Travel with me to Tasmania, Australia - Cataract Gorge Launceston (Part I)

It's two years back since my mother came over visiting around Easter. For a fortunate stroke of serendipity, my colleague offered a free giveaway offer for the 5 days Tasmania(Australian call it Tassie) tour for 2 people.

I'm not usually a tour group person but my mother loves it. Yes. she might be one of the typical Chinese tourists on the big coach you might occasionally see. My mom loves the convenience of being part of a tour group when she travels. It's also better value for what you usually pay for. It allows you to basically "hop on the bus to for napping, and hop off the bus for snapping." Easy peasy.

So we took up on the offer and quickly booked the last-minute Jetstar return flight from Melbourne to Launceston which cost an exorbitant amount of money. It's $600 per person which would've been $69 on usual occasion if we lucky to score a deal. I used to travel a lot, and I love great traveling deals.

It was a brief flight from Melbourne to Launceston and we landed on the Good Friday morning. It was slightly colder because we were closer to the South Pole - Or it might just be the "Antarctic Vortex"?

Cataract Gorge Launceston

The driver(and tour guide) picked us up from the airport, we were stoked that there were only five tourists in a Van. Great stuff! We love a small group. The downside is though, most facilities were closed on a public holiday as such. The driver decided to take us to the self-guided nature walk close to the center of Launceston City - Cataract Gorge Launceston Walking Tour.

Due to the limited time we have, we didn't take the Zig Zag steep track, leading from Kings Bridge up to the Firstt Basin.
South Esk River carves its way through solid rock and enters the Tamar River Valley - we had a great time wandering into the Reserve on isolated little bush trails.