Land Ho! By Ferry from Tasmania to Melbourne

On this trip I was hosted by Tourism Tasmania and MONA FOMA.

I've visited Tasmania many times over the years - eight times, in fact - and yet I'd never travelled to or from the island state by sea rather than air.

It was time to fix that.

On the outward leg of my latest visit, to Launceston for the MONA FOMA arts festival, I flew. It's a quick flight from Melbourne, just 45 minutes in the air, but subject to all the usual hassles of reaching the airport, being tested for explosives for the 4,357th time at security, and being squeezed into cattle-truck conditions on the plane itself.

On the way back, however, I was boarding this entirely different vessel - Spirit of Tasmania I, one of a duo of big car ferries that sail between Devonport, Tasmania and Melbourne, Victoria each night:

Entering via the rear loading area of the ship, foot passengers head up escalators to Deck 7:

As you can see from the sign, this is the social hub of the vessel, with most of the dining and entertainment options, though there additional bars and kids' areas on Decks 9 and 10. On Deck 7 there's a reading room (oddly without books), a bar, two cinema screens, a gaming lounge, tourist info, a shop with souvenirs and sandwiches, and a restaurant which serves a fairly unexciting buffet meal:

Heading upward via the blue lift (there are also colour-coded stairwells to aid orientation), I walked all the way toward the bow to find my cabin:

Most of the sleeping accommodation is on Deck 8. There's a variety of options, including reclining chairs, berths in shared cabins along the lines of a hostel dorm, and private cabins for two to four people. A lot of family groups use the Spirit, taking their cars with them, so these multi-person cabins are popular.

(As an aside, a couple of interstate travellers I met in Launceston pointed out another advantage of travelling to Tasmania with your own car - you can load it up with great Tassie food and cases of local wine! Try doing that on a Boeing 737.)

I, however, had scored the poshest option, a Deluxe Cabin. Located right at the front of Deck 8, on the starboard corner, it was basically a hotel room with queen-size bed, chairs, TV, bar fridge and bathroom. Very comfortable indeed:

After dropping my backpack in my cabin I strolled around the ship, stepping out to have a look at Bass Strait after we left Tasmania:

After dinner I turned in and had a reasonably good sleep. Bass Strait is notorious for its unpredictably rough waters, but luckily this was a calm night. Once or twice I was woken by a loud clanging noise, which I suspect was a high wave breaking against the bow, but otherwise it was peaceful, though always with a slight sense of swaying movement.

The only problem about the crossing is the ungodly hour it arrives at Port Melbourne: 6am. I set my alarm for 5am so I could have a shower and repack my backpack. Then I headed up to Deck 10 to avail myself of the services of the barista at work there, then took my coffee outside Deck 8 to see the view:

Utterly beautiful. And with the terminus of the number 109 tram just 400 metres away, I was soon offboard and on my way home to Melbourne's city centre. A great experience, with vastly more comfort and character than an equivalent flight.

For more information and to make bookings, visit the Spirit of Tasmania website.

Mysteries of French Island

I was recently hosted on a tour of French Island, in Western Port Bay southeast of Melbourne. This was a test run for a new series of tours being offered in conjunction with the ferry service which links the island to the mainland.

This was an intriguing invitation. Though it's long been possible to reach the island by ferry, there was no way to get around once there. There's no public transport on French Island, and its road surfaces aren't ideal for cycling.

I knew only a little of the history of the island; specifically that it was named in 1802 upon the visit of the French ship Naturaliste, part of the Baudin expedition to Australia. Other than that, it was a closed book to me.

The first thing I saw after disembarking the ferry was this impressive 4WD vehicle which Naturaliste Tours had purchased to penetrate to the most difficult parts of the island, which is largely a national park:

There's a lot of interesting wildlife on French Island. On our way to its southeast corner we passed this difficult to see echidna, shuffling along in the grass by the side of the road:

Then we broke out from bush into this large open space, an abandoned farm which had an eerie desolate air, with its empty farmhouse and old (but recently re-roofed) chicory kiln:

Near a nearby rocky beach, our guide pointed out many discarded shells, remnants of millennia of Aboriginal use of the foreshore:

On our way to French Island Vineyards, we spotted a koala up a tree:

The winery was a decorative contrast to all this wild nature, and we sampled some its wines while having lunch:

 

We finished our tour with a visit to the striking wetlands at the other end of the island, proof of the variety of its landscapes:

Then it was onto the return ferry to Stony Point on the mainland, and two trains back to Melbourne's CBD. Well worth the trip, and a fascinating insight into a lesser-known island on the city's doorstep.

