We arrived in Tasmania on Friday last week to the hottest day on record ever. It reached over 40 degrees in parts of the island. It seems we are chasing various records on this trip... We picked up our hire car to spend a week exploring the island, air con on full blast. Our first night was spent in Hobart and on the way we drove the winding climb up to the top of Mount Wellington, which affords an incredible vista over the city below and the area around. There was barely a cloud in the sky, so you could see all the way down the coastline and for miles inland.

Hobart is a lovely town with pretty architecture from the 1800s. The Battery Point area is a particularly good example of this, a place lost in time and as you wonder around you feel like you are on a film set. The harbour is lined with fish and chip shops and cafes that spill onto the boardwalks. One of the highlights of Hobart is the Salamanca market, now I am not even into walking around stalls and the likes but this place was fantastic. All of the foods, goods and crafts are either produced or made on the island, the smells and the bustling community atmosphere was lovely. The island is self sustaining and they are very big on buying local, so whether it is wine, cheese, meats, ginger beer, furniture or strange wood ornaments this is the place to be on a Saturday morning. We stocked up on food for a day or two before we headed in the car to Port Arthur.

Port Arthur is Tassie's number one tourist attraction, site of the famous convict prison between 1830 and 1877. It is kind of an open air museum set in what you might describe as a stately home style garden and park, not sure it looked quite like this back in the day but it is has been restored into great condition and an interesting place to wonder around and learn about why it was built there, how it was run and why it closed down. It is also the site of the horrendous massacre in 1996 when a crazed gunman murdered 35 people on the site, a story I recall vividly. A memorial garden has been created so you can pay your respects and sit with reflection on events from both past and recent past. I was really impressed with the tour of the site, on my previous visit to Australia I was really disappointed with the quality of museums, largely because everything seemed to be replicas with the real item residing in London, Paris or New York, but this place was fascinating. In the evening we headed back to the site for a ghost tour, which was both scary and fun. The place lends itself well to the lantern lit darkness as you are told historic tales of deaths and of recent sightings of unexplained phenomenon.

We packed up from the dormitory at the Port Arthur Caravan Park and headed north to Cole's Bay, to visit the Freycinet National Park, which is home to the famous Wineglass Bay, which claims to be one of the top 10 beaches in the world. We arrived paid for our national parks pass, parked and trekked the hour to the Bay, stopping at the lookout on the way. The weather was still great and looking down on the picture postcard site time stands still, turqouise waters lap against the perfectly wine glass shaped white beach, surrounded by green bushland, it is a sublime sight. We carried onto the beach for the afternoon where we were joined by a friendly wallaby who hopped around us and digged at the sand scouring for food. He was clearly doing better that his mates most of whom seemed to be have been playing dodge car rather unsuccessfully on the roads. Something I remember from being in Australia previously was the amount of road kill and it is still as bad. There were very few people on the beach and by the time we left at 4.30pm we were the last people around, which was lovely to have such a paradise to ourselves.

We stayed at the Iluku Holiday Centre, which is a caravan park with a YHA affiliated hostel attached. It is quite nice, but the reason I mention it is that we were provided a double bed in a dorm that had two bunk beds in it, all taken. I don't think Julie was overly comfortable with the set up but for me it was one of those quirks of staying in hostels. I stayed up late anyway to watch the completion of the Australian Open and so by the time I crawled into bed the rest of the room was already catching their Zed's.

We woke to a miserable day, it was chucking it down. We were due to spend the day up in the Bay of Fires but it was still raining by the time we got there via the coastal road although a little brighter. This stretch of unspoilt coastline has sand that was even whiter than Wineglass Bay and the water emerald. The rocky headland is flashed with orange and blue colourings and we were really disappointed we couldn't spend the day exploring. We drove along the area and got out a couple of times for a few pictures and short walks before we decided to head to Tasmania's second city Launceston earlier than we planned, bad weather stopped play.

