Tasmania through the eyes of our regular budding journalist, 10 year old Madi….

My name is Madi.  I am 10 years old.

These are my highlights from my trip with my family to Tasmania in January this year.

STANLEY.

We found our lovely accommodation in the old streets of Stanley. We said hi to the family and got rested before the dinner. After a while we got invited to the family new year’s eve party followed by a lovely walk in the backyard among many amazing fairy penguins. The owners made it wonderful.

I woke up in the attic about 6.30am. Then we ate our breakfast. After that we all walked up the Nut, which is a big mountain right on the peninsula originally named by Tasmanian Aboriginals, Moonutreker. There are wonderful views looking over Bass Strait and Stanley. The nature is beautiful, we even saw an echidna walk right in front of us!

After walking around we took the chairlift  back down to Stanley, it was freezing cold. My family and I walked around the town and went to the Seaquarium, which had lots of giant crabs and giant lobsters including other sea life.

CRADLE MOUNTAIN.

Before our hike on the first day at Cradle Mountain, we got our food ready for the day. It was just a little hike, about 3 hours.

The national park has shuttles going every ten minutes to all the walks. We caught one and headed to the last stop, called; Dove Lake car park. The day before it had snowed and you could only see the edge of Cradle Mountain. We finished the circuit around Dove lake, it was amazing.

We did many more hikes, our last walk was my favourite. We did the overland track for about one hour, (the overland track is a 7 day hike) we saw 13 wombats eating the button grass and so called ‘wombat chocolate.’ We walked beside Crater Lake falls and climbed the steep track to Marion’s Lookout. The view of the lakes and Cradle Mountain was awesome and there was enough snow to make many snowmen and snowball fights. We turned off the overland track onto the Horse trail track for a further three hours stopping for a picnic. When we were safely back at the lodge we saw 2 wombats, echidna and a Paddy Melon wallaby.

STRAHAN.

At Strahan we did a rainforest walk and a walk around the town looking at the woodwork galleries and workshops. I couldn’t believe my luck in finding a piece of Huon pine for my woodcarving for $1.00!

My family and I went on an amazing boat trip from Macquarie Harbour up the Gordon River to the World Heritage wilderness area. There were still some Huon pines but most were used  to build ships by the convicts on Sarah Island.  The boat then took us to Sarah Island where we saw the remains of the convict buildings and learnt about the convicts. The worst of the worst convicts were sent there; the life they had was very sad.

FREYCINET.

Coles Bay on the Freycinet Peninsula is a very different landscape to all of Tasmania, a very beautiful place. The highlight for me and most people is the wonderful Wineglass Bay.  We started our five hour walk by reaching the Wineglass Bay lookout, it was one of the best views I have ever seen; I can’t explain it you will have to go there yourself. We walked on until reaching the beach, and there we found dolphins jumping out of the water close to shore.  The next day we went down to the main beach for a Kayak trip all over Coles Bay. Freycinet is a beautiful place.

Travelscene Samford would like to thank Madi for this lovely travel article.  Don’t forget that only Travelscene American Express lets you travel anywhere, any time and pay with your membership rewards points so contact us on 3289 3700 and let us help you turn your American Express membership rewards points into your next trip.