Tasmania's Beautiful East Coast Beaches

Hello All,

We took a 4 day, 3 night trip (with Bill's "study" time off) to explore the East Coast of Tasmania.

The itinerary was loosely based on an article Nikki's friend gave her from a Tasmanian magazine called "Delicious" where the author took a similar trip eating his way down the coast.

The drive out of Launceston was twistier than a ski hill road but took us up through rain forests with ferns as big as a truck. Then it was down into a beautiful fertile valley for some locally produced homemade ice cream in Pyengana (the cows were about 50 meters away being milked while we ate). Bill and I had pepper berry, a local and/or native plant, flavored icecream. It was subtle and good.

Our first night was in a standard tired hotel in St Helens but things improved considerably the next morning when we took a short jaunt north to Binalong Bay and ate at Angasi's - a European style breakfast place with a view of arguably the prettiest beach I've ever seen. The ladies had porridge which was full of big chunks of figs, apples and pistachios, yum. We all took a long walk after breakfast - some of the pics above. Ellary and Nikki walked/jogged to the far end of the beach with big rocks. They thought one of the rock pictures included looked liked giant's toes. Risa had more fun playing in the waves and sand and hanging out with Papa.

We then traveled down along the East Coast to Cole's Bay - a slightly touristy (although not this time of year) little resort town with a fantastic view of the Hazard Mountain Range across the bay. We were only going to stay one night, but liked it so much we stayed two. We were in a nice little rental home with awesome views fr0m the deck and a short walk to a secluded beach with lots of shells.

The second night we had our best meal so far in Tasmania at a place called Madge Malloy's. Owned by a husband (the fisherman and chef) and wife - the server and pastry chef. They were closed our first night there because he was out catching the fish in near gale force winds. He has been involved with fishing or undersea research his whole life and it was slow enough that she spent lots of time talking to us and even showing us pictures of the different fish on the menu. I(Nikki) had a fish called wah-hoo, although it wasn't spelled that way, but it was pronounced that way. It was delicate and delicious. Bill had wrasse, or something like that. We had to go for the fish we had never heard of as we may never pass this way again, so the song goes. Also Bill ordered oysters and it was the first time I liked them, they were mild, sweet and salty, not at all like a loogie.

Just as our meals came, the hostess distracted the kids into an adjoining room with some coloring books. We had our best Tasmanian white wine - Spring Vale pinot gris (2005) - altogether an amazing and memorable dining experience. The second day there we hiked up to a viewpoint of the famous "Wineglass Bay" - named after the way the water looked in the days of whaling when whale blood would stain the whole bay red. As we left the Coast, we stopped at the Spring Vale winery for a case of wine.

Now Bill's back to work for most of the rest of the month. The medicine politics are heating up as the Tasmanian government's minister of health will be releasing a paper outlining in great detail which services are to be continued and which are to be cut at various hospitals - due out on May 25. we'll see.....:)