Julie had been having problems eating and drinking due to swallowing a malaria tablet without water about a week ago, which we think has done something to her oesophagus, so a chemist advised that she should see a doctor. Our hostel in Launceston, the trendy Arthouse, sent her to the hospital to get it checked out. Apparently this is easier than going to a GP as they don't accept new patients, so with no option we headed there. Five hours later Julie is still sat in the waiting area having not been seen. I made my way to the hospital an hour earlier to see what the hold up had been, it felt like the NHS in the 80s, it was packed. Everyone seemed to have been there hours and this is a small city, had there been a natural disaster in the vicinity? Nope. A major disease break out? Nope. Perhaps an airline has gone down. Nope. This is the norm, so we are told. A gentleman who had been sat patiently for a fair few hours gave us the low down as to why so many people were in A & E. Apparently the government pays 75% of your costs for going to a GP and you pay 25%, so a lot of people think sod that and wait until after 5pm and head to the hospital where they are seen for free. It means there is often a huge backlog of people, the government must know this goes on and that it is taking up emergency doctors' time. It's crazy, it might not be quite as messed up as the US system but it's not far off. Julie eventually went in and five minutes later came out. The doctor didn't even examine her, just told her to deal with it and that it should clear up, despite the fact she has been barely able to eat or drink for a week and it hasn't improved. All of a sudden we seem proud of our own NHS after this shabby experience.

The next day we took in Launceston. It is the home of Cataract Gorge, a small piece of wilderness practically cut into the centre of the city. Kayaks glide along the water and people walk among the parkland and rocky paths that are etched into the cliff faces. Peacocks strut around below the world's longest single span chairlift that takes visitors from one side of the gorge to the other. It is possible to follow a path higher into the gorge where it becomes even more wilder, the white water rushes over the rocks and boulders and the forestry clings to the steep hillsides.

Next stop was Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Cradle Mountain is probably the most recognisable face of Tasmania, the two peaks that are shaped like a circus tent. It is beautiful mix of mountains, gorges, rivers, lakes and wild moorland. Great for trekking or as we were to find, climbing. We arrived early evening settled in for the night for an early start the next day to hike to the summit of Cradle Mountain, a six to seven hour round trip. The day was warm and clear, a perfect day for a walk. The flies and locusts clearly thought so too, they are everywhere, they follow you and then swarm around when you stop, making drinks and camera stops swift. Julie was getting particularly frustrated with the blighters. In the sunshine the mountains were mirrored in the surrounding lakes, including the lovely Dove Lake, the largest in this area of the park that has a popular circuit track that follows the water edge.

The trek to the summit was tough and very steep at times, the last hour and a quarter involved climbing boulders with nasty crevices and drop offs. Quite technical and dangerous to amateur trekkers, many people turned back half way up the chiselled peak. By the time we reached the very top we were on our own, very tired and very sweaty. We sat in the remarkably still air looking out across the panorama and swatted more flies as we pulled out our sandwiches. It was a wonderful view but left me a bit nervous, it was a long way down. Negotiating our descent was far more difficult than going up, but eventually we made it down and headed back along the side of the lake.

We drove for an hour and a half north to the seaside town Wyndham for the evening, where we found a nice chalet on a camping ground and a pub to get some old fashioned grub. We hadn't eaten pub food for months and even though the place looked like it was from the 80s the food was good, the beer cold and the company warm. Our place was right on the beach too and well fell asleep with full bellies listening to the wave's crash on the beach, we slept well that night.

Our last day was spent driving along the North coast visiting a few towns, the highlight of which was climbing to the top of the Nut in at a small seaside town called Stanley. Fortunately for us this was a short one, just 20 minutes to the top. I don't know why it is called the Nut but it is one strange volcanic rock formation. As we drove towards it along the peninsula it looks like a gargantuous square warehouse on the end of beach, very odd.

We left the island that evening on the ferry, the Spirit of Tasmania, to head to Melbourne. We invested in a twin cabin and checked out the facilities, which included a cinema, two restaurants, a shop, travel agency and numerous bars. Purchasing a couple of glasses of Tasmanian white wine we went and sat on the deck in the sunshine and watched the sunset on another unforgettable week.