Tasmania - The Overland Trek

Our Tassie (that's how the locals call Tasmania) experience started in Launceston, at a nice hostel (comparing to all the other hostels in Australia we have been in so far). After 1 day touring the city, we took a bus to the beginning of the Overland trek, a 6 days track in Cradle Mountain lake St. Clair national park. This is probably the most popular track in Australia, kind of the Milford of Australia. You need to book it months ahead, it costs a lot of money and when you get to the starting point to pick up the track tickets you find out you need to pay even more money on park entrance, etc.
The weather from the bus didn't look so good, but once we started walking it cleared up a bit. We climbed towards the Cradle Mountain, passing by beautiful lakes.




























Cradle mountain and all the other mountains in the park are rocky and bold. Probably Cradle mountain is the most rocky.

The Overland trek includes lots of side trips. Climbing on the Cradle mountain is one of them. We left our backpacks at the junction of the side trip and the main track and started climbing to the summit.

Within 20 minutes the track became really rocky and steep. From this point it was almost wall climbing, but without the ropes. Climbing from one big rock to another using the hands and feet. At one point we decided to stop because it was too scary and it was late and started to go down. Few minutes later we met someone on his way down and he told us we were only 10 minutes from the summit, but the views at the top are not that impressive and not worth the effort.

From this side trip it was only 1.5 hours to the first hut. The thing about the Overland track is there are less bunks in the huts than the amount of people walking the track. That's why you're required to carry a tent when you walk the track, you're not guaranteed to get a bunk in the hut. We were lucky, when we arrived to the hut there were 3-4 bunks left unoccupied.
The huts on the Overland track are not as nice as the huts in New Zealand, there are neither mattresses nor gas cookers, most of the huts are just one big sleeping hall, with platforms to put your own mattress on.
We woke up at the morning of the second day, looked through the window and saw rain. The first 2 hours of walk were along open flats but because of the rain we couldn't enjoy it much. The next 5 hours of walk were boring walk in a bush. The rain didn't stop, it even got stronger.
Finally we got to the third hut (we skipped the second). It was quite new with a room for each 6 bunks. At the evening the rain stopped for awhile. We went out to the hut's balcony and saw animals outside. That was the first time we saw Wallaby - a small version of Kangaroo.














The third day our plan was to climb on Mt. Ossa, the highest mountain in Tasmania. We woke up and found out we can't see nothing - everything was covered with clouds and fog. We started walking and got to the starting point of the side trip. We skipped the climbing because we couldn't even see the mountain. We were quite disappointed and depressed. An hour later we arrived to the hut and enjoyed ourselves by playing cards the entire afternoon (5-1 to Sarit).

We woke up early on the morning of the fourth day and saw perfect blue sky. We looked at each other and immediately said that this is a perfect day to be at the top of Tasmania. We left most of our gear in the hut, took a bag with water and food and went an hour back to the junction where the side trip begins. This time we could clearly see the mountain. We were so happy about the weather that we climbed very quickly - 1.5 hours and we were the first to reach mt. Ossa summit that day. It was worth every minute of it. The landscape at the top was so unique and we could see 360 degrees around.
























































One of the mountain reminded us the table mountains of Venezuela.

On our way down we saw large groups of people climbing up. Luckily we woke up early enough to enjoy all that beauty alone...
We came back to the hut, took all our gear this time, and continued to the next hut, another 3 hours of bushy walk. On this section we encounter more animals, the snakes. For those who ask themselves all the snakes in Tasmania are lethal. Fortunately, the snakes are more afraid of us than we afraid of them. As soon as we saw a snake on the track we made some noises and it ran off to the bushes. Still, it was a scary moment. Apparently this is the price of sunny day, on the way to the hut we had 4 more snakes encounters. We arrived to hut exhausted from the long walk (25km in total).
The 5th day of the track was Roi's birthday. we had fine weather, 3 hours and we arrived to the following hut. Most of the way was boring bush, except for short section near a nice river.














It was still early when we reached the hut. The hut was quite neglected so we decided to keep on walking to the next hut, 2 hours away. The following hut was very small, very neglected, very smelly and apparently rats visit the hut at night. Roi wanted to keep walking to end of the track but after calculating the amount of km we need to walk we decided to stay and camp next to the hut.

