely more than two hours. 
We really didn’t know what to expect as we set off. I was a bit afraid of getting eaten by mosquitoes as there had been many at the carpark. We started off on this somewhat narrow trail through the bush. 
It very quickly led to the beach. We were surprised to find that this walk goes right along the beach in many places. Best. walk. ever. 
More rocks than sand in some places. The trail weaved in and out and over whatever was there. 
It was absolutely stunning. The weather was perfect. 
Finally the path strayed from the coast. 
When we again emerged we found ourselves scrambling (carefully) over the rocky coastline. 
At the end was this rather nondescript pole. Probably a light, I don’t remember for sure. Perfect place for a snack before exploring. 
I have so many pictures from this walk I’ll have to do a second post!
The End of the Road: Cockle Creek, Tasmania
While we were staying in Snug (just south of Hobart) we made the drive down to Cockle Creek. We couldn’t come this close and not drive as far south as possible. I was a little nervous when we turned on the GPS and it said we were three and a half hours away! That’s a lot of car time with kids, especially a toddler. 
This is where we were headed. It’s as far south as you can drive in Tasmania. (Can you see the red marker? I hope it shows up for everyone else and not just me!) The drive was beautiful. Have I mentioned Tasmania is amazing? It’s amazing. 
The last twenty kilometres or so are dirt road. Some of it’s smooth. Some of it’s not. 
But when you emerge from the bush you find this. With camping spots nearby. Since it was a long weekend there were quite a few campers. 
Thankfully our GPS was wrong, our drive was probably two and a half hours. Still a lot of car time for one day. So what’s at the very end of the road? This. 
And this. A sign telling you that, yes, you have indeed reached the end of the road. According to this sign we were closer to Antarctica than Cairns. Cool. It also lists the north, east, and west points in Australia. I hope we make it to all of them. 
What else was at the end of the road? Why, a whale sculpture of course! 
Okay, make silly faces now. TurboBug doesn’t quite get that yet. 
Somehow I missed (until now that I’m reading it in this picture) that this sculpture is of a life-sized three-month old southern right whale. Wow. 
We decided to do the walk to Fishers Point. Officially the best walk ever. 
Too many pictures to put in this post, so I’ll save it for the next one!
Hobart, Tasmania: Mt Wellington
Another road sign to add to my collection! This wombat sign was somewhere between Dunalley on the Tasman Peninsula and Hobart. 
Our drive into Hobart included not just one bridge… 
Not just two bridges… 
But three, yes, three bridges! Okay, the first two were causeways. The last one is the Tasman Bridge. 
Here’s a glimpse of Hobart as we were crossing the Tasman Bridge over the Derwent River. Hobart is so picturesque. Tasmania only has about 500,000 people and half of them live in Hobart. And it looks like every single one of them must have a great view. 
Our first trip through Hobart was a quick one, just driving through on our way to our next stay- a caravan park in Snug. It was a long holiday weekend (Labour Day) so we decided to book in rather than fight the masses for a camping spot somewhere. Here’s another view of the bridge the next day as we headed back into Hobart to visit Mount Wellington. 
This mountain has a lovely feature: a road that goes all the way to the peak!!! The road was windy and pretty steep in places. It was so interesting to see the vegetation change as we climbed. From tall trees to very short trees to no trees. 
It was cloudy and cold at the top. We were lucky that it wasn’t too cloudy, we still had great views. 
Thankfully there is an enclosed structure as well as outdoor viewing platforms. We weren’t exactly dressed for this. It had been quite warm at our campsite that morning. We were all in shorts and some of us didn’t even have jackets. You’d think I’d know better, being from Utah and all. 
The views were spectacular. We were nearly touching the bottom of the clouds. I took some pictures from inside first before braving the cold wind on the platform below. See how they’re all wearing jackets? And hats? Ooops. 
The information posters inside had some great um, information. I didn’t know about the Tasman Bridge disaster back in the 70s. 
We moved outside and found that the first viewing platform sheltered us from the wind some, so it wasn’t nearly as cold as I thought it would be. 
I have a gazillion pictures like those above. Just spectacular. 
The lower platform was not as sheltered so it was freezing! We didn’t stay there long. 
The clouds cleared up again as we were leaving. This is the same transmitter tower that was covered in clouds at the beginning of this post. 
