Tasmania?? Anyone there or been there?

Endof

Heading to Australia in late September on a WHV, i've been before on a holiday visa and travelled the east coast and visited Melbourne and Perth and loved every minute of it. I've spoke to loads of people who've been to Australia before but none of them visited Tasmania.

I had intended starting my year in WA with the intention of getting the 3 months regional work out of the way in the first half of my year if possible. Just wondering if anyone has been to Tasmania and worked there or what the work availability is? Or even what it's like as a holiday destination?

Any advice or previous experience would be greatly appreciated, Thanks

doriansmith

I was only there for a couple of days but that definitely wasn't enough time, if I was going again I'd go for longer. I loved it, it's a great spot but I've no idea what it'd be like to live/work in. Definitely worth a visit though. Port Arthur is great & there was another national park there that was cool - can't remember the name but it had great walking trails/nice waterfalls

BossArky

I was in Tasmania for a mini holiday 2 weekends ago. Flew in on a Saturday morning, got a car, and left on Tuesday evening.

Based ourselves out of Hobart and did day trips to various places:

• Mt.Field National Park - not too far from Hobart. Walk through the forest up in the hills and visit the waterfall, etc
  
• Mount Wellington - incredible view on the way up. The top was covered in fog and gale force winds. Well worth the trip up. On the way down, stop off and walk through the woods.
  
• Freycinet National Park - too far from Hobart for a day trip. Really nice when you get there but better off staying close by. Wineglass Bay is here. Cool scenery.
  
• Vineyards - there are lots of them around Hobart.
  
• Cadburys factory - no longer allowed to get tours, but you can go and watch a video on the chocolate making process

Hobart itself is a bit of a one horse town with 2 blacksmiths. Places which you may like to eat include "Fish Frenzy" down on the wharf where you get your food pretty quickly - its decent... and "the ball & chain" (or similar) down on Salamaca Place. The second place took ages to serve the various tables around us - but the food was ok.

With hindsight we shouldn't have set up camp in Hobart for the full 4 days. Next time I'll probably get the ferry to the north side of the island and move around saying in different locations each night.

If driving beware that the GPS will be hopelessly optimistic and assume that you are going at the max speed limit. This is ok on straight roads... but there aren't many... so double the time estimate and add an hour :pac:

The locals were a bit odd. Before going there people jokingly told me that there was a limited gene pool on the island :eek: I bumped into quite a few strange people.

The Aussie

Endof wrote: »

Tasmania?? Anyone there?

Thats bit of a loaded question, was there a good few years ago, nice place in summer when i was there and nice people, although (i might get slated for this) it was to much like the south island of NZ but everything was on a less grand scale, smaller and less impressive but still a great place to go and i would go back again...

Vorsprung

The weather is a bit crap in winter. Irish crap! Might put a lot of people off!