The hut is located on the shore of lake st. Clair, at a beautiful spot. It seems like a special place to celebrate a birthday. At first it was only the two of us, but as the hours passed more and more walkers arrived. we were 13 people eventually. A nice couple from Germany donated a banana cake and some dried apricots to the improvised party, we brought our pack of cookies.














Definitely a birthday we will never forget :)

The next day we had breakfast on the jetty and less than 3 hours later we reached the end of the track, not before meeting another snake on the way.














Our bus was on the next day, so we had to spend another night camping not far from the visitor center at the end of the track.

We spent the following night at Hobart, the largest city in Tasmania. After a nice fish & chips meal at the waterfront in Hobart we went to our hostel. We went to bed early hoping for a good night sleep after all the sleepless nights in the track (thanks for the snoring symphony the other walkers played for us every night).
The hostel has 2 floors, the rooms are on the second floor, and on the first there is a bar and a living room to be used by the hostel's guests. The noises from the bar kept us from sleeping until 11pm, the time the bar closes. but, a group of the hostel's guests decided to have their own drinking party at the living room, with a lot of shouting and loudly music. The party went on all night. At 3am our roommate, who was one of the party participants, entered the room. He was so drunk he hardly stood straight. The second he put his head on his pillow he started to puke all over. Strong smells of puke and beer filled the room. Only after Roi shouted at him he agreed to take his stinky sheets out of the room. At last the noises from the party stopped, and everyone were in their beds. Then, a strong sound of fire alarm was heard. After we realized it wasn't going to stop Roi left his bed to see from where the sound was coming from. The drunk roommate was still sleeping, the sounds didn't wake him up. After exploring around Roi found out that the alarm sounds are coming from the drunk's phone! It took few more shouts until the drunk turned off the sound (he was hardly able to do that). Guess what happened 5 minutes after? the alarm sound again! and 5 minutes after again, and again.
Finally after we made sure the phone won't ring again the guy started his second set of pukes. That point we took all our stuff and left the room. We spent the rest of the night at the hostel's lobby, waiting for the reception to open. As the reception opened we talked with the lady there, telling her about our sleepless night and wanted some of our money back, if not all of it. Her answer was "Sorry, this is what backpackers hostel is all about, people having fun, and if the guests like to get drunk so be it".
Well folks, avoid the disgusting neglected noisy hostel called "The Pickled Frog" in Hobart.
The next morning we took a bus back to Launceston and the nice hostel there. The next day we flew back to Melbourne.

Tomorrow we'll pick up the camper van we're hiring and started touring Australia.

Coromandel, Auckland & The Far North

After the Tongariro Northern Circuit we spent the night in a town called Turangi. The next morning we continued to Taupo, a touristic city in the center of the North Island. We didn't do much there, actually, the main thing we did was visiting a Honey shop, and tasted (for free!) about 10 flavors of honey and a few liqueurs. We felt like Winnie the pooh :) Later we ate a honey ice cream, this time we had to pay for it, but it was worth it (the best ice cream we had in NZ).
From Taupo we continued to Rotorua, another touristic city, famous for its thermal pools around it. We skipped the touristic thermal pools that cost a lot of money and went to see the thermal pools in the middle of the city.














It is quite weird to see a thermal bubbling pool and the city's hospital & buildings right near it. At least we learned why it smells like sulfur everywhere you go...
From Rotorua we drove all the way to Coromandel Peninsula. We went straight to the start of the Pinnacles track. This is a short track (8 hours total, some people walk it in a day) from the car park all the way to the summit of the pinnacles. The climb to the summit included hundreds of wooden stairs at first and than a steep section were you use a metal steps & ladders that are reinforced to the mountain's walls.










































We had great views over the east coast of the peninsula and the mountains around. We spent the night in the Pinnacles hut, which is a huge 80 beds hut, and walked back to the car the next morning.
We then continued to the east coast of the peninsula, to a small town called Hahei, checked in to our hostel (it was actually a room on the first floor in an old couple's house), put on swimsuits and went to the beach. It was the first time we actually swam in the sea. the water was great and the beach wasn't very crowded.




