According to this plaque the road was opened in 1937! 
It looks like the road took a few years to build. Whenever we are on one of these steep, windy roads or trails I always wonder about the people who built them. 
What a cute kid. He had his hat but not a jacket so he stole Sean’s vest. 
Brothers. Aren’t they cute? 
Their sister came running to be in the picture too. She didn’t have her jacket either. Poor Dad ended up going without. 
There’s a better shot of the tower as we were leaving the parking area. 
This sign says 1270 metres above sea level. That’s 4,166 feet for those who are metric-challenged. 
More pictures of the vegetation or lack thereof… 
We saw heaps of these Moke cars heading up the road as we were coming down. All different colours, even pink and purple. We’d seen them the day before on the Tasman Peninsula. I looked it up later and there was a get together for Moke owners over the Labour Day weekend. We saw at least a couple of dozen headed up the mountain as we were coming down. 
After we came down the mountain we drove around Hobart a bit. You can just make out the viewing structure and the towers in this picture. If we’d been a bit more prepared we could have done a walk or two, there were some that sounded perfect for families. 
On the way back to Snug we stopped in Margate to visit the old train that has been converted into some shops. You can still climb in the engine which the kids were thrilled to do. TurboBug loooooves trains right now so we had to make the stop. 
See all the train cars lined up behind the engine? They’ve been converted into shops. Great use for an old train, making it a tourist stop. We only went in a couple of the shops as everything was closing up for the day. One of those was a lolly shop. We may have indulged in a treat or two. 
The Tasman Peninsula
A few minutes south of the Tessellated Pavement is a blowhole which I believe is part of the Tasman National Park. It turned out to be a popular spot, so popular that there’s even a fish and chips spot there. This is actually away from the beach, the water has tunnelled through and apparently you can see the water reach up to eight metres. Not so much on the day we went. 
The view looking out to the ocean, see how far we are from the water? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a blowhole away from the water like this one. 
While we were waiting for more waves the kids entertained themselves. 
Next we made our way down to the Tasman Arch and the Devil’s Kitchen lookouts. There were several lookouts all in the same area, and unfortunately I don’t remember what these first few pictures are. 
This is the Tasman Arch. It seems to be shaped like Tasmania, just like the Remarkable Cave. 
And here’s our favourite koala… 
More gorgeous Tasmanian coastline! 
And a cute toddler who really enjoyed the puddles. 
This is the Devil’s Kitchen, which is impossible to get a good picture of, or even see very well. 
But the view looking the other way is nice. 
We pretty much had to stop at every puddle! What a cutie. We were nearly overrun by school kids at these lookouts, plenty who were clearly not interested in what they were seeing. We’d just get ahead of them but in our lingering over the views they’d catch up to us every time. 
You can tell by the way we were dressed that our time on the Tasman Peninsula was a bit cold! By this time it was officially autumn and our beach days were over.
Tessellated Pavement on the Tasman Peninsula
So as we journey around Australia I’m going to try to get pictures of the various wildlife road signs. First in my collection is the Tasmanian Devil. Which, of course, I could only get while we were in Tasmania. 
During our stay on the Tasman Peninsula we made it to a few sites to have a look. This is another gorgeous Tassie beach near, this one near the Tessellated Pavement State Reserve. (I didn’t know it was a State Reserve until I looked back at the pictures.) The Tasman Peninsula comes together in an isthmus and this beach is part of that. 
Here’s a map that shows where we were. Port Arthur is further south. Eaglehawk Neck is the isthmus, and it was heavily guarded when the prison was active. It’s famous for having a dog line, meaning a line of dogs to stop convicts trying to escape on foot. I won’t go into any more detail than that. I don’t want to know. Driving by you can see a dog statue, but we never stopped to see it. We had some cute kids along with us, like we do most days. I mean every day. 
Look at this amazing rock formation! The saying goes that no straight lines are found in nature, but I definitely saw some here. This type of formations is rare. Here’s a webpage with some beautiful pictures and great info on the rock formations if you’re interested. I’m just going to show you our pictures. 
These are called loaves, see how the sides are curved? They almost look like loaves of bread lined up next to each other. 
JitterBug is hilarious sometimes. 🙂 
The view from above. From the carpark it’s a short walk down. Look at those straight lines! It’s amazing. 
