Tasmania Road Trip Part 1 - Launceston

I've always wanted to visit the Cradle Mountain one day, and I finally made my way there after many years of procrastination. Catching a red eye flight out of Singapore to maximize our time, we landed at Melbourne Tullamarine airport after a 7 hours flight. Since we are arriving from an international flight, to catch a domestic flight, we have to clear the immigration and collect our luggage, before heading to Terminal 4 for our flight to Launceston. As our intention is to visit the Cradle Mountain at a relax pace and not rush through it, we decided to skip Hobart, another major city in Tasmania, and focus on Launceston and Cradle Mountain.

Tullamarine Airport Terminal 4

Off we go to Tasmania!

Based on recommendations and reviews from various sources, we decided to rent a car from Apex Car Rental. The rental company provides transportation from the airport to its office, which is a 5mins ride away. 

Apex Car Rental Office

Van to ferry customers to and fro the airport

Despite being a bit of a hassle, the amount we've saved as compared to other rental companies with offices and pick-ups at the airport is sufficient enough to "overcome" this hassle. Additionally, Apex Car Rental offers very professional customer services such as going through the T&Cs of rental clearly, inspecting the car before hand-over and even giving advices on how to drive safely in Tasmania. We were quite glad with this value-for-money choice of car rental.

Our first stop is Tasmanian Gourmet Sauce Company. We went to its small but homely shop, and tasted some of its jams and sauces. As this is only the first stop of the trip, we bought only a few small bottles of jam, but we ended up coming back again before we ended our road trip to buy more jams and sauces from them as a gift for our family and friends. This shows how good and affordable their jams and sauces are. 

We've planned the route based on the proximity of each attraction, so the next stop on the list is Josef Chromy Wines. There are many wineries in Launceston, and Josef Chromy is 1 of the most famous, with a huge and beautiful vineyard for a perfect photo taking opportunity, and cellar door and restaurant to taste and purchase its wines.

Josef Chromy Vineyard

Josef Chromy Vineyard

We then visited Tamar Island Wetlands, after seeing many of it beautiful landscape on Instagram. As the wetland closes at 5pm and it is already close to their closing time, we only walked for a short while before heading to our hotel for check-in. 

Tamar Island Wetland

Tamar Island Wetland

Tamar Island Wetland

Home for the day and the next day is at Rosevears Hotel, located next to the Tamar River. We enjoyed our dinner at the restaurant in the hotel while admiring the sun setting along the Tamar River. As compared to hotels around the city centre, Rosevears Hotel offers rooms with much nicer view at a relatively reasonable rate. Since we have a car, the distance away from the city centre did not matter at all.

We started the next day with a nice breakfast at Exeter Bakery. Curried scallop pie is a unique and iconic food found in Tasmania, and of course we did not miss the chance to taste this iconic food, which Exeter Bakery is famous for.

Curried scallop pie

Egg and bacon pie

Driving down the road, we passed by the Batman Bridge, the first cable-stayed bridge in Australia which spans across the Tamar River, and spent some time taking photos there before heading to Hillwood Berry Farm for some farming activities.

Hillwood Berry Farm is a working farm of various berries such as strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. We were there during the strawberries season, and of course we did not want to miss the opportunity of picking strawberries, something that is remotely possible in our urban city life. The process is quite simple - just take a plastic container from the staff at the cafe and head to the rows of strawberries plants to pluck the fattest and juiciest strawberries off the stems and into the plastic container!

Rows of strawberry plants

Do note that you'll be charged in accordance to the weight of the strawberries "harvested". Once done, we headed back café, where the staffs weigh the box with strawberries and charge us accordingly. You can choose to take the berries back or savor on the spot. The café also sells various products of berries, such as ice creams and jams.

After having fun at the farm, we headed back to city life to settle our fish and chips cravings at Levee Food Co near Seaport Boulevard.

Rows of yacht near Seaport Boulevard

Stretch of restaurants

Our lunch

Cataract Gorge Reserve is another top attraction of Launceston, and we spent our afternoon there digesting our late lunch and admiring what nature has installed for us.

To save us some efforts, we took the chairlift for an aerial perception of the surrounding, and then walked back, so that we can pass by Alexandra Suspension Bridge on the way.

Alexandra Suspension Bridge from afar

Blooming flowers along the way

View from Alexandra lookout point

View from Alexandra lookout point

Alexandra Bridge

View from Alexandra Bridge

Since we still have some time, we went back to Tamar Island Wetland, the place where we did not venture much the previous day as we reach there too late, before heading to the supermarket nearby to buy our dinner and stock up some groceries for our Cradle Mountain adventure up next.

Tamar Island Wetland

Takeaway dinner at the hotel room's balcony, while waiting for the sun to set along Tamar River

Up Next: Tasmania Road Trip Part 2 - On the way to Cradle Mountain