We drove to Katoomba at night and, just like the last time I visited, there was a tremendous fog. I have never gripped the steering wheel so tightly before. Neither have my eyes been opened so wide. Gosh, the drive there really fried my nerves (and I'm the only driver, since Yao's parents accidently brought her license back to Singapore, and Lee forgot to bring his). Visibility was like 100 m and perhaps slightly more, and I still never figured out how those truck drivers can still zoom past us at 100 km/h.
In any case, we reached Katoomba safely and the canyoning trip was superb! It comprises an hour long trek through the forest (led by guides of course) to the canyon, abseil our way down to the bottom, wading through rivers and finally an hour trek back up. Some of the abseil points were pretty challenging, having require us to abseil down a waterfall. It wasn't as tough as it might sound; the only difficulty is the slippery rocks.
Then early next morning we had to drive back to Sydney to catch a flight to Hobart. Despite being the capital city of Tasmania, Hobart is pretty small, very much like Canberra.
The first day there was spent lazing around the CBD area, and we had a nice seafood lunch (which was rather cheap, by the way) at Mures. That was the first time in a long while since I had fresh and good seafood.
The Queen Elizabeth Harbour there presented an excellent view at the evenings, with the yatchs and jetties and warehouse buildings.
But just like Canberra, Hobart fell silent after nightfall, and we pretty much did nothing that night. We had a wonderful Indian dinner at a restaurant called Taj Palace. They served brilliant food and, surprisingly, it was spicy, which suited the chilly weather. Above all, the food tasted authentic. And to our surprise, the owners were Singaporeans.
The next day was a very taxing day of whitewater rafting in Derwent River. We initially wanted to go for Picton River, which was rougher and hence more fun than Derwent, but the prolonged drought which Australia has been suffering for years left the water level too low for rafting, and the rain which came the day before failed to alleviate the situation. Indeed, Derwent was tamer than we had wanted it to be, but we did, along with the guides, some pretty crazy stuff that made it bumpier than it usually is, such as stacking two rafts together.
And needless to say, we were all worn out by the time it ended in the afternoon, and it was a comfortable rest for the evening and night at Adelphi Court YHA in Hobart (which was rather homely).
The following day we rented a car and headed southwards to Tahune Nature Reserve, which featured the Tahune Airwalk, a treetop walk through the rainforest.
Admittedly, it was rather disappointing, and our rather packed schedule left us with too little time to enjoy the sights. There were other trails which we could walk, and I believe they have nice scenery as well, but time is not on our side.
Then we headed down to Hasting Caves just nearby. If I recall correctly, Hasting Caves is one of the oldest caves in the world. And this wasn't a letdown. We managed to catch the last tour just in time, and went through the formidable beauty of the caves. Given the low lighting, it was no surprise that most of the photos turned out poorly, but a few came out rather well.
In the morning the next day we drove up Mt. Wellington, a mountain just behind Hobart and is always visible from many parts of the city. With the peak at 1270 m above sea level, it was madly cold up there, and the wind chill made it particularly bad.
I even had trouble taking photos because my hands were freezing up. In fact, when we reached the summit, there were frost along the corner of a wooden broadwalk, which is quite something considering that we were approaching summer. Nonetheless, it was sure great up there, with the wind and all, and a stunning view of Hobart.
And just before we left, a very fine hail started coming. Coupled with the strong wind, it was nastily painful. Fortunately, the ice pieces were very small.
In the afternoon we had the Bonorong Wildlife Park on our schedule. A 30 min drive from Hobart, it had a diverse collection of native animals such as kangeroos, wallabies, cockatoos, koalas, and my favourite, wombats, and, of course, Tasmanian devils.
As with most wildlife parks, we can feed the kangeroos and wallabies. Despite being so common, they are always the main attractions, and it was evident that these domesticated kangeroos and wallabies were spoilt. When they wanted feeding, they would glance at us and nodded their heads, and we can grab some feed in your hands and they'd messily feast on them. But we have to approach them: they're too lazy to come up to us to take the food.
I kinda wished I could hug one of the wombats they have there, but usually that is not allowed as wombats can get aggressive despite their docile appearance, and their bites can penetrate very deeply.
They also had some animals which weren't so common in other wildlife parks, such as echidnas and tawny frogmouths.
They also had a sulphur-crested cockatoo which could say "hello". That's something new for me, as I've always thought that cockatoos did not have the appropriate vocal cords to imitate human speech.
The next morning we spent a little time at a shopping district called Salamanca Place, before visiting the famous Cadbury Chocolate Factory at noon. We were given a tour around the factory, which was pretty amazing watching the sheer amount of chocolate being manufactured there. Not only that, the whole place smelled heavily of chocolate, which was quite heavenly to us visitors. All in all it was a very great visit; the only regret was not purchasing more chocolate from their shop there, where they sell their products at nearly half the retail price. They also had some exotic and new flavours, such as the Cadbury Old Gold Flake (I don't even see the normal Cadbury Flake in Singapore) and their 70% cocoa Old Gold (which was perfect, in my opinion).
Then we drove hours north to a small town called Bicheno. It was evening by then, which means, especially for a small town, there's nothing much we can do. However, Bicheno featured Fairy Penguins, and we paid for a tour that night to see them. In my opinion, it was better than the Penguin Parade I visited at Phillip Island, as we get to be closer to the penguins here, and we were allowed to take photographs so long as the flash was suppressed.
Since Bicheno is the most eastern town in Tasmania, right by the ocean, it seemed natural that we should watch the sunrise. Though the horizon was partially obscured by clouds, it was nonetheless a beauty when the clouds glowed orange in response to the rising sun. The spot we were at also featured a blowhole, and at times it can shoot up jets quite high up.
Then later, we headed towards the Freycinet Nature Reserve. Following an hour trek through the mountain path, we reached Wineglass Bay Lookout, where we could see the fabulous bay.
It took us nearly another hour to go down, and after a couple of hours there we had to trek all the way back, which wasn't too bad since there was some cool wind and shade from the intense sunlight.
After that we visited a few minor places along the way, but it was pretty much the end of our highly profitable road trip in Tasmania. Personally, being the only driver, I was quite glad that I was not involved in any road kills. The road kills in Tasmania was pretty bad, to be honest, with corpses of Tasmanian devils and possums appearing on the highways quite frequently.
So, now I'm back in Canberra to settle the backlog of administrative stuff piling up like Mt. Wellington.
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