Tasmania Zoo
With 100 different species you’ll be the envy of your friends when you tell them you’ve rubbed noses with a cotton eared marmoset, tickled an American alligator (not recommended btw), checked your eyesight after seeing the miniature donkey, steer, pony and goat and had lunch with a meerkat at Tasmania Zoo. That last part is the coolest, you can literally sip your latte as those cute ‘lil meerkats drool over your muffin in the Meerkat Munchie Cafe. Just to clarify, they don’t actually drool over your muffin, just drool watching you eat your muffin. Bring a change of pants just in case you stand too close to the speaker when you encounter the velociraptor (that’s fancy talk for fast dinosaury thing)- we’ve all been there. Devils, penguins and meerkats fed daily (and no, not to the dinosaurs).
Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre
The Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre prides itself on the interactive displays; work the world’s largest apple peeler, write a letter with ink and pen just like great-grandma used to and send yourself a telegram (the 20th century Facebook). Since when could you actually touch items in a museum? Don’t you love bollards, display cabinets, do not touch signs and security guards with side arms when you go to a museum? Well here, at the Beaconsfield Mine and Heritage Centre they encourage you to touch, turn, push, ring and get a hold of stuff. Olde Worlde mine buildings, artefacts from thousands of feet underground plus the more modern HUGE stuff like a 2.7 metre high, 700kw (about 940 horsepower) winder to enter the mine and a 4 metre round cooling fan suggests that miners enjoy their Tonka toys. BIG stats here with literally tonnes of gold being produced, billions of litres of water pumped out, with shafts and mining activity under your feet that’s about 15 times as large as the town itself, it’s worthwhile checking the gravel in your shoes when you leave town, just in case.
Grindelwald Tasmania
If you’re into Lauterbrunnen, Lederhosen or the Duke of Zahringen, you’re about 14 000k’s off. This is Grindelwald, Tamar Valley style featuring its own lakes, mini-Matterhorn, Alpenrose bar & bistro and a great European styled resort. Golf, dining and a plethora of kid’s activities – it’s a one-stop shop (with shops) and all of the houses built around the front of the lodge are Swiss themed.
With a Chocolate Cafe, gift and clothing shops, golf course, bakery, paddle boats, bar, bistro, accommodation and the world’s largest jumping pillow the hills are alive with the sound of music, Swiss music. Set on 150 acres this Aspect Tamar Valley Resort or Grindelwald Tasmania as it’s known locally, does resort, Tasmania-Swiss style. Family friendly and kiddie-centric it’s perfect for mum and dad to wave from the Alpenrose Lakeside Bar while they kids lose their lunch on the giant pillow, chase the ducks, canoe across the lake or just not annoy their parents for 20 minutes. Day spa, health club, sauna, indoor heated pool and with mini and 9 hole golf there’s something for everyone – everyone who likes their spa, golf, pool and sauna with a touch of Swissiness.
Glengarry Bush Maze
NO, we’re not going to say it’s A-mazing. Remember when you last solved a maze on paper? You started in the middle and worked your way back, didn’t you. No such luck here, you’re on your own and you can’t cheat – try not to think about Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Tactile games, puzzles and family fun that doesn’t have an ‘i’ in the title, require a charger or ask you post or become it’s friend to engage (a Tripadvisor review wouldn’t hurt though). Tea, coffee, cake and lunch for mum and dad – outdoor fun for the kids – yes, outdoors. Warning: you may come into contact with things like air, grass, leaves, plants and animals – if that’s all too icky then ask mum and dad if these things existed in their day and compare it to that block world game you keep playing. The Glengarry Bush Maze website has all the info you need.
Seahorse World
You’ll experience the full behind the scenes look at various species of these mini-steeds – farming and breeding, feeding and hands on cuddles with a live seahorse. I wouldn’t recommend this with the hermit crabs or giant sea crabs but hey, it might go viral if you can capture Uncle Wayne’s finger being lopped off by Harry the hermit crab. Cool stuff – seahorses can change colour, Dad has the babies, sometimes over 1000 at a time; ouch, they’re classed as a fish (not a horse, funnily enough) and their closest relation is the mermaid, true! (not really) They come in various ‘models’- bullneck, flat-faced, pygmy, knobby, sad (sniff), false-eyed and our favourite, the hedgehog.
Platypus House
The Turducken of the animal kingdom, these furry quackers (they don’t quack, or do they?!) get the royal treatment at Platypus House. Fed on every tour, photographed and splashed around social media it’s surprising the amount of people who have never seen one. Only a pane of glass separates you from them as they munch on yabbies and earthworms while one of the well educated guides tell you they store fat in their tail, like a camels hump, and are one of a select few venomous mammals. Bizarrely, they belong to the same lineage as echidnas which is kinda ironic given there’s a family of them living in the same building. Yep, one has webbed feet, fur, duck-bill, beaver-tail, sat-nav in its bill, poisonous spurs and lays eggs – the other is covered in miniature javelins, has an ant-eaters nose, walks on its elbows and eats ants. Fact – Tasmanian Devils will eat echidna spines as well as the echidna! Ouchie!
