Vegans Explore Tasmania

When I was a little kid Tasmania was one of those mysterious far away places that I never imagined that I'd travel to! Hilariously as I grew older I realised that Tasmania is just part of Australia, a cool part but still, somewhere that you could feasibly travel to. When I saw photos of the stunning scenery whilst planning my Australia trip I knew that I had to go asap. Nick and I flew to Hobart from Melbourne, picked up a rental car at the airport, and headed out into the wilderness. Our first night there was challenging, it was 4 degrees outside, the hostel had no heating in the rooms, and the building wasn't well insulated, we were very, very cold. We didn't let that dampen our spirits though and hopped out of bed bright and early the next morning assuming, correctly, that it would actually be warmer outside. Our first destination was Freycinet National Park where we had set our sights on hiking up to the wineglass bay lookout.

This hike was, of course, mostly uphill but it was manageable and we were glad that it was a little chilly in parts. There's usually a slightly longer hike that takes you down to the beach but it was closed for maintenance and we were more than happy with this shorter hike. The bay is gorgeous and the hike was challenging enough to feel like a proper work out. After descending from the lookout we had a look at the park map and headed on to our next location.

The walk down to Sleepy Bay was relatively short and downhill all the way, at the end you reach a very quiet beach studded with rocks and covered in seaweed. Photos can't really do it justice and it was definitely some of the most stunning costal scenery I've ever seen.

We sat on some rocks here for a good long while enjoying the calm and the views. It was a really peaceful spot and the weather was just right for chilling on the rocks.

As well as being awesome for hikes and beautiful views Freycinet National Park is also a great place to spot some Aussie wildlife. There were wallabies everywhere! This one hopped over to me when I was tying my shoelaces next to the car near Friendly Beach. One thing to keep in mind about wallabies and all other wild animals is that however friendly they are you should still never feed or touch them, no matter how soft and cute they look. It's really damaging for them to be fed the wrong kinds of food and feeding them anything creates a human dependent wild animal population which means that they often forget how to forage for food, which often leads to culls which I'm sure is the last thing you want to contribute to.

Whilst we were in the national park we took a short walk on Friendly Beach. The view was beautiful and the sand was such a gorgeous bright white. You can take a short or long hike along the sand which I imagine would be amazing in warm weather as you could stop to take a dip in the ocean whenever you needed to cool off.

I really loved Freycinet and I would strongly suggest that you add it to your Australian itinerary if you love hiking, spotting wildlife, and the outdoors. Our next stop was Latrobe where we stopped to look for platypus. Yes, that was our entire reason for visiting! We stayed in a cabin at the Latrobe Mersey River Caravan Park and spent an hour or so before dusk searching the slow moving water with no luck. Luckily this very large platypus was happy to have her photo taken!

Refreshed after an truly amazing amount of garlic bread and a great night's sleep we got up in the morning determined to spot the elusive and peculiar looking egg laying mammal. After an hour or so we succeeded and saw not one but three platypuses. Two were just swimming along and we only caught a glimpse but the third hopped out of the water close to where we were standing and went about an elaborate cleaning routine on a log where we could see her every move. It was so cute and we were so excited that we were able to spot them in the wild. Did you know that when a drawing of a platypus was first sent to the UK from Australia it was assumed to be a hoax? Nobody believed that this otter / duck creature could possibly be real!

Penguin was our first stop on the northern coast and it really did live up to it's name. Residents have fully embraced the penguin theme, little penguins come out of the water here and onto the beaches to nest between September and March, and there are penguin statues, murals, and ornaments all over the place. Nick and I particularly enjoyed this large penguin and an amazing penguin mural. I also tried my first ever soya flat white at Letterbox Cafe who can also make you a vegan meal upon request and who always have a raw vegan dessert option.

We contemplated not visiting Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair national park. We worried that there would only be super challenging hikes that we wouldn't be able to tackle with the snow still on the ground and that the weather might be too bad to enjoy it but as soon as my friend Shell told me that this was prime wombat spotting country we were there in a flash. We were so glad that we visited, we arrived about an hour before sunset on our first day and just had time to do a short walk along the boardwalk adjacent to the car park before dark. We spotted three or four wombats on this walk and this definitely seems to be the best place to guarantee a wombat sighting. It was also a reasonably clear evening so we were able to catch this great view of Cradle Mountain.

The next morning we arrived bright and early to start the Ronny Creek / Dove Lake Circuit hike. It was drizzling and there was a mist hanging over the mountain so the visibility wasn't great but for me this was a lovely temperature to tackle a challenging hike.

The estimated time for the hike is four hours but we made it in around three including our break for snacks. I imagine that we would have taken longer on a warmer day as the heat would have slowed us down and the lack of mist would have meant that there were more photo taking opportunities. Some areas of the hike had boardwalks, especially towards the beginning, but they soon tapered out and most of the hike was across pebbles and boulders. There was still snow on the ground in a few spots but mostly off of the track. You definitely had to watch your footing though and I was so glad that I was wearing my Vegetarian Shoes Approach Mid hiking boots. I've posted about them a couple of times but not since I wrote about volunteering at Farm Animal Rescue. Since then they've been all over Australia with me and they're still very much in one piece and super comfortable which cannot be said for Nick's hiking boots, the sole has fallen off them twice and he's had to repair them and they've had the exact same wear and tear as mine. He'll definitely be getting a pair of Vegetarian Shoes boots as soon as we get back to the UK.

I loved Tasmania and would go as far as to say that alongside Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park it's one of my favourite parts of Australia. There are so many great opportunities to get outside and enjoy nature and a week was only just long enough to fit everything into our itinerary. If you can spend ten days in Tasmania I'm sure that you wouldn't regret it. Next time I'll be filling you in on vegan eats in Hobart some of which are probably worth the visit all on their own.