Hobart, Tasmania Trip (Day 1 & 2)

16th March 2016, Wednesday

Woohoooo!!! Finally can fly again, after one year of no flying. Going to fly to Tasmania tonight. After work during the day, I went back home and waited for my dad to come back to drive me to the airport. I reached Terminal 1 and waited for my friends to arrive. I went to the money changer to change some Australia dollars. My friends arrived later, then we all checked in our luggage and went into the gate. When we were scanning our passport and thumbs through the gate, my friend had her right thumb with plaster and so she cannot scan. Then the staff told her to scan using her left thumb...hohoho.....

Cactus Garden

And so, I went for dinner on my own while my friends went for shopping. After a not nice chicken rice, I went walk walk first. I walked to Cactus Garden, there were a lot of different cactus planted there. After walking for some time, I made my way slowly to the gate. I waited at the gate while waiting for my friends to come to the gate (Busy shopping....kekeke). Finally the gate opened and we went in to board the plane. Our flight was on 10:25pm (15th March 2016) and it was Emirates A380 plane. When we first stepped in the plane, we saw the beautiful staircase to the upper floor. Then we went to our seats and i was sitting on the right row with 2 ang mos.

The entertainment from Emirates plane was cool and there were about 500 movies and dramas for all ages. There were also games to play with. Wifi was also available once we were up on the air. It was about 7 hours to reach Melbourne Airport. We had our meals on the plane and after that, it was night time. I started watching those movies that I didn't watch before, total watched 4 movies throughout the whole flight.

We reached Melbourne Airport at 8.30 am and we had to go out to the luggage belt to pick up our luggage. We had to make our way to the other terminal, which was T4 for domestic flights. It was quite troublesome cos we had to take out our luggage and drop them back again in the other flight. And for the custom to go in Australia, we don't have to go through the counters for stamp chop. Instead, we just went to their e-service machines to get an entry tickets. Then we can use our passport on their scan machines (something like ours) and the entry ticket. Then a photo on us will be taken (instead of our thumb prints) at the custom gates. And we were cleared to enter.

After the customs, we walked to the luggage belt to collect our luggage. There was a super long queue at the exit as the security were collecting entry tickets and the entry forms. So there was a quite a wait there. After we managed to get out of the door, there were a lot of people standing around the exit door and there were also a lot of people in the Optus shop. As we had about an hour for the next flight, we tried to get the data card from Optus shop. It was very long wait as the staffs were helping the customers to change the sim cards and explaining to the customers. We got the data card which was 8gb, valid for 28 days for AUD$40 to share the data.

After the long wait for data card, we tried to figure the way to Terminal 4 for our next flight. We went to drop our luggage using their self drop off machines. It was quite easy and fast. But the counter staff in Singapore had tied my luggage to my friend's boarding pass and one of my friend's luggage tied to my boarding pass. It was weird though, but anyway we were going to the same destination. This was something we had to take note for the returning flights...lolz

Hobart Terminal 4 Airport

Connecting Flight to Tasmania

Super Nice Tart!!

We just went in to the gate as we thought the gate will be far away. But it was quite near and there was nothing much to do. So we just sat down and sleep before boarding. By 11.45pm, we started boarding the next plane. It was a Qantas Link plane and it was like Jetstar..small plane. I was sitting on a 2 seats row, where the airline staff sat with me throughout the journey. The flight was delayed due to the floor crews were still trying to arrange the luggage into the plane.After a 15 mins wait, the plane took off. We had a nice cool pie on the plane as our snack. There was no entertainment on the plane, so it was quite boring during the flight. We reached Hobart Airport @ around 1 plus in the afternoon. It was a small airport with only one luggage belt and we collected our luggage. And then, we walked out of the airport and headed to the car rental office, which was Bargain.

We signed the driving agreement for the car and then we went out to collect the car, which was a car brand called Holden. The car park was big and the car was parked a bit far away from the airport. And we checked the car conditions and loaded our luggage into the car. Off we go!!!

Our rental car..Vroom Vroom!!

We followed the driving directions from the GPS and reached our apartment office. But there was no one in the reception and so, we gave the hotel a call. After all were done, we managed to collect our apartment keys. Then we drove a short distance down the city and arrived our apartment. The parking lot was not even straight road. We took our luggage and brought down to the apartment. It was very big, with a full kitchen, a common big toilet connecting both my room and my friends's room. And we got a weird view outside, which was showing rocks and a black hole from my room. Lol...The apartment had washing machine, a dryer and there was also a big oven. There was a big cupboard with the plates and bowls and tea bags and hot chocolate powders. There were 3 big trees in front of our living room's window blocking our view too.

Super nice rest chair

Living Room Area

Raw Natural Oysters @ Tasmania Mures

Fish & Chips @ Tasmania Mures

Then we rested awhile in the big nice room, and then we walked out to the tourism information office as it was going to close soon. We booked our wildness cruise, bought the national parks pass (which can be used in almost all the national parks in Tasmania except Cradle Mountain - Need to buy separate pass) and asked the petrol station's location. Then we walked to Waterfront for some fish and chips. We bought fish and chips and raw natural oysters @ Fish Frenzy and had them on the outside tables, where the sea gulls flew down and wanting to eat our food. Hohoho......Later we walked to another eating place for raw oysters and fish and chips again @ Tasmania Mures to try out as the previous one wasn't taste so good. In this restaurant, they do sell for dine-in and for takeaways. The seafood all looked sooo fresh!!! But the oysters were quite fresh. There were some small food stalls nearby the water too, selling fish & chips and other seafood. Then we enjoyed our slow walk back to the apartment and went to the small supermarket near our stay place. Our apartment was located on top of Kelly's Stairs, which was considered one of the attractions for that area.

Hotel Stayed:
Sullivans Cove Apartments - Salamanca Battery Point

Places Visited:
Waterfront
Kelly's Stairs