Cradle Mountain-Tazmania Maze

 " Hi all, back from a great Christmas trip to Sydney with the family. But well, I better finish off some unfinished post on Tasmania before i can start any on Sydney. Maybe you are all bored of Tassie already and I'm starting to forget a lot. But here goes"


Third day in Launceston was a great day, we pack our bags and off we drove to the Cradle Mountain. The drive was pretty scenic with a lot of farm land, green and animals to see. Along the way, we pass by a mural town where the town won yearly awards for murals drawn on the shops wall in the whole town. I think its call Sheffield. You should stop by as its pretty interesting town. Pretty much the further we drove away from the city, the quieter it was and more farm land we see. There wasn't much pit stop as well as its only 90 minutes to our next destination. 

After going through a course of winding road up the hills, we reached our destination. "Tasmazia". I bet you will be like, hey Missy, you got your Tasmania spelled wrongly larrrrrrrr. If the name isn't obvious enough, the place house 8 crazy huge/medium/mini mazes in the heart of cradle mountain lake district.

The place is easily missed by passerby as just an ordinary farmland with a small house on the front. Not many tourist at this area, i guess it not a tourist spot. Anyway, I am really interested in this firstly cause they have a huge lavender farm (sadly, no lavender bloom in July, huge mistake for not checking). People, if you like me like lavender, plan your trip in summer, that's in December to February in Australia. Secondly, after much research on Tasmania, most of the things sound pretty much the same. Historical and Scenic. I wanted something more fun, hence mazes was a great idea. Lot of fun lost in the mazes.

Anyways, Tasmazia has 8 mazes, a model village, a huge lavender farm as i have mention as well as pancake place and gift shop. I pretty much spend my whole entire day there and concluded the day driving to our new hotel Cradle Mountain Chateau for the night of spa and relaxation.

Here's some pictures of the day:

Overview of the maze, a tiny map to cheat.

In the great maze, there's trap doors and hints to collect.

Random boards for your humor

One wrong turn and you find yourself in spook town. eeikz.

dare to go into the spook house?

one sip add 1 year, 10 sip add 10 years. haha... liess...

Confusion maze. seriously confusing. 

Got lost in the confusion maze

Spend so much time looking for the checkpoint.

Asking for direction

The Village of Lower Crackpot,

 

 

Cheat one maze

The answer to the cheat one maze it to go thru this trap that say no entry and u will reach the checkpoint. following picture.

Whee..mission completed=D

School kids lining up to go home after all the fun.

It's time for us to go too.

Information:
Tasmazia
500 Staverton Road
Promised Land 7306
Tasmania, Australia.

http://www.tasmazia.com.au/home.html

Cheers. Bye for now. Come back for more=D. Will write on hotel review and more.

Tasmania: Richmond -- Lauceston

" I'm really more interested to blog about my recent hiking trip, but before i do, i rather finish up on Tasmania. Don't want to leave it hanging. So here goes"

Following day of road trip in Tasmania. If you have just join us, here's the previous link. Like i had previously mention, first day in Tasmania wasn't treating us well, weather wise. Waking up the next day to bright and sunny sky, however, feeling drowsy from flu medicine and massive killer migraine. I wasn't in the mood to wake up. However so, the plan must move on. Zipping up the bags and towing it down to the car, as our hotel was only for the night, we load up the car, hand in the keys at the reception and bid farewell to Hobart city. 

Drove 25km to the town of Richmond. Richmond is known for its famous 19th century Georgian architecture as well one of the earliest Australian colonial village. The drive there did not take long, but i was hoping it did as i needed to catch some sleep. The only reason why we wanted to be there was because of this particular model village/museum thing. More on this later. I'm really attracted to museums, art gallery and anything interesting. However, when we arrive, we realized there is more to Richmond than the model village.

Like i said, due to my massive headache and cranky mood, when we arrived in Richmond we had to stop by so i could recuperate.

See, i told you. that's me napping while the rest are off enjoying their scenic tour

 As i mentioned above, we are only in Richmond to see the museum, having done no research whatsoever on Richmond. We didn't not even know we drove pass the famous Richmond bridge. What the point of doing detailed planing and have nothing to anticipate at the end. I recently met up with a over-perfectionist engineer who like to over research and do detail planing and budget plan for everything including traveling. I truly wasn't surprise when i saw his stacks of plans, maps, budget allocation as i've worked with him previously and knew he was hard to please. It true that yea, it good to be well prepared, but there's not much anticipation in the end. So take my advice, do not over plan. leave some mystery while traveling.

River under the bridge looking out to the St.John's Church

Greater view of the river

The river is known as Australia's Coal River

Creature tenant of the river

I guess the ducks like it there too. During the day time, people, tourists, kids i have no idea who are they will come down the river for a stroll or just to bring some bread for the ducks.

