Tasmania

We've been in Tasmania for 4 days now, which we've spent on a circuit drive of the island. For a relatively small place, there's a wide variety of landscape--from beautiful coastal views with waves crashing on the shore, across a low mountain range to the central plateau which is mostly an undulating grassland, dry and yellow in some places, greener further west. From the center we drove west to Cradle Mountain National Park and spent a few hours hiking. A huge part of west and SW Tasmania is wilderness--it's the largest temperate zone wilderness left in the world and is World Heritage protected. Gorgeous, gorgeous scenery. The roads through the mountains have been challenging, though--narrow, no shoulders, crumbly edges, very few guardrails, lots of hairpin curves.

Now we're back in Hobart for 2 days and will do some urban sightseeing. Monday we fly to Melbourne.