Our day off during the weekend, we went to the second biggest city in Tassie,
Launceston. From Devonport, it's about an hour drive to Launceston.
Although it’s only the beginning of Autumn season, it has been snowing in the famous Cradle Mountain. As we took off on the highway from Devonport to Launceston, we saw this beautiful snowy top Cradle Mountain. Beautiful!
Stopped at the Ashgrove Cheese Farm**** which offers free cheese tasting. They have a special cheese flavor, WILD WASABI which is really good. We bought it and try it on crackers, Yums. =)
Christmas Hill Rasberry Farm*** Their raspberry jam is delicious. Not much product range here, but they have a nice restaurant/ café around a lake. You can also take a walk around their farm.
Launceston Sea Port** there are half dozen of restaurants at the sea port, which is all throat cutting, for us. The environment is nice, but be prepared to pay a premium. Well, we just had some Coles hot-cross buns and juice on the bench. . . =P
Brisbane Street, the shopping street of Launceston.
James Boag Brewery at The Esplanade. They have a visitor centre, which is closed on that very day due to staff training =.=
The highlight of Launceston à Cataract Gorge***** It is just located in the city, just about 10minutes from the CBD. It is a large park, with few entrance. We went to the Basin Pool Carpark, where there is the world’s longest single chairlift span to reach the other side of the gorge. Costs $15 for the return ride. It's quite interesting to have such beautiful views just few minutes from the city centre!
The view from Cataract Lookout, 20min return. There is a swimming pool beside the basin pool. This basin pool will be flooded during heavy rain season, even the swimming pool area will be flooded.
The suspension bridge (background) and the stone bridge (front) can be used to access the cataract lookout, besides the chairlift.
There are few walks in the reserve, to get a good coverage of the gorge, we took the Zig Zag Track (1 hour return).
Kings Bridge
Launceston city
Mercury Cider, Tasmanian brewed by Cascade Brewery, Australia’s oldest brewery. We bought it’s sweet cider, still Magners cider taste better.
Our second day -- Today’s itinerary would be salmon, honey, and cave =) From Launceston, we took the great western tier touring route towards Deloraine. On the way, saw this beautiful building, with autumn leaves soon covering it in red.
The small town of Deloraine
We visited the 41̊ South Fish and Ginseng farm*** which farms Atlantic Salmons. They offer free tasting of their smoked salmon, salmon paste and ginseng spices. The ginseng spices is quite special, can be used for cooking (stir fries, etc). They sell only smoked salmon and not the fresh ones, which taste quite good.
They also have a self guided tour around the farm, costing $7 for concession (student) and $10 for adults. Which is not worth the money paid, because it is self guided, there are not many things to see and learn. There are only few tanks, where the salmons were farmed and a big area of wetlands. They will also give u a bag of fish pellets to feed the rainbow trouts and salmons in the lake. We just thought if we haven’t paid $14 for the walk, we could have bought a big piece of smoked salmon. . . Hmmm. . .
Rainbow trout!
Next stop, Melita Honey Farm**** at Chudleigh. They have about 50 different honey, and they offer free tasting for all of them! Taste the fruit honey, chocolate honey, nut honey, and even spice honey! OH Sweet lips! They also sell honey ice cream, honey nougats and other honey skin products. There is a special honey which is only available in Tassie, Leatherwood Honey.
Red Chilli Honey, should taste good with BBQ chicken! =P
Besides the leatherwood honey, we also bought their Apple honey cider vinegar.
Cave exploration time! The Mole Creek area has more than 400 caves and sinkholes. The more unique ones would be
Marakoopa Cave and
King Solomon Cave. The tour to both cave costs $19 each. We went to the
Marakoopa Great Cathedral Tour*****. Special features include glow worm colony and ascending 200 steps to see the Great Cathedral. It’s a beautiful cave which words can’t describe. See it for yourself!
If you do more than one cave tour, you’ll be entitled for 20% discounts for the next one.
The Fern Glade (pic above) walking trail from the ticket shop to Marakoopa Cave is a beautiful and relaxing walk. Takes about 20 minutes return, we got to see this beautiful river stream.
On the way back to Devonport, we stop by the town of Sheffield***. It’s the city of Murals, beautiful paintings on buildings in the main road. The mural park beside the visitor information centre holds many beautiful murals.
Well, not all are beautiful cause Hong Kong’s celebrity Eason Chan’s painting resides here as well! There it is –
Eason came here to do a travel programme about Tassie in 2007, and he has the privilege to draw on this wall!
