Four days of driving, 2000km, 420 Litres of fuel, a night of constant rain and we made it to the Melbourne Port in time to board the boat to Tassie ready for a 9pm departure. For those who have never boarded the “Spirit of Tasmania”, there seems to be a few options. An AM departure, cruising through the daytime, or a PM departure, cruising through the night and arriving at Devonport by 6am. As we decided on the night time cruising, we couldn’t help but blow the budget very early on (the first of many blow outs when it comes to Matt and Jo travelling around Tasmania), so we booked a four berth cabin with bunk beds. We certainly weren’t the only four wheel drive heading over to Tassie for Christmas, and along with our friends, Jon, Sash & the kids in their duel cab Toyota Cruiser, we steadily drove our four wheel drives and campers onto the lower deck of the Spirit.

After a shower, a quick, basic and rather pricey buffet meal and a bottle of Champaign, we hit the fart sack while getting rocked to sleep. We awoke at 5am courtesy of the Spirit of Tasmania’s “WAKE UP” alarm.

Our first thoughts on what the beautiful Tasmania is like, went something like, “HOLY HELL IT IS COLD!!!!”. On went the jackets, jeans and closed in shoes. Admittedly, a few scarfs made an appearance too whilst we pulled into “Penguin” for breakfast out of the campers.

Other than the freezing cold, the sun was shining and the weather forecast looked spectacular for the remainder of the week, so where else in Tasmania would you rather head with a four-wheel drive and self sufficient camper, than the West Coast for an adventure. And oh what a varied adventure we had!

Christmas Eve was spent tracking the Bass Highway heading West, before turning South into the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area. After collecting our permits, we hit the track into Ordnance Point, just North of Sandy Cape where we set up camp on a spectacular paddock of green moss and grass on the cliff face of a magnificent west coast beach hammered by large rolling waves. 

Christmas day was spent relaxing in good company and feasting on an array of nibbles including a Marvels Chocolate infused Damper courtesy of the Tucker twins, cooked by dad, and of course, we forgot to mention, that it wouldn’t have been Christmas without getting into the locals favourite – ‘Boags’ to wash it all down.

Christmas dinner was served at 11:30pm, a roast beef and veg thanks to the camp oven skills of Matty Knott and Jon Tucker. It was fit for 5 Kings!!

We were lucky enough to have parked up on one of the absolute best spots near Ordnance Point. We had it all, our very own grass Cricket ground directly behind camp, a roaring fire every night thanks to two very hard working men, smashing surfers (and surfboat rowers!) dream waves, breathtaking sunsets and wild life we never thought we would get to see in our lives. The wombats at this end of the country are humongous!

As with everything in life, with the beautiful and great, comes the shitty! After enjoying a ‘twosie’ amongst the scenic view of the ocean over the hill, Matt returned with a broken toilet seat and in one “shitty” situation! Needless to say, we spent a little more than $20 on the subsequent toilet! Thanks for testing that one out for me Matt.