Since i'm awake after my nap, I try to take in as much scenery as I could before we leave. Not forgetting to throw in a picture.

Richmond Bridge

 Richmond Bridge was firstly built in 1825 marking the symbol of Tasmania's convict heritage as it was built by convict labor over the Tasmania's Coal River.

Brief attraction of everything in Richmond

I guess everything in Richmond screams history. Yet, there's something really breathtaking about the place. Didnt get a chance to visit everything as time was running out and our initial plan was to just stop by for 2 hours or so.

St John Church way up the hill.

Australia's oldest catholic church built way back in 1836.

As it was lunch time, and we were interested in the pancake place we saw on the way in, we head back down the road for some food.

Pancake Place

As you could tell this little shop probably has nothing interesting to it. That where you're wrong. Behind this little shop is two big maze. Yes, you read rightly. MAZE. Well, we did not try out the Maze as in our plan we are heading to Australia largest maze the following day. Or so they advertise.

This is how it will look if you're inside the maze. Fancy finding your way out?

Postcard of the Maze

Scones and Hot cocoa for lunch

As soon as i saw scones on the menu, i have decided. However, it was rather disappointing as it wasn't really good. Jam are rather plain and the cream isn't buttery at all. It just tasted like hot cakes shaped like scones. Still its great to sit out in the sun enjoying it and the company. How often is it that you do that.

enjoying lunch and the sun

After lunch, we took a walk along the town of Richmond. The building are mostly Georgian style. Having stayed in Melbourne, most of the building there are rather Victorian. The Georgian has a unique sense and feeling to it that I just can't express.

Town of Richmond

The sunny day and clouds are really good for photo that day.

Soon we found the Old Hobart Model Village.

Entrance to the Model Village

 The Old Hobart Model Village is a model replica of Hobart back in the 1820's portraying the early history and building of the old Hobart city. It's rather interesting to see how much it has and hasn't changed since back then. The owner of the model village constructed it from the exact plans and maps of Hobart having done his research of the history and architecture back then. There are over 60 building constructed and 400 figurines to add details.

Overview of the model village

Closer detail

More details

Entrance fee's to the village cost AUD14. I guess you could say it's worth it or not. I couldn't really agree on both. The village is rather small to cost so much but i guess its really well maintain and interesting. You could also pick up lots of free brochures while you're there. So, i don't regret it that much. Be your own judge on this matter.

After seeing those brochures particularly one on Richmond, I had to take the exact or close shot of the bridge. Looking closely at the picture and doing the geography, we drove to another side of the river and stop there for that particular picture. It's really postcard worthy. Result of the shot.

Other side of the bridge overlooking the river and the church

After the shot and another few minutes for other shots, we are finally ready to leave seeing that it's almost 3pm and we are suppose to be due in Launceston hours ago. We left Hobart for good and hit the road.

Back on the road again

Drive from Hobart to Launceston is approximately 2 hours give or take almost 200km in distance. By the time we reach, it was almost sunset and not much to do. We check into Mercure Hotel again, however the Launceston one as it's really cheap. Only AUD79 per night. No photo taken as its rather similar in interior to Mercure Hobart. We dine at the Jailhouse Steak House that night. Apparently its quite famous there. We were too hungry to take any photo's that night or maybe we were too indulge in the free flow of salad. Seriously I'm already full from eating all the salads from the salad bar before our steak arrived. Highly recommended.

I shall end here and continue day 3 in the next post. Preview of day 3: Tasmazia

Hobart

"Time do pass so fast once u fall into that simple daily routine of life and without realising it, its been ages since i left Tasmania, memories fading. But it was one great relaxing trip i never hope to forget. So before i completely lose all my memories, i should pen all of them down"

Things didn't plan out right as soon as we landed in Tasmania, it was raining heavily and i was really really sick from a bad flu and cough ( i didn't recover until a month later). Our initial plan had to be changed, we were suppose to head to Port Aurthur or Richmond for a day tour before checking into the hotel for the night.  We opted to stay in a rather commercial hotel as my mom was visiting, however it was rather affordable. In Hobart we stay in Mercure Hobart for a price of AUD89 per night. Breaking it down by 3, it rather a good deal compared to backpackers.

As you could see, its rather luxurious for a short visit but the view from the window is spectacular. The building were so Victorian style and the colors were like out from Disneyland.

