Plan the perfect 2-day trip to Tasmania, Australia with must-see attractions, travel tips, and a detailed itinerary to make the most of your short stay.
Our last trip to Australia was underwhelming. We visited Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef and came away with “meh.” Needless to say, I was apprehensive about this visit to Australia.
Two Days in Tasmania: Short Stay Itinerary
Our first stop was in Hobart, Tasmania.
Tasmania is an island south of mainland Australia. We were there for two days and packed in three tours (including one of my top 3 of this entire vacation). We were so pleased with Tasmania! What a delightful place.
Our first tour was a panoramic of the island which included several overlooks and a trip up Mt. Wellington. That road is very narrow and quite windy! The bus drivers are amazing to be able to navigate that! And, we had a drive through Hobart itself and a stop at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens.
In the botanical gardens they had something I have never seen before – a subantarctic plant house. Inside, it was freezing. Growing were plants that could grow in the coldest climates in the world. I am sure this plant house is very popular on a hot summer day! It is very small, however, so you followed the paths, read the signs and left. It was a cool (heh) experience.
Later that evening, we went to a nocturnal visit at the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. I cannot say enough good things about this tour! (Yes, this was one of my favorites.)
There is a compelling story about how it came into being and how they are rehabilitating injured wildlife for release back into the wild. Some animals, for whatever reason – blindness, lameness, etc cannot be released back into the wild, so the sanctuary houses them, feeds them, etc. and these are the animals we saw that evening.
The kangaroos are raised from babies and eat from your hand! Hubby had no interest in feeding them, so I fed them my bag plus his bag of kangaroo feed. They were so sweet and gentle! This was a wonderful experience as our last kangaroo experience in Sydney the kangaroos were pretty aggressive and a tad scary. This was the opposite of that experience.
What was funny is the kangaroos know people are there in a group to feed them. When we walked back by the kangaroos later alone and not in the group, they sat up very alertly hoping we would approach for round two of a feeding!
The Tasmanian devils are very food motivated.
The wombats are adorable.
The tawny frogmouth is Australia’s highly-camouflaged, big-mouthed, owl. I cannot believe I got one being fed in a photo! That was a complete accident.
This was a wonderful sanctuary and the tour was extremely educational.
The following day we went to an oyster farm. Since we live in oyster heaven in Florida, we figured it would be interesting to see how they do it across the globe.
Meh.
The group was too large (28 people) for the set-up. Maybe a small bleacher in the area so people could see and hear the teaching explanation?
We also did not go down to the beds. We learned from a shipmate that the tour the day before had gone down to see the beds.
They also had abalone and shipped it mostly to Japan (it is very expensive).
They had a ginger beer they bottled (alcoholic and non-alcoholic)! Because who doesn’t associate ginger beer with oysters?
The oysters themselves were very salty as they do not rinse them before serving. The salt overwhelmed the taste of the oyster.
After that, we went over to the Puddle Duck Winery. That was wonderful with a lovely table set-up, beautiful grounds, and some very nice wines.
I am not the biggest white wine fan, but I do like a good Gewürztraminer, as well as sweet and dry Riesling. I purchased one bottle of their dry, and one bottle of their sweet Riesling. They did offer shipping to the US at $299/case (included shipping and taxes, wine was not included in that price). I did not think that was bad at all! I bought a case of wine from Italy last month and paid $255 for shipping, and considering how far it is from Australia to Florida vs Italy to Florida, the $299 seemed quite reasonable to me.
On the way back to the ship we were taken to yet another overlook and through more of town.
All-in-all we really enjoyed our time in Tasmania. Now, it was on to mainland Australia.
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