Regional foodie does Tassy…

I just had a fabulous week in Tasmania touring around. While the purpose of the visit was a photography expedition with my bestest friend, I made sure I found a bit of time to sample some of the local fare.

Tasmania is such a beautiful place, so green, everywhere you look, although the locals assured us that they had had quite a long spell of dry weather which was broken by some recent crazy wet weather which was why everything was looking quite so green.

Our first stop was Coles Bay. I missed the Freycinet coastline the last time I visited Tasmania, so it was first up this time around. My motivation for going there, while under the pretence of photographs of the beautiful Wine Glass Bay (which we took from the lookout because we were too hung over to walk any further, well, I was…), was actually the Freycinet Marine Farm which cultivates oysters. Anyone that knows me would be aware that I find it hard to pass up the opportunity for oysters and they did not disappoint. They were huuuge, and fresh and well, pretty darn yummy – so mission accomplished, I could go home happy…

The next day we had a fabulous lunch at the Freycinet Lodge’s Richardson’s Bistro. Between the pristine views of the ocean and national park and the divine lunch of local oysters (yes again), Trevalla fish and a fabulous local wine, we decided life didn’t get much better (until the next stop).

We drove through the centre of Tasmania and tried to stop for lunch in Deloriane – I am not sure what was going on there, but every place in town was full, or closed (it was a Sunday) so we kept going on to Wynyard where we collected some Salmon Rillettes, fresh baguette, and fabulous cheese from the Ashgrove Cheese Shop at Elizabeth Grove, which seemed a much better a more adventurous option – and complimented our beer o’clock activities for the next few days as well as sufficing for an afternoon snack.

While there were dozens of wineries along the way, we needed no extra incentive to consume copious amounts of alcohol this time around and chose to drive on, as of course the purpose of the visit was photographing landscapes, which we kept having to remind ourselves to do – and I need another reason to go back; winery tours next time I think, as soon as we find a designated driver that is not, well, ‘us’!

The Van Diemen’s Tulip Farm at Table Cape is a must see for this time of year and Cradle Mountain was just exquisite – though very, very cold. No fabulous regional produce there, but just thought I would mention it anyway.

There is so much to see in Tasmania, it’s hard to chose, which route to take, and while my primary focus wasn’t food for a change, it was great to see Tasmania through the photographer’s eye as it is truly spectacular.

If you plan to go to Tassy, here’s just a couple of websites to mull over in the interim…
www.ashgrovecheese.com.au
www.freycinetmarinefarm.com

This post was written by Petra Frieser – Local Harvest

Author: Local Harvest