As our flight got slightly delayed due to the weather, and some time consumed during car rental process, soon it was noon. Even though the plan was to arrive there early and start some serious sight seeing. Not much debate was needed due to the weather and delay, because all we wanted to do was to get some lunch and relax the whole day away, mainly too cause i was pretty sick. GPS on and off we headed to the city towards Salamanca Place. If you're heading towards Hobart soon, don't do the same mistake as us. Salamanca Market only operates on Saturday, where locals and tourist hang about for local produce, arts and craft or just merely getting fresh air. We did a huge mistake if not checking the days for the market and only focusing on getting cheaper hotel rates on Sunday. Pretty much the city is quite dead on a weekend and we only had 1 day in Hobart. Bad bad mistake. (well, there you go, travel tips from us).

Salamanca Place is really just old building yet beautiful ones, inside house local artsy items and people as well some art gallery and eatery. If you are on a budget, look away as the eatery are rather pricey and heavy for breakfast and lunch. We headed for some curry for lunch at the end of the road as we didn't fancy a heavy breakfast. Reviews for the places can be summarized in one word, BAD. Serviced was bad and the food was not up to standard.

Annapurna, Will definitely never return. Farewell

Adding more pictures for viewing pleasure of Salamanca Place

Colville Gallery. Inside are some pretty chic arts, however no photography are allowed so i can't preview it to u. So head over there and check it out yourself perhaps. Price range from AUD 800- AUD 4000. How I wish i could decorate my house with arts as good as those.

More of Colville Gallery

Moving down the road there's this really trendy store that i like.

This will be appealing to the ladies, gift for lovers, mom, or maybe just yourself,don't you find yourself wanting some trendy good like this?

So this is trendy designer above is Rebecca Roth. Well, I am no friends of hers but i do like her work and colors. Simply aspiring and portrays well in my photo. Its my desktop wallpaper at this moment.

Rebecca Roth artsy shop

If you taking you kid out, this might be interesting. In an enclosed ally, house this pretty pink fairy shop. Pretty much every this magical and ferry, too much pink in a shop.

You wont miss it for sure if you are following this sign.

Let's have a look of the inside.

Walking through the entrance.

The interior of the fairy shop. Not even close to the actual shop yet. Sadly we cant take photos of the goods but there are a lot of variation of fairy stuff. Figurines, costumes etc

Won't your kids just love it there

Wooden toy and art shop opposite the fairy shop. 

This place just offer a serious of uniqueness in art and the personality one each shops. Even if you re not into art, i'm sure you find something worthy of your interest right here. Speaking of unique, I pass by this one shop and look into the windows. You wouldn't have guess what is in store on the display. quick quick , take a guess.

It;s non other than a uber cute puppy!

He look sad and tired waiting for his owner to finish work.

 The great overview of Salamanca Place

Salamanca Place

No post is complete without some humans photos right

We check in the hotels as soon as it started pouring and the temperature declined. All i wanted to do was to sleep. But maybe too much sleep. When i woke up, the sun has set and stomach was growling. Can't believe, we actually wasted our day. So stomachs needed to be satisfied. Here comes travel tips #2. Always check out where to eat, reviews and directions before traveling. For me the great pleasure of traveling is always food. I never budget on food as its the way to traveling for me since young. All i knew was Tasmania is famous for their seafood and i was looking forward for some yummy delicious seafood. However, not know where to go would be a waste of a night's dinner (well, since we only had one night). The hotel lobby has some travel brochures and i stumble across this one on famous seafood restaurant, Mures. Bull crap advertising this brochures. Driving all the way there, was delighted to see so many people in the restaurant thinking its must be good seafood. Eagerly ordering and consuming everything quickly. However, walk out with unsatisfied stomach still feeling hungry. The seafood wasn't fresh and it's quite fast food concept. Not cheap/budget as well.

Wanting to get more food, but not knowing where to go, we started walking in the cold and dead city. Night sight seeing as well. As we walk near the Henry Jones Hotel, there's this quaint looking restaurant. The windows are small and couldn't really see the interior at all or the amount of people. Looking quite desperate for food, we open the door to this quaint restaurant shockingly to see the restaurant packed with people. The aroma from the food was simply irresistible. That's it, we settle in and got our self warm and comfy for some good seafood.

3 seafood skewers hotplate. Simply divine. Must order. Though i have no idea what the name.

Osyters with champagne and roe

A little interior of the restaurant. Every corner is art! Lucky this Hobart people get to dine there whenever they wish. Admiral Cove, I will return for sure.

cosy fire place

Johnny Depp look alike

Dining area. Every corner is unique, it could as well be a pirate museum.

When we left the restaurant, it started pouring again and the wind was strong.

 How could we end the night with out any night shots. Our initial plan is to tour the city at night but not permitted by the weather god.

Rain!!

 Manage to only captured a night shot and was already drench in rainwater

This end the first night out in Hobart and off we went back to the hotel for some hot tea and getting ready for some good day next.


stay tune for the rest.