Traveling Tasmania

[The Spin Doctor]

Was wondering... A few of us were heading to tassie and what's better fly their and rent a motor home. Or fly there, rent a car and motel it.

Questions for me arise like. Are there plenty of places to pull in with a motor home. Or, what about hotels/motels...

Trip will be between late March and mid April

[Wrongwayfirst]

Car rental and motor home rental is beyond expensive in Tas at the moment due to vehicle stock not being fully replaced since covid. Motels are in abundance.
you can get some cheap flights around that time if you are flexible with dates.

expect around $150 per day plus for car hire, depending how long in total you could probably get a motor home for a similar cost.

I consider the motor home as the “tent of the road” you don’t get all the comforts a motel provides, most likely you pay for a substandard bed you have to make yourself , you still need to pay for on site camping at approx $50 for a site. Most parks don’t do an overnight so you need to book two or three nights in each spot.
Car hire offers the most flexible way and overnight cabins are in most caravan parks (which they do promote as one day - go figure) if you don’t want to splurge on motel accommodation.
It’s about four hours to meander top to bottom of Tasmania in one hit so motels are in abundance.
14 days is a good skirt around the whole place with overnight stops, 20 days gives a more leisurely cruise around and the opportunity to see a few out there spots.
coffee is mostly good (yes I’m in Melbourne/geelong where trips are planned by coffee) just a quick google when you wake up will direct you somewhere close by pretty much every place that you can stay.
food wine whiskey gin hikes wildlife all good all part of an adventure, Tassie lives by tourist so always welcoming

cheers

[The Spin Doctor]

Great food for thought, thx!

[BMKal]

We travel over there pretty regularly from Kalgoorlie. Last couple of trips, I flew because I was working in Adelaide (and WA border closures meant I couldn't come home). Normally when the both of us travel across there - we drive and put the car on the boat. We have two tents - one a smaller one that attaches under the side awning of the car (large 4WD) which is very good for overnight stops, the other a larger tent for longer stays, which is free-standing independent of the vehicle (though it does also attach to the awning if we want to). Will probably never use the large tent again - we're getting too old for that and I have promised to drop it off to my son and his family in Bendigo next time we are across there.

While we have a house not far out of Hobart and stay there, we also do a lot of touring around Tassie while we are there (and still have a lot more to see). The 4WD allows us to get to a lot of places that most people cannot get to (especially on the West Coast). We have never had a problem finding somewhere to either pitch the tent in a camping / caravan park, or to rent a cabin overnight or for a few nights. Last time we stayed on Bruny Island for a few days, we rented a building that was an old church, very tastefully modernised and converted to self-contained accommodation. This and other cabins on the island can be hired through the Bruny Island Hotel. While all the facilities were included - we didn't cook lunch or dinner there, but instead dined at the pub which was about a 5 minute drive away, where both the food and the atmosphere were amazing.

I suppose it depends where you are travelling from, but for us, it is cheaper (by a long way) for us to take the car / boat than to fly / rent a car (which will not get us to some of the places we like going), plus we get the advantage of visiting family & friends in Victoria & South Australia as part of the trip.

And there's another advantage from my perspective too - after working many years FIFO to various parts of Australia, while I don't mind flying - these days I HATE airports with a passion (especially when COVID was an issue).

On a quiet beach on the south end of Bruny. The "access" track is directly behind the car in this pic - you simply can't get to places like this in your normal hire cars (nor in a motorhome).

IMGP1739.jpg

[AlexS]

Take the car as BMKal says, how else are you going to get all the timber you buy home?

[havabeer69]

we did the fly in and car hire/motel when we went a few years ago (pre covid), found some dirt cheap car rental place that was something stupid like $20 a day. It was also a time thing:

12 hour drive from sydney to geelong
9 - 10 hour boat trip
with the same on the return trip
vs
a 3 hour flight



I remember someone looking at us confused because we said we where going to drive from launceston to hobart in one day, he claimed he would need a nightly stop over for that kind of distance... it was only 2.5hours away

[The Spin Doctor]

Take the car as BMKal says, how else are you going to get all the timber you buy home?

Last thing I need is more timber. I've got more than I'll use for the rest of my life.

[Bushmiller]

We travelled to Tassie last year with our daughter and her partner. The daughter arranged all the accommodation which was air B&B. We flew in and hired a vehicle. Trip was one week.

Regards
Paul

[AlexS]

Last thing I need is more timber. I've got more than I'll use for the rest of my life.

What kind of an excuse is that?

[The Spin Doctor]

What kind of an excuse is that?

As I get older and gain more prior knowledge, I'm realising that my ability to do what I could at 50 is in no way what I'll be able to do at 70, judging by how I am degrading at 60... I'm now looking at offloading a fair bit of stuff. I recently had to carve four barley twist posts out of pine. 10 years ago, out of pine - I wouldn't have had second thoughts - effin easy! I've done plenty of similar stuff in the distant past, but I was thinking after the first one I might not be able to finish the job. My shoulders and elbows are stuffed. Every year seems to be a re-evaluation of what I can do and how much ibuprophen I'll need.


Ain't getting old so much fun!

[AlexS]

Ain't getting old so much fun!

It beats the alternative!

[Mobyturns]

It just so happens we have three sets of friends from FNQ, Bris, & SA currently in TAS all towing their own caravans. It seems there are plenty of free camp areas if you are self-contained. They don't appear to have any problems locating the free camps and usually have them pretty much to themselves. Definitely no overcrowding.

One posted a request for info on a reliable & hopefully cheap(er?) transport company to send timber back to Brisbane.