Tasmania - Better the Devil You Know!

We've moved to Tasmania and an amazing thing has happened.
We've fallen in love with the place!

Tasman Bridge over the River Derwent, Hobart

We almost feel guilty with our good fortune, because now we have the unique advantage of mingling with the locals while still actually being a family of tourists.

And to relieve that guilt, we've launched this Tassie website to share our journey. Maybe we can justify the Apple Isle as the place for one of the best Australian holidays, or even offer incentive to up stumps and move - like we did!!

Map of Tassie

Sounds crazy, but everyone has a checklist for their own ideal place to live - and this decision is proving to suit us perfectly. Armed with little more than a map and the grand idea of finding the perfect lifestyle, we've jumped in boots and all and headed from South Australia to Hobart. It wasn't easy - we had to sort through our belongings, surf the real estate websites and take care of a hundred other pre-requisites for moving interstate.

But we made it, and so far the experience has been an overwhelmingly positive one.

Huon River, Franklin - Huon Valley in the state's south

It all started when we launched ourselves into one of the great, Australian holidays: the drive-around circuit. The epitome of this type of adventure is to have a luxury caravan with a serious, mega horsepower tow-truck. All good, until you are faced with two scary prospects:

1. handing over your entire life savings (and more!), and 
2. sharing a portable but very small indoor space with the whole boisterous family.

So we went for Plan B, loaded our most precious belongings into a trailer (along with some needless junk that we thought we couldn't live without) and began a schedule of house sitting.

Ross, Midlands Heritage Highway town in Tas

The first of those house sitting positions was at a sheep farm in southern Tasmania, and that planted the seed for change.

During our initial six-week island stint, we were overwhelmed by the whole state's beauty and diversity, all within such close proximity to Hobart, the state's capital.

We left feeling cheated that we had sampled such a small portion of the huge smorgasbord of Australian holidays on offer in Tas - how can such a small parcel of land have such a rich vein of treasure?

Tasmanian Devil
(Photo by Dan Fellow)

We didn't want to leave, but we were already committed to several other house sits on mainland Australia. So, on we ploughed and apart from the trailer turning out to be an absolute devil of an idea (the Plan A caravan had extreme merit after all), we enjoyed every minute of the trip.

Then we received an invitation for the kids to be involved in tennis in Hobart. So, we viewed this as fate (or an excuse!) to complete our pre-scheduled house sitting jobs and jump back on the Spirit of Tasmania bound for a more enduring residency. So here we are, making the most of our luck and wanting to share that luck with you.

Australian holidays: Spirit of Tas to Devonport

Why move to Tasmania?
We'll show you: why the devil not!