The Tasting Trail
Start of a very long ‘foodie’ day! We drove towards Launceston while halting from time to time to test our taste buds. First stop of the day ‘Penguin’, a picturesque coastal town named after the little penguins that come here to lay their eggs in their burrows. Unfortunately we were not able to spend the night, but we found a big specimen that was happy to have its picture taken with us.
We first had breakfast at ‘Mrs Bennet Cooks’, delicious eggs Benedict! But be reassured, there were also more healthier options… After having filled our stomachs, we went to the beach for a photo stop.
Next on the agenda, the tasting trail! We first visited the House of Anvers or ‘Belgian chocolate in Tasmania’, which was just situated before Latrobe. We tried their hot chocolates and they were really yummy!
Then we stopped at Ashgrove Cheese (close to Elizabeth Town) where we sampled different cheeses and took some with us for our picnics and apéro’s in the coming days. Last on our list, the ‘Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm Café’.
Today we were also lucky because we had a highway with double lanes and we were allowed to drive 110 km per hour… such a luxury!
Our visit to Beauty Point
On arrival in Launceston, we saw immediately the resemblance to San Francisco… at least for what concerns the steep roads. After having checked in in our hotel ‘Areca Launceston’, we left for Beauty Point because we definitely wanted to see a real platypus and seahorses. We arrived just in time so we were able to do both of the tours. Best check the timings upfront (something that we did not really do, so we had a lot of luck!).
We then discovered that the platypus is much smaller than initially expected… 40 to 50 cm. No wonder that we did not see anything on our previous walks… I was looking for bigger animals! They were so cute! But it was just impossible to take a nice picture in a dark space while the platypus was swimming quickly to all sides of the aquarium, I only managed a video… We then saw several echidnas being fed before we rushed to the other building where the seahorses tour began. These creatures are so graceful ! It was really a top day.
A walk to Cataract Gorge
The next morning, before heading to St. Helens, we squeezed in a walk to Cataract Gorge.
It only took us an hour to complete the loop walk. We could have done it faster but we had walked into a group of wallabies with joeys and it was just too difficult to leave that scene.
