Camdale, Burnie, TAS

This was our first stay in Tasmania and we had a cottage in an amazing location just across the road from the ocean, with a massive light-filled conservatory looking straight out to sea. It wasn’t quite as idyllic as it sounds, as the road in front was the Bass Highway, which is a very busy road indeed. But we did have bandicoots on the lawn in front to make up for it 🙂

However, the beach in front of the house was fantastic for work-break walks as it only took about three minutes to get there (most of that time was waiting to cross the road…!) and it was huge and sandy – especially at low tide.  The beach was also home to a colony of Little Penguins, and every night at nightfall they would come out of the ocean and waddle up the beach to their nests. We viewed them most nights through binoculars out of the front window, but one night we went and sat on the beach and waited for them so we could see the more closely (they are pretty hard to see because they wait until it’s dark to come ashore)

Camdale is pretty much a suburb of Burnie, and it was about a one hour walk to Burnie centre from where we were staying. This meant that we could walk after work to the Communion Brewing Company for a few drinks – which we did several times. Right next door to the cottage was a fruit and veg shop which was also pretty handy.

Somerset ‘village’ (a bunch of shops) was about a 30 minute walk away along the beach and a disused railway bridge, so we went there a couple of times after work as well, and we drove once to nearby Wynyard for a trip to the supermarket and to go to the top of Table Cape – a rocky outcrop overlooking the ocean that we could see in the distance from the beach by our house.

We had one full weekend here – which luckily was when the weather was really good (we had a fair bit of cold and rain) and so got a couple of great days out to the Tarkine Wildness area. We also went to Fern Glade Reserve a few times to look for platypuses, as it was pretty much in Burnie and easy to visit after shopping.