Saturday, May 16, 2009

Day Three of Tasmania Trip (23rd December 2008)

Woke up at 7.30am. Ants in the toilet, had gone there barefooted... hahaha~! Went down to the kitchen. Had coffee and egg sandwiches for breakfast. Pulled out pillow cases and bedsheets and check out from the backpackers.

Reached Richmond at 9am. According to our broucher, it says it's the oldest town around. Walked into a woodcraft shop. There, we were told that there were some trees that only grow in Australia; Blackwood and Sassafrass for example.
The roads in Richmond was pretty quiet...
We drove to see one of the oldest Catholic Church. [read notes] oh wait, it is the oldest church in Australia. You'll excuse me if I say that the church was very simple indeed... Nothing like the renaissance-gothic style of church that I like. You'll forgive me for not knowing the name of the style... hahahha~!
There was however this lovely tree outside the church...
Anyway, went to the Richmond Bridge.
As you can see, we fed the ducks, seagulls and sparrows with some bread. Mum suddenly reminded me of the Goose Girl. XD hehehe~! We later headed off to Campania... Let me say it was a long drive (thank goodness I was napping behind). Apparently in my nap, we past Swansea. [shrugs]
We arrived at Freycinet National Park, the lookout point was lovely. To gain access into the National Park was interesting. I'll start by saying that we were technically in the middle of nowhere... there was this little wooden building. It's a self-service sort of thing. You take the car sticker from the envelope and stick in the car, you put money into the envelope and put in into the box. People are trusted to be honest.

The day pass was about aud22.
Anyway, we are honest people. And we got to this beach... Friendly Beach. I kid you not, it's named that. I raised my eyebrow when dad said the name of the beach...
The lookout point was so beautiful that we quickly made our way to...
The beach itself~!

I would have frolicked happily in the beach...
But it was terribly windy and really very chilly.
Initially we wanted to eat our lunch out at the beach but it really was so cold that we ate near our car... It was so funny that we were more or less huddled in spots that weren't windy...

(The corn was so sweet that you've probably never tasted one as sweet as the one we did, hotdogs, egg sandwiches + zucchini, peach, apricot, boiled cauliflower)

We did meet some wild bush animals; above is a wallaby. So yea, wallabies (2 playful ones), porcupine, gila monster
It was a lovely drive down. I think that's Cradle Mt in the distance there.
Passing by Coles Bay (I think that where this was). I got daddykins to stop the camera for me to take some photos.
We were heading to Wineglass Bay lookout... though along the way, we did stop at this ermmm camping areas...
Yea, you get to rent campsite area that has direct access to the beach. We stopped at one of the areas. Ok, we technically took a wrong turn. Hahahah~! But seriously, it's like getting your very own private beach...
Anyway, back to Wineglass Bay lookout... Don't mind me, I tend to go snap-crazy when I see wild animals...
They were close enough to touch...
Though I didn't since they said not to (since it's wild and all)
Right, just to get to the lookout....
We had to take this tedious, uphill sandy walk up. It took us 45 minutes to walk just to the lookout...
It was no joke man... Of course, there were signs that gave the estimate time of the walks. Plus advice like wearing good shoes and having bottles of water, use hat and sunscreen...
You know... that sort of thing. The 45 minutes was a killer... and that was just to the lookout...
But it was a lovely view. It looked like a wineglass which holds blue cocktail with green / yellow in the bowl of the wineglass. To take this shot, I had to stand as far back as I could and tilt the camera (like duh~!). Of course, the shape would have been more obvious if we had taken the helicopter trip but.... yea, we're not the kind to spend money like that.
Anyways, then began the walk down... bleh. We took the boulderpass instead of the scenic route we took (where we could see coles bay lookout, richardson beach) thinking it was shorter... I believe it was longer... I had slipped twice on the slippery sands. Nothing serious, just scrapes on the right arm but we did make it down by 4.30pm... (think we started at 2.40pm)

Spotted this Brunnett Wallaby in the bush.

We made a quick stop to the lodge nearby; Freycinet Lodge. Lovely pier and stuff. Drove towards Laucester (4.53pm). I took over the driving for a while and then napped some more after someone else took over the driving. hahaha~! Drove to Perth (Haha, not that Perth we all know and love, but rather there's another Perth down in Tasmania, as well as a Richmond)
Reached Laucester backpackers. It was certainly an upgrade from Pickled Frog. A room to ourselves, no creaking floorboards, no shaky beds, no ant-infested floors, spacious rooms, clean kitchen. We paid aud22 per person per night for this triple bedroom. Note it's still a single room.

Anyway, we showered and hanged our clothes out to dry. Walked to a Shanghai Restaurant for dinner. Had fried rice, small charsiew and Mongolian lamb. Dinner was fabulous, though it did come up to aud60+

After dinner, we went to Coles to buy groceries. We went back to the room and dropped off the groceries... And made our way to the Country Club.... Casino. hahahha. Random; Mum and I aren't happy to drive at night... so dad normally drives at night plus in the city. XD the directions to the casino on the broucher wasn't clear so we made a big u-turn before getting here... it was smaller than Wrest Point (only 3 tables; 2 blackjack and 1 roulette table). No luck for me... hahaha we arrived back at the room at 12.47am and slept.