Tasmania | lariyasui

As soon as Australia opened up for travelers on Feb 21, 2022, Cliff contacted his Tasmanian friend, Gillian and texted with her to make plans to visit her. He has known her over 20 years and has been there many times to visit her family. He has seen her sons grow up from little boys to big men. We already had plans to fly to Phoenix and Santa Rosa to visit friends but we had to cancel those plans when our Tasmania plans firmed up.

Since United does not fly to Australia from Hawaii, we had to fly to San Francisco and on to Sydney then to Hobart, Tasmania. Tasmania is about the size of Lake Huron or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Many drives were 2 hours long to get to places. The weather there is similar to the California coast… cool and comfortable.

Gill and hubby Ian met us at the airport and drove us everywhere this entire trip. They reserved 4 nights accommodations in Hobart and up the east coast where we enjoyed many wonderful sights. First they took us to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary where we held a wombat, fed kangaroos and saw many species unique to Australia, like the Tasmanian Devil and koala bear. They drove us up Mount Wellington for views of Hobart below. They took us to Port Arthur, a former prison compound and many strange and unusual natural formations such as Tesselated rocks & blow hole. On Bruny Island we went on a hike and ran into a wild kangaroo on our trail and to chocolate house, honey shop, whiskey place and had lunch at a beer & cheese place. We went to a few wineries.

They drove us home to Launceston, in northern Tasmania where they have a huge home. We stayed in a guest cottage back of the main house. Gill has many fruit trees in her garden and I got to taste delicious plums, strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes and more. Every day they drove us far way to some caves, waterfalls, platypus in the wild, Platypus House to see them up close, Seahorse World, and Cataract Gorge right in Launceston. We met their grown children and grandchildren. Their son Adam owns a distillery making whiskey and gin and he took us riding on his 3-wheeled Harley Davidson. They cooked fabulous breakfasts and dinners and the wine, beer, or other spirits flowed freely. Australia is known for meat pies, sausage rolls that are found at bakeries everywhere. The delicious fish n chips are made with flaky shark meat.

After 2 weeks in Tasmania, we flew to Sydney where we stayed for 2 nights and had a full day to visit sites there. We were lucky to enjoy a wonderful Italian dinner right next door to our hotel and a delicious breakfast across the street. It was raining hard when we arrived, but the rain stopped on the one day we had to tour the city on our own. We walked to the Opera House and took a ferry ride to view the Opera House from Sydney Harbor with a good view of Harbor Bridge. The second night, we had a lovely dinner with the Lastro family, whom I had met in New York a few years ago when they lived in the same condo as my daughter Yvette. This was our first long, international trip together and we hope to travel to many more places in the coming months and years.

Please enjoy the slide show below by clicking on the right arrow: