#TravelTasmania // Bay of Fire

While Australia is definitely know for it's stunning coasts and beaches, I didn't think Tasmania would be any competition with the likes of the Gold Coast, Sydney's Eastern 'burbs, Cairns, Byron Bay and so on. But I was wrong. Not only was I wrong, Tasmania had something those other locations didn't; an incredibly serene and peaceful environment to enjoy the blaze of lichen covered rocks along the Bay of Fires. 

It could just be me, but places start to lose their appeal when having to squeeze through dense crowds of people. That was something we fortunately never had to worry about in Tasmania, in fact, it was stark contrast to the year and a half spent living in Sydney. It was a treat to be able to climb around these rocks with few other souls around. 

The brightly colored rocks don't stop in Bingalong Bay. While it is definitely the most accessible, being in the heart of a charming, small town, it was only a warm-up for our next location! We continued driving in search for our next potential stop. And by 'we', I mean Vivi continued driving and I continued pretending to know where we were meant to be going while intuitively looking a map and occasionally pointing.

 I couldn't even really tell you where this next place is, I think we'd had just sort of taken a chance and went down a random, winding road until we hit the coast. There may have been a sign on the main highway informing of a park, but other than that, we knew were were safe with knowing that majority of the east coast was littered with the lichen.

Eventually we made it to the next brightly colored, rocky coastline where it basically felt like were were trespassing. The only sign of civilization besides a small parking lot and packed-down paths was a farm with probably one of the best views ever. Lucky cows for sure.

The rock formations here were HUGE! We made it into our own natural playground as we climbed to see the best views and to see how close we could get to the water. 

After climbing around the rocks, we spotted a path towards the beach that was calling our names. The water in Tasmania is undeniably  the clearest I've ever seen the entire three years I spent living and exploring Australia. As chilly as the water is, I always had a huge desire to jump right in and somehow magically morph myself into a mermaid.

I feel like every photo I took here could be on a postcard. This random location had turned out to be a true treat, with a unique blend of sights on top of the already stunning rocks. But alas, our romantic, long walk on the beach had to come to an end as the rest of Tasmania was calling!

After the Bay of Fires, we said our farewells to the East Coast and made our way inland, making a stop at the most old school petrol station first. After all, we had a long road a head of us where there would be vast nothingness. Fortunately, there we a few pleasant surprises along the way to our next destination, Cradle Mountain. But that's for next time... 

Cheers! 

#Travel // I Didn't Hate Cleveland

I didn't hate Cleveland.

 In fact I was actually really surprised how mildly entertaining it ended up being. We only dedicated a day of our month-long road trip around the Great Lakes to this city, thinking we'd just stop by and stretch our legs for a few hours. This was still only a couple days after leaving Niagara Fall and Toronto, we weren't expecting to see much until we hit Detroit.

 A lot of our trip ended up being like that, considering we didn't have much idea of what was in store when we rerouted from a trip out west to around the great lakes. Trading National Parks and Monument for ... uhm, a lot of woods and random, low-profile cities. Props to the National Shutdown. 

The best lesson of traveling our new route, was that places can really surprise you. We never once had to deal with inflated prices or obnoxious crowds of tourists and a lot of stops really surprised us with how visitor friendly they were. Cleveland is probably one of the best examples. I was expecting only to see an nausa-inducing amount of the horrible color scheme of brown and orange. Fortunately the city isn't as crazy with Browns pride and I was spared!

For most of the road trip, all we really spent money on was food and gas. The Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame was pricey, we knew that going in. We had no intention to pay the entrance fee, but decided at least a peek in the lobby would be worth checking-out. As you can see, we caved and forked over the $40 to marvel at all it's impressive innards.

This was definitely one attraction both Torsten and I were glad we splurged on. As I mentioned, we weren't planning on actually seeing the full museum, but once we were in, we stayed in... for hours. What was meant to be a quick stop ended up taking up the whole day as we watched old music videos and admired memorabilia of legends. 

We wandered the downtown a bit before stumbling into a food court, starrrrrving. We pretty much made a meal out of all the free samples on offer, but still dug into some good ole gooey, food-court "Chinese". We also soaked up as much of the WiFi as our phones could handle. 

On the way out of Tower City, we walked along the Cuyahoga River, counting the bridges along the way. The old steel and stone buildings lining the path along the river was strangely beautiful in an industrial way. The perks of having an engineer boyfriend is being able to see rusty eyesores in a positive light. 

As the sun started setting, we started making our way back to the van, passing through a massive hunk of inner-city green space, read: glorified lawn with fancy sculptures. 

We rolled out of town with a sky-full of colorful clouds and better impression of Cleveland than we'd ever expected. We continued the drive along Lake Erie, heading North to the one and only Motor City; Detroit!

Cheers!