The next day we went to the "Hot Water Beach" - a beach that underneath it there are thermal rocks. If you dig a hole in a certain place at the beach, the water in it get hot, up to 60C! We were at the beach at 08:00 (low tide was necessary) with a spade we took from the hostel. We deg 4 holes until we found the right spot where the water gets hot.










































All around us people from all ages were digging holes using spades in all sizes, and later sat in their holes.
We returned to the hostel, had breakfast and continued to the Cathedral Cove, a rocky section of a mountain that crossed the coastline, and the sea formed a tunnel through it.














It was quite hot that day, we reached the place sweating (we walked all the way from Hahei). We sat on a remote rock at the beach, opened a pack of cookies and relaxed. The water was clear and beautiful and everything looked very picturesque.



















We left the town on the next morning, just when it started to rain. A few hours later we arrived Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand. We unpacked our bags in the hostel, printed selling ads for our car and started touring the hostel in the city and put the ads there. Later we got few phone calls. We showed the car to 2 different people, one of them called again few hours later to say he wants the car. That was it, we manage to sell our lovely car in less than 48 hours, in a good price. We sadly said goodbye to the car and happily said hello to the money :)
We had few days until our flight to Australia. We spent a day in an island close to Auckland called Rangitoto, and climbed on the inactive volcano the island is called after. We climbed it pretty quick, took nice pictures of Auckland and took the ferry back.














The next day we hired a car and went to explore the Far North (the region north to Auckland). We drove to a beach town called Paihia. On the next day it was raining so we kept going without doing anything special. We arrived to a nice farm hostel next to a town called Kerikeri. The rain didn't stop so we stayed in the hostel and ate fruits as much as we could (it was free, fresh and tasty). The next day we explored some of the bays around but it was too windy and cloudy to enjoy it.
This is our rented car with a nice view over the Matauri bay:














The next stop was the west coast and the Kauri forest.














The Kauri is a huge tree (can get up to 50m). When you look at one of the trees, it looks like a tree from a fairytale, surrounded by green vegetation, standing high above anything else. It was impossible to take a picture that would demonstrate this sight.
We spent the night in a town called Hellensvile and went on the next day to Te Henga beach. Roi played the guitar and Sarit took photos.
We came back to our hostel in Auckland at the evening. We spent the next day on the streets of Auckland, enjoying our last day in New Zealand. We arrived to the airport at night and spent the night there. Our flight to Australia was very early in the morning.
Good bye New Zealand, we had a great time!

4 hours flight and we landed at Melbourne, Australia. We spent 3 days here so far. On the first we were quite miserable, we hated the city, we hated our hostel and everything seemed to be very very expensive.
The next day we changed hostel and had a great walk in the city's streets & parks, and even got a free chocolate tasting in 3 different chocolate stores.














Tomorrow we're flying to Tasmania. We booked the Overland track there - a 6 days trek, we had too many days without a trek :)

Tongariro Northern Circuit

We drove from the town National Park to the Whakapapa Village, the starting point of the Tongariro Northern Circuit. We went to the visitor center there to check the weather forecast for the next days. It wasn't great, we stood in front of the weather board for an hour, gazing, hoping it will somehow change to better forecast. Of course nothing changed. After a long quandary we finally decided to go for it. We spent the entire morning preparing our backpacks, buying food etc.
We started walking on 3p.m. According to the weather forecast it was suppose to rain heavily at the evening, we thought we had few hours until it will happen, but oh... we were wrong! 15 minutes after we started drizzle began. 30 minutes later the heavy rain showed up and didn't leave us the entire walk. The track was very muddy and slippery. our destination was getting to the hut as fast as we can. As usual when it's raining we double the speed. The track should take 3-5 hours but it took us only 2. We arrived to the hut soaked wet but relieved. Just after we arrived the rain stopped. Few hours later we were standing outside, looking at the amazing sunset. Sarit took about 100 pictures of Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom for "Lord Of The Rings" movie) which was colored in red because of the sunset.














If you ever wondered why we're willing to walk in rain - this is the reason...
The next day was very cloudy. We wondered if it's worth the climbing and if we'll be able to see anything. After a long quandary we decided to continue the trek. Part of the second day is a popular day trip, maybe the most popular day trip in New Zealand, called "Tongariro Crossing". Hundreds of people walked the track that day. At some point, it was like walking in a line with all the people. At the viewpoints, looking down at all those people walking was amazing.




























