13 Feb: Cradle Mountain (TAS) --> Launceston (TAS).

Just some wombats roaming around
Cradle Mountain Lodge
After yesterday's hike, +Marc and I decided to sleep in a bit. We also saw that the weather wasn't going to be as nice so we opted not to do a morning walk, so we just took our time checking out of the lodge and headed over to Launceston.

On the way, we passed through a town called Topiary, which had lots of figures carved out of bushes. The best one was one of soldiers near a war memorial but we saw some interesting animals. Once we got into Launceston, it was too early to check into our AirBnB, so we opted for a 3 mile hike up and around Cataract Gorge. We saw some peacocks roaming around, and took in some nice views. Also very enticing was a very large 50m swimming pool for Marc, which we decided we would come back to later.

Cataract Gorge in Launceston: Marc later swam at
the public pool below FOR FREE
We drove around Launceston, got a feel for the city (town), and got settled into the B&B. Yeah for places with laundry machines to use! We then drove back to Cataract Gorge where Marc was able to swim and I was able to catch up on updating photos on Flickr. It was sunny and warm. Nice.

Dinner was probably one of the best that we had on the trip - Stillwater River Cafe. The food was fresh, the wine was excellent and the service was wonderful. Something tells me this place makes the "Top 5" (Jill). The location over looked the Esk River, which had lots of people running along side of the river or rowing in the river with a nice sunset in the background. A great way to end the day.