TASSIE - DAY 3 - MT FIELD NATIONAL PARK

Trail to Horseshoe Fall @ Mt.Field National Park

I woke up at 6:11am unable to sleep again. I forced myself to sleep when I woke half an hour later trying to make sense of my dream. I had a dream I was at flight center trying to book a flight. The sales assistant kept insisting on me booking a flight with a dishwasher on a Singapore airline. I had no idea why she was offering me a dishwasher on a flight.

I managed to fall back asleep to only wake up at 7:15am with my heart racing. I could barely breathe and tried reaching for my water bottle to relax. I had a dream that the bitch slapping Italiano was riding in a car with 8 other guys. One of them shoots at me with his gun while I’m walking. I manage to dodge and they miss. At that point I wake up. That bastard tried shooting me! You will pay for this Italiano! You know who you are!

By 7:30am I had enough of the weird ass dreams as I dragged myself out of bed and straight for the shower. Recovering from the evil dreams I grab a coffee and relax on the balcony facing ABC studios. The plan for today was to rent a car to travel around. Since we explored Hobart City yesterday there wasn’t anything much left to do around here.

So at 8:30am I start calling around for rental cars when they all tell me that they have no cars left until the 8th of Jan. This is a sudden flashback to Cyprus in 2004. We couldn’t find a rental car in the whole of Cyprus the 10 days we were there. Like Cyprus, Tasmania required wheels to get anywhere you wanted.

Finally I found a car at one of the places I called. The guy on the other end of the phone stated it was $90 per day with insurance with a minimum of 3 days hire. The car was being dropped off at the airport and he could get it to us by 10:30am. I stupidly decided to inform the others when we got into a argument about it and I told the guy on the phone I would call him back.

My dad claimed it was too expense to rent. We tried explaining to him that it was the only bloody car left on the island and there was no way we were sitting in the apartment for the next 4 days. When we finally resolved the issues I called the guy back to find out that the car got booked in that 20 minutes. Ready to give up the guy passes on a phone number to another car rentals place that might have something for today.

We call the car rental place to find out that they have one car left and it’s a $107 a day with insurance. Without thinking twice we decide to book the car, realizing we are paying an extra $17 a day now due to our disagreement earlier.

I quickly look at the map to find the street of the car rental place when my dad screams he knows where it is. I tell him its one street away from the apartment. We lock up the apartment and leave. 15 minutes later we have circled the block and are completely lost.

Trying to stay calm I explain the freaking car rentals place was one street away not an entire block away. Finally we ask some random people and manage to find "Murray St". We manage to walk past the car rental place even though I state I think this is it. We walk further up to realize I was actually onto something and turn back. We arrive at the car rental’s place to be greeted by an Indian man who’s way too happy to be alive this early in the morning.

The Indian guy shows us to our car after all the paper work. We end up with some dodgy looking Toyota Corolla that’s racked up over 230 000 Kms. Before I could say anything my dad starts throwing a tantrum that the tyres are shit and they could cause a problem.

He goes onto tell the Indian guy that if this car was driven in Sydney the cops would pull you over and give you a ticket. The Indian guy looking annoyed but trying to stay cool asks one of the guys working there to take the car to change the tyres.

The car disappears with the guy returning within 5 minutes later stating that the tyre place was too busy to do it. After a lot of fussing we come to an agreement with the Indian guy that we will bring the car back in tomorrow morning to change the tyres. My dads happy, the Indian guys happy, I'm hungry!

We drove off as we fuss over what our plans for the day is. I suggest we grab lunch by the wharf before heading to the National Park to sightsee. Everyone in the car agrees until we argue about the fact there is no parking near the wharf. So we drive to our apartment to locate the garage and manage to park there before walking up to the wharf.

We walk up to a seafood restaurant near the water and settle down for an awesome lunch. Feeling satisfied by lunch we decide to head back to the apartment to pick up the car and drive to the National Park. The National Park is estimated at 1.5 hours but it takes us close to 2 hours getting there.

Views on "The Rivers Run"

BREIF HISTORY – MT. FIELD NATIONAL PARK – Mt Field was declared Tasmania’s first national park in 1916. The park was named after Barron Field, amateur naturalist. The parks major highlight is the Russell Falls. The trail continues to Horseshoe Falls and eventually to Lady Barron Falls.

We take "The River Run" route which allows you to see alot of hills, valleys and rugged mountain ranges. We drive past several lakes, forests and vineyards. My dad starts to panic as the petrol drops to a quater tank. There are no petrol stations in sight. We stop at a random park when we spot some locals to question where we might find a petrol station. The guy with 15 tat's tells us about 10 miles down the river run.

