This has by far been our most exciting trip! We travelled from Melbourne, VIC to Devonport, TAS by boat on the Spirit of Tasmania for a 10 day road trip!

My pawrents opted to leave me in our car rather than the kennels, we were given a green tag to put in our windscreen so staff knew I was in the car. I was quite happy in her own space, I had my crate, toys, water and even a white noise machine! Given it was winter, my pawrents opened all windows slightly so I had plenty of air flow. It is important that you decide how you would like your dog to travel based on their needs, health requirements and circumtances.

We arrived very early into Devonport and once off the boat, I was given a toilet break, then I told my pawrents I wanted to run and stretch my legs so we were on a mission to find a dog park and we found a HUGE ONE!!

We were then ready to start our Tassie road trip! Our first offical stop was Stanely! I got to see a giant rock called The Nut but I wasn’t allowed to climb it as we had to be careful because of wildlife so we admirred it from the ground. We stayed at a beautiful beach front property, it was bliss and I could even feel the splash of the waves from our yard.

Our next venture was going down to Tullah, via Burnie and oh boy, was it STUNNING down there! We stayed in a beautiful 2 story wooden cottage, and saw the beautiful lake Rosebery. My Hoodad used to live in Tullah when he was younger, so we showed me where he lived.

We then travelled by car to Hobart and made alot of stops on the way as there were just so many beautiful sights and little walks. Hobart is a gorgeous city, we did lots of walking around the city, even checked out the famous Salamanca Market! My pawrents then wanted to do some activites that didn’t allow dogs so they took me to KIP Day Care and I was looked after by the amazing KIP Doggy Day Care team in Hobart.

After Hobart we travelled up to Swansea, however unfortunately poor I fell quite ill, so it was a 1am drive back to Hobart to animal emergency. Thankfully I was ok but it looked like I an allergic reaction to something in the air! We have no idea what and after further investigation and chest x-rays when we got home, our vet also was also miffed! We will just need to make sure that I take some antihistamines when we go back just to be on the safe side. After this we all took a nap at a road stop before going to our next destination because it was 4am and none of us had slept.

After a quick powernap, we then drove to our next stop which was the Bay of Fires and our air bnb host was amazing, so understanding of what we had been through and let us check in early. This accommodation was amazing and the moment we arrived, we all went to bed and got a good few hours of sleep! We were all feeling alot better and then went to see the Bay of Fires and OMG, this has to be one of our fav parts of Tassie. It was just stunning and the beaches were…well, just WOW!!!! The beaches were beautiful and allowed your dog on them on lead too. I got the sillies and dug a few sand holes that I was blasting in and out of!

Our last official stop was Launceston, we spent the day walking around and exploring, our accommodation has a Tassie Devil toy that I wasn’t sure about but we became friends.

We were then on our final day before catching our boat back that night, we went and saw some friends and I got to meet her half sisters! This was such a beautiful end to our trip. Then back on the boat and home we went!

All in all, we found Tassie a very dog friendly state, lots of restaurants and cafe’s were happy for us to be there and there are plenty of spots outside the national parks to visit with me!

We loved all our dog friendly air bnbs! Particularly our Hobart and Bay of Fires accommodation!

We are looking forward to going back to Tassie when the new boats come in, in 2024! We are excited to hear about the new pet facilities on board!

As told by Nanook