Tasmania: Sunny days

Saturday 12.5: Cameron had told us to go to the Hobart Saturday Market, so we walked to the old part of the town. They were selling a bunch of stuff: vegetables & fruit, souvenirs, fudge, jewellery and all kinds of Tasmanian made things. We spent a couple of hours just walking around. I bought a Dutch ollieboll, which was delicious :P I also got a piece of this really thin fruit thing. After walking back from the market we started driving along Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National park and did three short walks there. We saw rainforest, a hanging bridge and a waterfall, but nothing really special. We decided to drive to Cradle Mountains to spend the night. We didn´t arrive there until at 8pm, when the only backpackers place didn´t have any cheap rooms left anymore. So we had to take this cousy cabin, which was so luxurous! There were two bedrooms, an electric fireplace, TV with satellite channels, nice kitchen facilities and even a spa :) We watched a document about the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki. It was weird but really nice hearing Finnish! Till and I cooked a meal with noodles, tuna and vegetables, and we spent the rest of the night watching a movie. On our way Madeleine had received a sad phonecall. Her grandpa had died and she had to make a decision about whether to fly to Holland for his funeral. Her dad got her a flight leaving on Wednesday, so she´s in Holland now.

Hobart Saturday Market

Hanging bridge

Waterfall at Nelson River

In the rainforest

Sunday 13.5: We woke up pretty early. Even though the cabin was so luxurous, it was cold in our room during the night. I slept on a douple bed with Madeleine and she kept pulling the blanket to herself. Me, being half asleep, just kept wondering how the blanket was getting smaller and smaller lol. We watched a movie before heading to the visitor centre. There were plenty of hiking options in the Cradle Mountain National Park. We decided to go for Marions Lookout walk, that took 4 hours. We climbed as high as 1250m from sea level, which was proper exercise. It was worth it, since the view up there was just beautiful! We were again really lucky with weather. According to Lonely Planet (Till´s German one; both Carla and Madeleine had forgotten to bring theirs) it´s sunny only 1 out of 10 days at Cradle Mountains. The sun was shining the whole day :D Our walk began with intensive climbing up the mountain, followed by a flat and rather wet part. We finished with downhill, which was annoying. Even though it´s more work going uphill I definately prefer it. Denise completed almost the whole walk carrying a present from Till: She carried this rock with her and got an ice cream as a price.

A view from Marions Lookout

Mountains

After finishing the walk we drove to Launceston, which is one of the biggest towns in Tasmania. On our way there we stopped to buy strawberries from this farm. They didn´t have fully ripe strawberries, but I got a box of half-ripe ones for free. The farmer and his two daughters were really friendly, giving the strawberries and even inviting us to have a hot drink with them. We didn´t stay for drinks, though, but drove to Launceston and booked a hostel. I met this Finnish man there! He had just moved to Tasmania with his wife and little son. We had a good chat about differences between Finland and Australia, including questioning their house building skills (some houses aren´t build that well here). He also told me about this plan to build a huge plumpmill in northern Tasmania. They´re being consulted by Finns. And his wife told me there´s a Finnish bakery in Brisbane, where you can buy proper rye bread, pulla and karjalanpiirakka. I´ll definately go there when I visit Brisbane!