Tom and I spent 4 days exploring the Tasmanian Peninsula including hiking two of the Three Capes – Cape Raul, and Cape Huay. Before colonisation, the Tasmanian Peninsula was home to the pydairrerme band of the oyster bay tribe. Remains of middens and stone artefacts remain in the landscape, although there is no recorded evidence of any remaining Pydairrerme people on the Tasman Peninsula from the 1830s onwards, when Port Arthur was turned into a convict penitentiary. We pay respect to palawa/pakana who live on and care for this country past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

The Tasmanian Peninsula has an interesting and harrowed past including being the site of Port Arthur penal settlement, one of Australia’s biggest convict penitentiarys (including a boys prison with kids as young as 12 incarcerated) from 1830 – 1877. This penal settlement was almost a form of slavery with many people being ripped from their homes and families in the UK,  serving long sentences in Australia for as little as stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family. The cheap labour in the settlement helped the English colonisation of Australia. Port Arthur was also the site of a mass killing in 1996, where 35 people lost their lives to a gunman. This resulted in Australia banning pump-action, automatic and semiautomatic firearms.

There is a lot to uncover here and we enjoyed learning about the history as well as being surrounded by the beautiful wilderness that Tassy offers.

Day 1: After a movie in bed in the morning, we took off and made the 2 hour drive to Fortescue Bay Campsite, set up and made sausages over the fire for dinner with onion and bread. We loved watching the local wildlife – pademelons, currawongs, crows, possums, bandicoots etc and both fell asleep fast, needed the rest as we have been working hard lately!

Day 2: Cape Raul – It takes 45mins to drive to the trailhead of Cape Raul and the hike itself was 15.5kms long and took us about 5.5hours. We took our time and enjoyed the brisk autumn weather and beautiful nature views. We had dinner at Port Arthur Motor Inn & Restaurant (yummy) and headed to Port Arthur for a ghost tour. I can’t say it made me believein ghosts but it was awesome to have our first visit to the site under the cover of darkness. On the way back we were lucky to see a Tasmanian Devil (alive!) on the road and get a really good look at them. It was my first time seeing one in the wild, what a thrill!

Day 3: Cape Huay – We slept in today since the Cape Huay trailhead is at Fortescue Bay campsite. The hike is nearly 10km long and took us around 4.5hours as we spent an hour at the end look out eating lunch and chilling out. The hike itself is not too long but has thousands of stairs. Up you go, down you go. Lots of fun! That night we hung out with our camp neighbour, watched Billy Elliot from the comfort of our bed – Tom was very pleased to test out his camping projector idea successfully. We also got to see the display of Aurora from the Fortescue Bay wharf. WOW what a beautiful sight and again, something I had never seen before!

Day 4: Our achy legs convinced us to ditch the Cape Pillar walk (it would have been the last of three). It is a daunting 30kms return from the campsite, so we agreed we would come back and do it with our camping equipment, and feeling fresh. Instead, we headed to Port Arthur Historic Site and spent hours checking out all the buildings, and history, even joining a little boat tour. Everything was so interesting, we both can’t wait to get back there to discover more. After Port Arthur we headed home for the weekend, feeling much refreshed and connected and happy.

Bring on part 2!

Freycenet National Park, including Mt Amos, was home to the Toorernomairremener people, of the Oyester Bay nation, who lived and cared for country here for tens of thousands of years before being displaced by colonisation. The Toorernomairremener people would have used the Freycenet coastline for hunting seals, mutton birds, possums and more. We are grateful to get to explore these stolen lands and recognise that Mt Amos always was, and always will be, aboriginal land.

Me (Ash) and my friend Jaz from work got up at the ripe hour of 3:30am, to make the 1.5hr drive from Scamander to Freycenet. From there, we took an hour to scramble up Mt Amos for the sun rise at 5:50am. Mt Amos is a short, but rewarding hike with steep, flat, rock sides that you really have to hold on to. Grippy shoes go a long way and I did enjoy sliding down on my butt to avoid falling off the mountain altogether.

At the top we were rewarded with amazing views of Coles Bay, Wineglass Bay and a lot more,while we sipped on coffee made on my wee gas stove. We realised at the summit that to the west, is another peak which obscures the sun’s rising point and had to laugh. Regardless though it was so worth it! Thanks Jaz for getting me out of bed!

Walls of Jerusalem is in what was once the territory of the big river nation of aboriginal people in lutruwita/Tasmania. It is thought that the big river nation people would have used this area during warmer months of the year. This land always was, and always will be, aboriginal land. We are grateful that we got to visit.

Tom and I hiked the 23km Walls of Jerusalem track in 4 days (3 nights). Highlights were seeing the forests full of 1000 year old pencil pines, ample cushion plants, and wetlands galore (Ash’s favourite). The route is fairly flat after the first day, and well marked with a lot of boardwalk to protect the delicate environment. So it was a great pick for our third ever overnight hike, hauling all of our food and shelter with us.

It was a beautiful and unforgettable four days spent together in the wild and the first of many overnight hikes to come in Tasmania.

Introducing… Ash and Tom’s new campervan and bewilderingly exciting ‘fixer-upper’ project!

We have our own wheeeeeeels! FINALLY! This opens up Tassie (and the mainland) to us in seriously big ways. We’re honestly beside ourselves with excitement.

Further backstory and before/after transformation images and videos to come soon. We have BIGGGGGGG plans for this beast! Much love!!

Fear not – colossal video updates covering our move to Opossum Bay and my life-changing time working at Westerway Raspberry Farm are on their way. Apologies from us both for the radio silence! It’s been a crazy busy time for us both and all will come to light, but in the meantime we’re overjoyed to share that – finally – TOMMO’S VISA HAS BEEN GRANTED!

Blood, sweat and tears went into the application for this visa. So many of our plans for the future rode on getting approved. This visa allows me to stay in Australia for up to 5 years – an incredible amount of time to continue our wild adventures and empire building escapades. Simply put, I (we) absolutely love it in Tasmania and feel like this could be ‘it’. We feel empowered by our home, prospects and lifestyle. We feel inspired by the mountains, the wilderness and the wildlife. We feel that Tasmania could be our forever home.

… we’re still DEAD SET on an epic return to the UK though. As soon as humanely possible. We talk daily about seeing all of your beautiful faces again – ideally in a pub setting.