Hawaii and Australia Part 1 Maui and Tasmania Feb/Mar 2015

Oriental Gardens

We flew from Albuquerque to Honolulu and then made the connection to Maui. We planned to spend three nights on Maui to break up the flight to Australia. Since it was February, it was prime whale watching season. We took an afternoon trip and it was amazing; the guides called it “Whale Soup”. There was always one or more whales nearby to watch. The females were traveling with calves and we watched them until sunset. We visited the Ioa Valley, but the hike we wanted to do was closed, so we toured the nearby Oriental Gardens. We drove half way up Haleakala to do a hike at a state park. We found this area closed also. It seemed that a lot of our favorite hikes on Maui were closed. I guess hiking doesn’t add to the economic development of the island. We did drive part way down the Hana Highway and managed to find a few short hikes.

Humpback Whale

Hogart Falls, Tasmania

Paddymelon

We flew to Honolulu and on to Sydney. The next day we flew to Hobart, Tasmania and picked up a rental RV (Sprinter van). We had heat in the RV for one night and then the circuit board shorted out and we went for two weeks without heat. (Yes, we could have stopped to get it fixed, but that wasn’t how we wanted to spend our time). You might wonder why we were worried about heat in the middle of summer in Australia. Well we expected summer weather and packed accordingly. We found out the hard way that the mountains in Tasmania can get quite cold at night. We found a thrift store and picked up some heavier clothes.

From "The Ship That Never Was"

Eastern Quoll

Dove Lake and Cradle Mt. 

Platypus

 We spent 3 weeks on the island, visiting our favorite sites (Mount Field NP and Cradle Mountain NP) from our last visit in 2008, and exploring a few new destinations. From Strahan, we took a cruise to Hells Gate and toured Sarah Island, a former penal settlement. We took a passenger ferry to Maria Island and explored the island on foot.

 

Hiking on Maria Island

Painted Rocks, Maria Island

We took our RV to Bruny Island and found many hikes to do. Captain James Cook and other famous explorers stopped at Adventure Bay to restock their ships from Bruny Island. We took a wildlife cruise down the wilderness side of the island where we saw seals, sea lions and a lonely penguin.

Fluted Cape, Bruny Island

Macaroni Penguin

We continued our travels down to the southernmost bar in Australia. We soaked at a thermal pool, but we were disappointed to find that thermal did not mean hot. The water was less than 80 degrees. Trust me, that was not warm. After a few hikes in Hartz Mt. NP, we returned our rental RV and flew to Melbourne.