Victoria - Croajinglong NP, 90 mile beach

Croajinglong National Park

Croajinglong is the first part of Australia spotted by Captain Cook. We spent a day here relaxing on the beach.

National Park

90 Mile Beach

The free campsites along the beach here are really cool, although the marsh flies do your head in. The sea is really rough but we loved it!

90 Mile Beach

Canberra

We went to Canberra after deciding it was worth a visit as seen as we weren't too far away. Its pretty quiet for the Capital city but we went for drinks in town and headed to the War Memorial Museum the next day. We spent a day here but Chris could have stayed days.  

Afterwards we headed to the parliamentary sector and to the national gallery. If you think a blob of foam on the floor is art then you will love this place. Personally I laughed my way round at some of the things they call art and set off an alarm b trying to figure out what some of it actually was.

Outside of the old Houses of Parliament is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. They have been campaigning for better treatment since 1972.

Aboriginal Tent Embassy

Victoria - Cape Liptrap, Wilsons Prom, Metung, Buchan, Bright

Having already spent 5 weeks living in Melbourne we were excited to explore the rest of Victoria, especially as seen as we had brought our own 4x4 a 1997 Holden Jackaroo which was kitted out with a bed in the back and everything we could possibly need to travel Oz in style.

Cape Liptrap
We stayed a few nights at Cape Liptrap at another free campsite called Bear Gully. It was close to the beach and the sunset was beautiful.

Cape Liptrap

Wilsons Prom
We walked along Normans Beach and noticed tiny holes in the sand. After a closer look we noticed tiny crabs, millions of them coming out the sand. Pretty cool.

We drove a few miles north to the start of the track to Mount Bishops summit. It only took 50 minutes to the top. We headed further east to Port Albert to eat some shark!

Metung
This place is gorgeous! We hired a boat in the posh area of Metung and after a quick lesson we soon got the hang of steering. It was only a little thing but really cool, we went swimming, fishing and sunbathed on the roof (still no tan).

Buchan
We decided to go inland after a short stay at a place called the Bell Bird. It was right on the river and Chris was over the moon after catching a trout with a marsh fly as bait.

We visited Buchan and took a tour of the caves there. The tour was really good, very unusual.

Bright
Bright is a great town with a great brewery which does tasting trays, yummy! I went paragliding the one morning and although I look like an idiot on the video, I swear he told me to keep running even if I wasn't moving and once my legs were in the air haha. I loved the paragliding until he started doing turns, should have taken motion sickness tablets. Anyway, I held it together until we landed which was really ungraceful, face first into the ground with him on top of me.

We also booked to go caving at Mount Buffalo National Park. We went through the underground river, we had to crawl on our stomach's through tiny holes, climb up a waterfall, go underwater into different sections of the cave. It was amazing!

Tasmania - Lake Peddar, Lake St Clair, Boat Harbour, The Nut, Cradle Mountain, Bruny Island

Lake Peddar
We left Hobart pretty early and headed to Lake Peddar. A guy had told us this was his favourite place in Tassie when we first arrived so we thought we would check it out. We camped at Teds Beach and chilled out on the jetty of the lake. It was definitely worth the trek to get here.

Lake St Clair
The next day we headed to Lake St Clair which is the end of the famous over land track. We really wanted to do this trek but we hadn't planned ahead enough to get a place which was a shame. We did the 2 hour walk around the Platypus track and Aboriginal track.

We headed towards Lake McIntosh after the walk and went over a really dodgy dam to get here but it was beautiful and after a swim in the lake we spent the night here.

North Coast
We headed up the Bass Highway to a town called Boat Harbour. I want to live here!!

View from the lookout

Deserted beach again :)

clear blue sea!

Table Cape in Wynyard filled with poppy fields and a lighthouse was stunning from the lookout. We headed to another town called Stanley and visited the 'nut'. Its a strange rock plateau and you can see it from miles away. We took the very steep walk to the top and did the walking track.

 We stayed at a campsite not far from the Arthur River and the next day we headed to a place known as the end of the world as there is nothing but sea from here to Argentina. We spent the rest of the day sampling all the food factories along the way including chocolate, honey and cheese! Yum!!

We stopped at Trowunna Wildlife Park on the way to Cradle Mountain to check out the Tasmanian Devils which are definitely a lot cuter than I thought they would be. Chris got a cuddle from a Wombat and we fed the Kangaroos.

Cradle Mountain
I'd say Cradle Mountain and Wineglass Bay are the most popular tourist sites in Tasmania. When we arrived it was packed and we had to join the queue to get the coach to the Dove Lake circuit walk. We could see why it was so popular, its stunning.

At the start

Cradle Mountain

Dove Lake

Bruny Island
We only had a few days left in Tassie so we rushed down to the ferry crossing to get to Bruny Island. We went to Cape Bruny to check out the views before stopping at Bruny Island Winery to sample pretty much everything!

Cape Bruny

The Neck is a small part of land connecting the south and north island and the lookout has great views. We visited The Bligh Museum which Chris loved as it was mainly about Captain James Cook.

The Neck

We dropped the van back at the office of Tassie Motor Shack, the owner is amazing! Not only did he give us free accommodation and use of the facilities for the night, he gave us a 6 pack too :) great guy! Back to Melbourne we go!

Tasmania - Bay of Fires, Lauceston, Falls Festival, Taste Festival

Bay of Fires
We headed to a little town called St Helens which is where we would get all our supplies for Christmas. Not too far away was another free campsite called Swimcart beach and again, we parked up right on the beachfront. It was stunning and the beach was empty. The surf was pretty rough and took me tumbling a few times.

Our camp spot at Swimcart Beach

Swimcart Beach

We booked a morning on a fishing charter whilst we were in St Helens. Chris fairly annoyed because I caught 20 fish to his 11 :)

Policemans Point
We stayed at the Bay of Fires for a few days just chilling out before heading to Policemans Point to spend Christmas Day. It was really secluded and just what we wanted for Christmas and it was free again, although no facilities at this one which meant.....

We spent Christmas eve chilling on the beach, swimming, eating lots of BBQ food, drinking our xmas booze and relaxing round a campfire with marshmallows. We both really missed home on Christmas day and called our families for a chat. We had a recovery fry up along with a breakfast beer. The day finished with a thunderstorm which lit up the sky. It was a great first Christmas together.

Policemans Point

 Lauceston
Lauceston is the second city of Tasmania but I thought it was way better than Hobart. The weather was great and the Cataract Gorge was brilliant. We swam in the lake and jumped off the rocks like big kids.

Marion Bay
For New Years we went to the Falls festival at Marion Bay. Arctic Monkeys were one of the headline acts so we was really excited. The first night was soul disco so we spent the night dancing away, although we definitely drunk way too much. The beach here is beautiful, just a shame it was absolutely packed with festival folks.

Most the the acts were American or Australian and I hadn't really heard of many but Aloe Black was great. DJ Yoda was hilarious! We had an amazing time and don't think there are many better locations for a music festival or to spend new years.

Hobart
On New Years Day we headed back to Hobart to the Taste Festival. I have never eaten so much in my life! After trying literally a little bit of everything on offer we were well and truely stuffed!! Great for our hangovers :)

Hobart Taste Festival