Oceania
berry picking in tasmania
Today, we ate some delicious raspberries that we had bought on the weekend from the local supermarket and it made us think of berry picking in Tasmania.
In Tasmania, there are a few farms that you can stop at to pick your own fruit.
We stopped at two; Sorrell Fruit Farm and Hillwood Berry Farm. Both slightly different in their approach to fruit picking.
(1) Sorrell Fruit Farm
It is only about 20 minutes north east of Hobart. To our surprise, when we arrived, there was an entrance fee. We had visited back in 2008 and we were able to wander through free of charge. And were only charged if you picked any fruit.
Now, the price is $13.50 per adult and $6.00 per child, that includes the punnet of fruit that you pick. It was a shame that the price was set regardless of whether you were picking fruit or just photographing. That made it a little tricky for us as we were hoping to take some more photos for the blog. We thought it was a little expensive to pay $27 for both of us just to walk through so we waited outside. Imagine paying for all 12 of us to go through, we would’ve ended up with a lot of fruit. But we can understand from a business perspective where they were coming from so absolutely no criticism or complaints in our eyes.
We sent in the kids more for their experience with 2 adults and away they went. The loot was everything from raspberries, cherries, loganberries to tayberries. Other than raspberries and strawberries, we have never tried any of the other types of berries on offer.
(2) Hillwood Berry Farm
Halfway into the trip, we visited Hillwood Berry Farm from Launceston. This was about a 20-minute drive north.
The approach these guys took was slightly different. They charged by the kilogram depending on how much fruit you actually picked. There was also plenty of play equipment for children to keep themselves busy while the adults went fruit picking.
We ended up with 5 punnets between us filled with strawberries and MORE raspberries. Strawberries are quite easy to spot and pick in the fields. However raspberries are so much more delicate and harder to find. Raspberries and squish quite easily between your fingers as you pick them.
The strawberries were priced at approximately $10 per kg while raspberries at approximately $20 per kg.
We have never eaten so many berries in our lives as we did in those 10 days in Tasmania. They were just so scrumptious and juicy and fresh! It certainly gave us a greater appreciation of the cost of fruit: from the work of the farmer through to the picking and packaging of the fruit. It also made us realise how fresh fruit don’t keep well so how do the supermarkets do it?!
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how not to go hiking!
We flew back home to Sydney two days ago! Our biggest adventure and highlight in Tasmania would be our hike in Cradle Mountain National Park. At the time, it felt like a misadventure though! So let’s set the scene a little: There were 12 of us ranging from 20 months through to 64 years old. And we went to see Cradle Mountain. One cannot come to Tasmania and NOT see Cradle Mountain. The original plan was to walk Dove Lake Circuit because it was flat and therefore would be manageable with kids, a pram and a wheelie esky (a.k.a cooler bag).
In the group we had: – a 64 year old with gout in his left foot – a 30-something male who had pulled a hamstring during a spontaneous beach race on our first day in Tasmania – a 7 year old who had only just recovered from a 24 hour tummy bug the day before – a 20 month old asleep in a pram What was meant to be an easy walk turned into something extremely ambitious! Instead of walking the Dove Lake circuit which was a 2 hours walk around the lake (we all deemed it would take “too long”). We decided that we would walk the Lake Lilla Track to get to Ronny Creek so we could jump on the shuttle bus back to the Visitor Centre. How hard could it be, right? The map showed that it was mostly boardwalk so off we trot. Lake Lilla Track turned out NOT FLAT nor EASY nor QUICK especially if you were hiking with the four candidates listed above. We hadn’t prepared for this walk and this is when things started to get interesting!
Up and down the rocky pathway through the wilderness we walked with an infant asleep in the pram. Two of the men in our entourage carried the pram so Little Miss could continue to sleep, in hope that we would reach boardwalk soon. The path was narrow, and there were loose wet rocks as we hiked in single file. On and on we went, stopping occasionally to let passer-bys overtake us. We are sure they all thought we were mad! There were moments where we stopped to discuss whether to continue or to turn back as boardwalk was simply not in sight.
And always timely, we would see other hikers coming in the direction we were headed… Let’s ask them! So we did and the responses were similar: “You guys should turn back especially with the pram!” “The boardwalk is only at the very start of the hike, the rest will be rocks and water.” “There is a lot more rocks before you get to boardwalk.” “It’s pretty rough up ahead for you guys.” But did we heed their advice? Hmm… no! We pushed on because we had come so far already! There were times when we felt prematurely excited because there was boardwalk. We would celebrate and cheer, only to find that the boardwalk lasted 50 metres and we were back to gravel, uneven paths again! Were we EVER going to find civilisation?