The track goes along the foot of 2 volcanoes : Ngauruhoe & Tongariro. There is an option to climb the summit of those volcanoes but we didn't because it was too cloudy. It was beautiful enough just to walk through other mountains craters along the way. The views were quite different from the views we had on the south island of New Zealand.




























We had lunch on the shore of one of the amazing Emerald lakes, probably the highlight of the Tongariro Crossing.










































We went to have a quick peek at the blue lake (wasn't as impressive as the Emerald lakes)














and then turned right, away from the crowded Tongariro Crossing and further on to the Northern Circuit. From that point the landscape changed. It was like walking on the moon.










































We arrived to the second hut (this time dry) about 2 hours later. The next morning we woke up early, early enough to see the sunrise on Mt. Ngauruhoe.














We could see also the summit of Mt. Ruapehu, definitely a beautiful sight to see on the beginning of a new day.














The sky were clear and it seemed like we're going to have a great weather. We even thought about going back and climb on one of the summits from the day before, but by the time we were ready to go it was so foggy, we couldn't see 1 meter ahead...
We walked the first hour in a complete fog. As the time passed the fog faded away and the views started to reveal. We had our lunch on a nice lookout of the Tama lakes.














The last day was the longest, we were quite exhausted by the end of the day...

The Tongariro Northern Circuit was very beautiful, different from all the other tracks we had on the south island, and we loved every minute of it (well, except walking in the heavy rain at the first day).

Taranaki volcano and Whanganui river

From Wellington we headed west to Egmont National Park. On the way we passed through many cities and towns and noticed the north island of NZ is much more populated than the south island and instead of sheep there were cows everywhere. When we arrived to the national park it was quite chilly, we couldn't even see the volcano Taranaki (the national park surrounds that mountain), but the people in the visitors center promised us the next day will be better. We spent the night in the visitors center at the foot of the mountain and it did clear up by the time we woke up the next day.














After we ate breakfast and made sandwiches for lunch, we started walking in an old 4WD road that led to the base of the route to the summit of mount Taranaki (2518 meters high).










































The volcano is inactive, so there's no problem climbing it independently.
After one hour and a short chat with a nice British couple, we started the hard part, and it was hard... It's not the steep climbing (we got used to it in NZ) but walking almost all the way with the feeling you might slide down if you put your feet in the wrong spot. Half of the way we had to walk on a steep exposed section with marble stones - you climb two steps up and slide one step down. We had some experience with such things, but every time it ended after couple of minutes. This track had 1.5 hours of this... At that point Sarit started to panic and by the time we reached the last section, which was a combination of the last part with big rocks, Sarit had tears in her eyes.




























Slowly slowly we climbed up until we reached the crater at the summit.
The crater was covered with snow and strong winds were blowing, which made staying at the top of the mountain not very pleasant, But still we managed to enjoy the views that surrounded us, including the view of the 3 volcanoes of the Tongariro national park.










































2 sandwiches and we started the way down. We found out that going down was harder than going up. This time Roi had tears in his eyes :)

From Taranaki we continued to Taumarunui , our base town for the "Whanganui Journey" - a canoe trip downstream the Whanganui river. We chose to do only 2 days out of the 5 days that takes to do the whole trip. We hired Canadian canoe, paddles and waterproof barrels to put our equipment in.




























We tied everything to the canoe and started paddling. Roi was the pilot at the rear of the canoe and Sarit was the "engine" at the front. The entire journey was accompanied with rhythm shouts of Roi ("Faster!", "Slower!", "To the right!", etc).
The first day was a bit rough with level 2 rapids along the river. We used the tips the guys from the canoe hire company gave us and managed to cross the rapids without tipping over. 5.5 hours of paddling and we arrived to the camping ground. Our arms were stiff by then, it was the first time we paddled in canoe like this.
On the second day the river was much easier with only small rapids, Sarit even managed to take few photos.










































4 hours of paddles and we arrived to the pickup point and ended our journey.
That evening we drove to a little town called National Park, the next morning we started a trek called "The Tongariro Northern Circuit" but that's for another post.