Details of Naturaliste Tours' French Island tours can be found by visiting its website.

Passage to Poland: Baltic Ferry

After my visit to Copenhagen in May, my next stop was Warsaw.

I could've flown between the two cities in a small plane, with the flight taking just over an hour. Instead, I decided to take a surface route - aboard a Baltic ferry.

The Polish company Polferries operates a number of routes between ports in Poland and Sweden. From Copenhagen, a bus takes its passengers to the Swedish port of Ystad, from where an overnight ferry heads to Świnoujście, right at the northwest corner of Poland.

I decided to give this a go. I'd never taken a ferry across the Baltic Sea before, and it would have the added benefit of saving me a night's accommodation in the expensive Danish capital.

This is how it worked. I walked from my hotel near Copenhagen's main railway station, to a dedicated stop next to the Hotel Plaza on the other side of the rail terminus. I could hear some Polish voices in the crowd milling around outside the hotel, so I suspected I was in the right location.

In due course, bus 866 showed up and we were on our way over the Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden. This elegant structure has an ominous air in my mind at least, courtesy of the crime thriller series The Bridge:

I was surprised to have my passport checked, along with the rest of the passengers, on the Swedish side of the strait. It seems the recent refugee crisis has forced some temporary tightening of the free-movement Schengen Zone.

Past passport control, we passed through beautiful rolling countryside on our way to Ystad, the setting of another Scandi-noir crime series, Wallander:

There was less romance at the port at Ystad. Most of the bus passengers were taking a different ferry to Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic, and the bus pulled up outside that ferry terminal. The terminal for ferries to Poland was a long walk around the port in the open air. Lucky it wasn't raining.

Facilities were fairly basic in the Polish terminal, shared by two Polish ferry companies, and there was a long wait to get aboard. It was about 6pm when I arrived, and foot passengers couldn't check in until 7pm. 

We then had to wait till 9pm to go aboard, amused only by a small snack bar in the terminal's waiting area. I had some sandwiches I'd bought in Denmark for dinner, but no drink. 

Not having any Swedish currency, I managed to talk the snack bar owner into selling me a soft drink for 10 Polish złoty. He wanted more than that in krona, but grudgingly agreed (the drink would be a fraction of that price in Poland, but that's beside the point).

Finally the handful of foot passengers was led aboard by a Polish guy in a safety vest. We realised on approach that he had to insert us through the massive loading bay between huge trucks, so we could reach a lift to the upper decks. This was a bit thrilling, with just a hint of danger.

For all the industrial grit of the lower decks, the upper decks were quite pleasant - although with a touch of 1980s decor in the onboard restaurant and bar:

I headed to the uppermost deck to find my cabin. Having paid for sole use of a two-berth cabin, I was expecting something compact with bunk beds. So I was surprised to find it was three times the size of my Copenhagen hotel room, with two beds and an en suite bathroom:

When I stepped out onto the rear deck directly behind the cabin, I had this view of the fading light as we pulled out of Ystad into the Baltic:

Fortunately this was not one of those occasions on which a storm blows up in the Baltic Sea. It was a very smooth crossing, with a touch of gentle rocking, and I had a decent sleep.

When I awoke about 5.30am it was light outside, with the Polish shore already visible alongside as we navigated into the port within the mouth of the Świna River. I joined the truckers for a buffet breakfast (basic but filling), then mustered with my fellow foot passengers to be led through the deck of massed vehicles to the outside world.

I was pleased to see we had berthed right next to Świnoujście's main train station. I had a ticket for the express train from there to Warsaw at 6.37am, and it looked like I wouldn't have any trouble catching it.

Except... for foot passengers to leave the ferry terminal, we had to traverse an enormously long enclosed walkway that stretched west for what seemed a couple of kilometres. When I finally exited the main building, I had a long walk back down the railway line to the station, passing my ferry on the way (you can see the open 'nose' of the ferry's loading bay here):

I still had time to spare, however. I reached the station and found my reserved seat in the refurbished first class carriage of the 6.37 to Warsaw. I would have it more or less to myself until we reached the next big city, Szczecin.

As I was travelling first class, an attendant soon popped up to present me with a complimentary coffee, a tiny biscuit and the world's smallest tortilla. Seven hours to Warsaw? I was set.