Was what we heard from every Australian when we told them about our travel plans to Tasmania. Looking back we can only agree!

We spent our first week in Tassie working for accomodation and food on the beautiful Brockley Estate. On this huge and secluded sheep farm Julian & Chaxi are running a B&B, also offering Spanish cuisine (Chaxi is originally from Teneriffe).

The work we did was diverse: mowing the lawn, weeding, painting cupboards, cleaning windows, tidying up the garage and clearing up the remains of the old chicken shed. For us, it was also interesting to see what life is like for B&B hosts: not only romantic but also quite challenging at times. There is always something to do!

Our home for the week at Brockley was the cosy Shearer’s Quarter (the sheares that stay here for one week every year kind of leave a distinct smell) with an open fire. When we weren’t working or sleeping (nice to know why you’re actually this tired) we explored the area around the farm by foot or took the canoe, looking for the resident platypus – which however we didn’t get to see, but spotted possums and kangaroos instead.

The second week we hired a car and drove up north to Launceston and then to the east coast. The Bay of Fires was the most beautiful beach we’ve seen so far – white sand, orange granite rocks and turqoise water ?UR” even though the sky wasn’t blue but rather cloudy.

In Freycinet National Park we took a quite ambitious hike to Wineglass Bay and around Mount Marlow. Being rather exhausted by that we might rethink our plans of hiking for 3 days through Torres del Paine in South America.

After that we headed further south to Bruny Island which we explored mainly eating and tasting oysters, fudge and cheese. We also got a bit upset about the small dent we got into our bumper – well, back then we didn’t know what was to happen to our car on the Great Ocean Road…