Launceston: Cataract Gorge and the Tamar Valley

The next day, I went for a brief run around town and managed to get only slightly lost.  After I came back and got ready, Justin and I went for a walk in Cataract Gorge, which is on the outskirts of town. I guess I'd compare it to Portland's Forest Park in that there's a wilderness in the city--that said, it's much, much smaller. But really lovely. The trail we went on was called the Zig Zag trail, which made me smile. 

We thankfully did not have to climb these boulders. 

The trail does ascend pretty quickly and there are a lot of stairs. But then you see this -- hi, Launceston!

You can walk over the suspension bridge. It's wiggly.

Justin inspects for structural integrity:

The ceremonial face-eating at the summit:

 Afterwards, we had one of our best meals at Stillwater. I had the best gluten-free bread I have EVER had. I miss it. A lot.

 We decided to go for a drive after that. We went to the Tamar Valley, which is where a lot of the wineries are. We were kinda wined out, and it was kinda late in the day, so most of them would be closed or closing. So we just drove around the area--and over the Batman Bridge.

 I'm Batman:

 

By this point, we were ready to get back to Sydney for one night. It was kinda boring here.

Hobart & Launceston & Festivale

The next morning, a rainbow ushered us out of town:

Off to Launceston!

So, maybe because it was a Sunday. And maybe because it was a holiday weekend. And maybe because Festivale, a food and wine fest, was happening in Launceston, but the city was like...closed. I'm glad Festivale happened to be going on when we were in Tasmania, but I'm glad I didn't seek it out. It was fun, but not the kind of thing I had envisioned. I was actually a little disappointed, because I'd wanted to like Launceston, especially because so many wineries were nearby, I'd heard it was a foodie destination. But we were bored and a little disappointed. It's lovely, but...I didn't get that wistfulness that I got when we first came to Portland, for example. I think I set my sights a little high.

That said, we had a lot of fun at Festivale, getting wine tastings and hanging out in the sun. Tasmanian wines are so good. And so not available in the U.S. It's close to tragedy, really.

Like this one. SO GOOD.

Or this fine specimen! You Tassies don't know how good you got it!

Scenes from a food and wine festival, where you can taste the wine but food will cost you.

This lady was creepy. It was like she was trying to be one of those silver robot people, but instead she appeared to be dusted in flour. She was also creeping up on the little kids. WHAT.

What's a festival without dudes on stilts?

Justin enjoying himself:

 Chillin' with my monkey arms:

 Here's what I mean. Launceston was like a Hollywood backdrop on a Sunday. Also lots of churches. WTF?

Auditioning for Australia's "Where the hell are you?" marketing campaign.

Took a pic of this rolls because we saw it in Hobart, too.

Justin went in here. I hung out outside instead. Boring.

Maybe everyone was out climbing Cradle Mountain or something. It was a stunningly gorgeous day.

Oz, some

Oh, God. Has it really been close to 2 years since I posted here? That goes to show you how long we were saving up for the trip we just finished: THREE WEEKS IN AUSTRALIA. And how long we'll be saving up after it's done: THANKS, EXCHANGE RATE.

Of course we didn't see as much as we (okay, me) wanted--it's a continent, people! You don't go to the US and see each city and region! You focus on certain areas. So that's what we did: Sydney, Melbourne (pronounced something like "Mel-bin," by the way), and Tasmania (Hobart and surrounds & Launceston and surrounds).

Test post to make sure this works. Kind of dreading covering three weeks with the trickiness of posting photos (probably for no one else who uses blogger but for some reason I'm a mess when it comes to photos. and of course photos is what people want to see).

So: Testing, with a photo of us on the outbound flight.