Finally 2 and a half hours later, we arrived at boardwalk! Normally, it probably wouldn’t take hikers that long but with the entourage we had and our unpreparedness, it DID take us that long. Our reward for finishing was not only boardwalk but seeing wombats at the finish line! We had one wombat climb onto the boardwalk and walk right across our path. We also saw a baby wombat and its mum.
Regardless of our reward at the end – let us finish by clearly stating: THIS IS NOT HOW TO HIKE! It is so crucial to be prepared, to plan your hike to know where you are going and to notify a responsible person that you are hiking in case you don’t return. It was only after we arrived back at our motel, that we realised that we hadn’t done ANY of those things. We had one 600mL bottle of water each (if that) – we were not dressed for abrupt change in weather. We didn’t really know where we were going. We hadn’t told anyone what we were doing. We had changed our original walk plans and turned it into a hike. What was meant to be only an hour or two at Cradle Mountain National Park became a 3 hour visit. We can laugh about it now, safe and sunburnt but wouldn’t have been laughing if something dire had happened out there. Call us crazy or foolish, we learnt our lesson, we won’t be going unprepared again for bush walks or hikes!
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tassie here we come
So Christmas is now behind us and New Year is about to come knocking! We will be bringing in 2014 in Hobart this year. It’s the second year in a row that we will not be in Sydney!
Seriously?! Where does the time go? We cannot believe that this time last year, we were on a Caribbean cruise and this year, we are trying to think of what to pack for Tasmania.
We’ve googled the forecast for the next few days and the temperature ranges so much: from the lows of 9 to the highs of 28. A mix of winter and summer clothes are needed here!
This is a family holiday, we have 12 people aged between 1 years old (our niece) through to 64 years old (the patriarch of the family). The last time we did this, there was only 10 of us and we were driving a mini-van around Western Australia… After that experience, we have decided this time to split up into two cars for our sanity!
So our itinerary for this 10-day trip goes a little something like this:
Flying into Hobart for a few days, onwards to Bicheno for a few more, up north to Launceston and Sheffield to finish off. There will be day trips in between no doubt but these will be our “hubs”.
Thinking back to our visit here back in 2008: we are looking forward to eating fresh fruit and visiting the different farms, seeing wildlife and the beauty of nature… and who doesn’t love a good ole road trip!!
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a 2-day safari in australia
Yes, you heard us correctly: we went on a safari in Australia! Seeing as our real African safaris had been put on the back burner, we put an alternative safari on the cards.
A five-hour drive north-west of Sydney brought us to a town called Dubbo.
Dubbo is home to Taronga Western Plain Zoo where the wildlife roam freely on the wide open plains. But not entirely without enclosures. There are moats or fences separating visitors from the animals but not to the point where we felt we were visiting a typical zoo.
We had booked a 2-day zoofari package, staying at the Zoofari Lodge.
What we got with the zoofari?
- 1-night accomodation: in canvas lodges (more glamping than camping)
- 2-day zoo admission
- an African-inspired banquet on the first night and breakfast on the following morning: both unbelievably scrumptious
- 3 exclusive guided tours
- complimentary bicycle hire
The 3 exclusive tours included a sunset tour, night tour and a sunrise tour. We were transported around via a mini bus with tours lasting about 1 hour each with approximately 20 people on board. On all three tours, we got relatively close to the animals and for some, we were able to feed them. It was unreal to see a hippo so active at night, a cheetah stalking and who would’ve thought we would’ve met a bongo from Congo! (And no, it wasn’t a drum…)
The tour guides were very informative and provided reminders as to the importance of conservation. Incredible hearing how many rhinos in the wild were being killed in a day and how habitat destruction and mining are affecting the numbers of animals in the wild!
We highly recommend if anyone is to head out to Dubbo, the zoofari overnight stay is worth it. After checking out of the lodge, we still had admission to the zoo itself. Hiring bikes is complimentary with the package but get there early for the golf buggies. They get snapped up very quickly. The other way to get around is to drive your own car through the zoo. There are parking spots along the way where you can stop and walk to see the animals.
Dubbo Zoo has been on our family’s to-do for so many years and finally this was the year to tick it off our list 🙂
How much did it cost?
It’s calculated based on how many people per cabin. So for us, two monkeys, it cost us $658 for the package, which when we itemised what we were getting, it actually works out quite reasonable for 2 people.
There is more to see than just the zoo at Dubbo but we didn’t have the time as we only had a weekend here. Next time, we will be sure to make it a leisurely drive out and back with a few stops to explore things along the way.
wise monkeys abroad 