Renting a Car on the Tasman Peninsula | Tasmania Diaries (part one)

I arrived in Hobart on the evening of Monday 27th March. A friend I met in Adelaide and I had decided just two days before to spend a week in Tasmania before our individual commitments to be in Melbourne the following week. We spent the next day introducing ourselves to the state by chatting with people in our hostel and the barista where we bought our morning coffee. We then spent some time researching and dreaming and came up with a rough plan for the week.

Over the following days, our plans evolved through further conversations and the influence of the weather forecast. Nevertheless, we had a jam-packed week and everything we did seemed to have its own perfect timing.

29.03.2023

In our research on the Tuesday, we discovered that the best way to make the most of our brief time in the state was to get ourselves some wheels. So first thing on the Wednesday morning we picked up our rental, who went through an array of nicknames throughout our adventures: Kiki, little Devil, Lucky Star. Our white (less so when we returned it) Kia Picanto became our key to exploring Tasmania. This was my first time driving an automatic car, and whilst I continued to reach for the gear stick when I accelerated or braked, it was a great experience to drive. 

Our first outing was the Tasman Peninsula. We stopped on the way at various sites that took our fancy, relishing the freedom of our own vehicle. We stood on a jetty on a lake so still it resembled glass, and danced on a beach that was cloudy with mist – it was very atmospheric.

On the peninsula, we stopped by the gorgeous rock formations of the Tasman Arch and Devils Kitchen. Both have been created by erosion – thousands of years of being battered by the Tasman sea. We explored the area a little and saw the cliff faces from different vantage points. This coast reminded me of the Great Ocean Road, which I haven’t visited since returning to Australia this time, but the images from previous travels there are strong in my memory. 

We ate a ‘car picnic’ (a theme for some of the following days when it was a little chilly or rainy to eat outside) and continued our adventure. We considered visiting the historical site at Port Arthur, but the $47 entry fee was off putting, especially when the peninsula had more free offerings. So we took a trip to the Remarkable Cave – another feature created by erosion.

After admiring the coastal view from Maignon lookout next to the carpark, we descended the 115 steps to the cave viewing platform. Even the walk down was scenic, where water lapped onto sand between the large rocks. The viewing platform is raised a little above the sand, and looks through the rock to the waves at one of the other openings. We read that in high tide and stormy weather, the water runs onto the sand beneath us. We did part of a coastal walk from the carpark, on a path that meandered through fields of shrubbery. Every green plant was so green! But there were also spots purple and brown and yellow and more. We stared out at the coast a while, soaking in the view. 

There were several other natural areas we wanted to visit on the peninsula, but after multiple experiences of Google Maps directing us down roads that turned out to be dodgy gravel tracks with gates drawn across (resulting in needing to reverse fifty metres downhill onto a dirt crossroad), we settled for a short bushwalk and then an hour or so chilling at White Beach, where we had the entire place almost to ourselves. The sky was bright, and the sand and water too. We were wearing light jumpers, but couldn’t resist a brief dip in the cool water before heading off. The submersion was exhilarating. 

We drove back, the car fully initiated with dirt flecked doors and sandy footwells. We were staying at The Pickled Frog, a hostel in central Hobart. The hostel has limited parking, but as it was evening by the time we returned, we managed to find street parking that didn’t require any payment until 8.30 the next morning. So we ensured that the next day we’d be back to the car before then, ready for another day’s adventures.