We continue our drive to finally spot a petrol station. We immediately stop to fill up and hence stop the panicking process in the car. Once filled up we drive past the new well known towns "Plenty" & "New Norfolk".

We arrived at Mt Field National Park to walk into reception to purchase tickets. Instead of having an entry fee per person you basically have to pay $20 for a ticket to be placed on your car. We pay for the ticket and dump it inside the car.

We started hiking through to spot giant ferns and enormous eucalyptus. One thing that stood out was "Pandani". Apparently Pandani is the largest heath plant in the world and only found in Tasmania.

Pictures taken inside the Mt.Field National Park:

We managed to walk up to Russell Falls. This was a 25-minute walk.

Russell Falls

We decided to follow the trail to Horseshoe Fall, which was another 15-minute walk. This was a struggle as it was up hill and the path was quite dangerous. It was almost like hiking up on Santorini again. You really have to watch where you are going. One wrong step and you can tumble down and kill yourself.

We managed to walk half way when we stopped at a bench to catch our breath. This is when I tell my parents they shouldn’t continue, as the remainder of the path looks quite hard. My mum agrees and tells my dad that they are getting old and can’t bush walk too much. This is when my dad throws a tantrum stating that he will continue the path to show he isn’t old. Never argue with him when his trying to prove a point. 8 minutes later we arrive at "Horseshoe Falls".

Horseshoe Falls

We finally manage to arrive at Horseshoe Falls and realize it was worth while coming here. If we continue for another hour we get to Lady Barron Falls but at this point no one could be bothered. We manage to slowly walk back down to stop at half way on the bench again. Another family is sitting there and look concerned when they see how exhausted we are. We tell them they might as well see it, as they are half way and its worth seeing. We encourage them and continue on our way.

We finally arrive to the bottom dead exhausted. We manage to stroll to the café to plant our bodies down. Even though its quite hot we decide to grab a coffee each to relax. Regaining fuel we jump pack into the car to head back home.

Along the way we decide to stop to sightsee this:

Back in the cars, we continue our travel until we spot a sign saying "Fresh Cherries".We decide to stop at a cherry farm. We make a random purchase of a few KGS of fresh hand picked cherries before jumping back into the car. Our next stop is to find apricots.

We spot a farm selling apricots and pull in. The minute you enter the farms the first thing they ask you is "where are you from". This some how strikes further conversation with them. Now that we have our cherries and apricots we head back to the apartment to settle for a nap.

I can’t sleep so I continue reading my book "When in Rome". After an hour and a half everyone is back up and hungry so we start cooking. After dinner my mum and I decide to check out the pool and gym.

Our apartment with the pool

Around 11pm we all decide we need to go out for a drive possibly to the Casino. Were planning on spending Saturday night at the casino but we figured we should get a sneak preview beforehand.

We jump into the car and head towards Sandy Bay. We manage to get lost along the way somehow and do a few laps when we spot the Sandy Bay sign. We take a left and follow Sandy Bay Drive until we hit the Casino.

We arrive at Wrest Point Casino. Wrest Point Casino was the first Casino to open in Australia by Jerry Lewis himself. I was actually quite impressed by the Casino, as I was really disappointed in Jupiter’s Casino at the Gold Coast. Even though this Casino was old it had been renovated inside but still maintained its unique atmosphere.

Wrest Point Casino - Hobart

We walk through the casino dressed in jeans and a shirt. We weren’t sure if they would let us in as we were going to dress up on Saturday for it. However soon we realized everyone in the casino is wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

We do a quick lap before hitting the information desk for some questions. We were planning on having dinner at one of the buffets at the casino on Saturday and decided to enquire on prices. This is when the girl behind the desk informs us that if we become a member of the casino we benefit by receiving a $5 discount per person at the buffet. The membership is free so we immediately sign up. The girl informs us that our cards will take about 10minutes to prepare so we wander off to explore more.

This is when my parents and brother decide to hit the pokies. They each grab a machine and slot a few coins in. I’m on the phone when my dad is screaming over to me. His gone totally hysterical waving his hands and arms about. This is when I notice his scored himself the maximum jackpot on the machine, which comes to about $230 in total.

He starts panicking and tells me to go get an attendant to get the money. I race off and grab the first guy I see and ask him how we can collect our money. The guy walks over and presses collect on the machine and the next thing you know my dad has $230 dollar coins spitting out at him. We manage to shove it all in a cup to exchange for notes. Once we have the notes, we collect our membership cards and flee the scene.

Back at the apartment Prison Break goes to air...