Saturday, October 5, 2013

Spring break Part 1

I had a really nice time in Tasmania relaxing and enjoying Australia!

Day 1

I planned the  trip with another American girl, Peyton. We met during Welcome Week and always seemed to run into each other on the street randomly. Most of my other friends went up to the Gold Coast, so it was perfect when Peyton mentioned she wanted to go to Tasmania.
I didn’t have any class on Friday, so we flew out that morning at around 8 am. Peyton and I flew into Launceston Airport and it was beautiful outside! We stayed at Launceston Backpackers. This was my first time staying in a hostel and it was really nice! We were put in a 6 bunk room. When we arrived, there was no one in the HUGE room! After putting out stuff down we decided to walk around the city for the rest of the day.
We headed more into the city center and walked around to see the Town Clock, the umbrella store, the general area…I had a really nice coffee at this place called Coffee Republic. From there, we walked to Royal Park. There was a nice view of the North Esk River.
Royal Park in Launceston

We also went to City Park, which had a nice greenhouse and cute monkeys!
In the greenhouse!




When we got back to the hostel we met another girl staying in our room, Susan, from Germany. She is also our age and is working in Melbourne. We were both really tired that night so we went to sleep early because our tour started the next day!
Day 2
Peyton and I signed up for a 4 day Tasmania tour through Lost in Australia! We left the hostel in the morning to go to Cradle Valley. We first stopped in Sheffield, the “town of murals,” to take a look at some of their ____ …yes you guessed it MURALS!
One of my favorite murals
After looking at the murals, we stopped briefly at a cafe. I grabbed a vegetarian and beef pie while I was there, one to eat for breakfast and one for later. The pies were so good…for the rest of the trip I tried savory pies at the local bakeries.
From there, we made our way to Cradle Valley. We stopped on the way up because our driver spotted a wombat in the WILD. COOL!

When we arrived at Cradle Mountain National Park, I was surprised at how cold it was! There was snow! WOAH! Our group split up when we stopped at Dove Lake. A little over half wanted to take the trail around the lake, while five of us decided to hike to Marion’s Lookout, overlooking Dove Lake. 

The trail was really beautiful, but it started getting SO COLD. In addition, it was kind of rainy outside and most of the time the trail was watery. It was like walking in a small creek…water was gushing down the stairs. At one point, it started snowing on us and closer to the top of the lookout it was REALLY WINDY and we were pelted by snow.
Part of the trail...so snowy already!

This all sounds super dramatic and it was actually really fun and cool! It was awesome to make it to the top, even though it was cloudy and you couldn’t really see Cradle Mountain.

On the way back to the hostel, we stopped at this raspberry farm in Elizabeth Town. Susan and I shared a raspberry waffle and both ordered raspberry hot chocolates. This was definitely one of the best dishes of the entire trip.


Time to get back to work! I'll tell you m ore about the trip later. I can't believe spring break is almost over!
Stephanie

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