Lavender House
You can watch the manufacture through the glass in the production area to make sure they’re not substituting lavender with purple stench blossoms. You could probably also tell this from the aroma produced……anyhoo, Lavender House have over 70 different species of lavender on site ensuring an all-year-round bloom of flowers. Offering the obligatory bear, Larry the Lavender variety, and you can’t say they don’t have a sense of humour with such products as Shearer’s Crook Back Bee-Balm (cause shearers secretly love lavender) and the Bushie’s All-Purpose Bee-Balm means even working guys & gals get to indulge. It’s not all fun and games however with perfume, salves, natural remedies, toiletries and body care products, mostly containing, funnily enough, lavender. A good enough reason alone to visit the Tamar Valley!
Arts
Ever been to an artist’s studio and been preached to esoterically and looked down upon until you either buy something, at which point relations improve dramatically, or leave? Us too, however that’s not how the artists in the Tamar Valley roll... they’ll be engaging, articulate and welcoming without the snobbery. Felt, oils, ceramics, photography, pottery, dolls even bonsai form a part of the region’s art. Start stocking up on the watercolours and dust off easel, you’ll be channeling your inner Van Gough soon enough. Just don’t cut your ears off. If you want to be pre-inspired, here are some galleries to get you going.
Golf
Greens Beach, Exeter, Riverside and even Grindelwald offer that level of frustration that only comes from a little white ball, the size of a plum, that somehow deviates 90 degrees from where you intended it to go. Our personal favourite is the 19th hole, it’s your opportunity to flex your perfect right slice. There’s a course to suit all players in the Valley and should suit all levels of skill. If you know what an agricultural heave, a tired kangaroo or a gynaecologists assistant is, then grab your clubs and mosey on down.
Tailrace Centre
Most parent’s kind of holiday/day off from the kids. With a product called kids paradise (aka parents paradise), the kids can go nuts while you pretend to read the paper and go to sleep on the deck. Great views, floor to ceiling glass to let the sun in and did we mention kids paradise?! Themed games rooms for the kids, jumping castles, sports areas, table tennis, crazy bike things that keep the little ‘uns entertained for hours – supervised might we add – while you have coffee No.2 and sample Chef Phil’s next award winning creation. Did we also mention it’s 5 bucks for the kids – what costs $5 these days?! The Tailrace Centre website has all the info you need.
Gem & Stone Creations
Not just limited to gems and stones (although you can get them!) – jewellery, minerals, crystals and well, gemstones all in one convenient location. There’s a kids corner for the junior collector, lapidary material (petrified manfern – cause they scare easily) it fits into that gallery-museum-jeweller-collectable-rock-mineral category that is so rare these days. The Gem & Stone Creations website is your go to.
Tamar Visitor Centre
Crazy retirees ready to make your holiday epic? Yep, that’s the Tamar Visitor Centre. They’ll kill us for saying this but its service, old-school style. Award winning for that very service, the team at the TVC will make sure that you know what you’re doing in the valley and right around Tasmania cause that’s probably what you came in for, right? Good old fashioned brochures, maps, souvenirs and that all important local knowledge and booking service. Chuck out your tablet, pad, mobile and other navigation devices – it’s all built in to these androids of the tourism world and they’ll impart their sizeable knowledge upon you (or they won’t get paid) to make your holiday memorable. It’s like an organic Tripadvisor that doesn’t grunt at you from behind a counter, locked into a social media battle over exciting things such as ‘wassup’ – THEY WILL ACTUALLY TALK TO YOU AND ASK YOU QUESTIONS – like, “can I help you”, “how is your holiday going” or “yes, I can give you the correct information”. If you’re a silent traveller then good luck with that. Get in touch with the Tamar Visitor Centre on 03 6394 4454 or tamar@wtc.tas.gov.au
Trevallyn Power Station
What John doesn’t know about Tasmania isn’t worth knowing – from the time the earth cooled and the dinosaurs came, he can tell it all. More specifically, he can take you on a tour of the Trevallyn Power Station. Located in a suburb of the valley, this baby pumps out 90 Megawatts of juice – enough to keep your device charged until the year 3006, but it’s the behind the scenes stuff that John highlights. John will tell you that there’s 28 cubic metres of water per second chugging under your feet – great in a kayak (but not in a power station) and all of the BIG stuff required to run a power station. A classic example of renewable energy, which is so on-trend right now, it’s cool to see that water can run a city without the risk of a meltdown – unless it all freezes of course.