George's blog: Day 1 in Tasmania: morning


On board the JetStar flight

We have just had the largest Christmas lunch ever! It was huge.

Our first day in Tasmania seems a long time ago now and was very long! We woke up before 5am to get to the airport for the 7am flight. It was just as well that we got up so early as the queue to deposit the bags was already half way around the airport. The plan for the holiday was to explore the Tasman peninsula. This is the bit that sticks down on the East Coast. I'd heard that it was always raining and cloudy.

Our first view of the Ocean

We arrived in Hobart on time (it's a great landing between the hills and the coast) and picked up our incredibly small rental car (I liked the car by the end of the trip - our little Suzuki Swift didn't need refuelling for the entire trip) and somehow fitted our luggage into the boot. Then off we went to Eaglehawk neck. The weather was perfect.

It didn't take long to arrive at Eaglehawk neck and so we went straight off for a walk down to the Tessellated Pavement - "a rare erosional feature formed in flat sedimentary rock formations lying on some ocean shores". We also kept a good look out for animals and birds and ended up spotting a huge number of different birds (but no dolphins).

After walking around on the beach, we checked-in at our hotel (which had a view over the ocean) and then continued onto the Tasman Peninsula. We went past Doo Town which, with all the Du's in the car, was very apt (all the houses have "Doo" in their name) and went to see the blow hole (which wasn't blowing) and the spectacular cliffs.

Sha was starting to demand lunch by this point and didn't approve of the out-door Fish 'n' chips and so we drove off to find a nice fish restaurant!