Mon 23rd March – Wed 25th March
Accommodation: Beachside Bliss in Bridport but we booked via Booking.com
Mon 23rd March
There was a very thick fog when we woke this morning so we delayed our departure from Ulverstone by taking a long walk along Buttons Beach and making two visits to our favourite cafe, Thirty Three Cups. Our next accommodation was at Bridport, a couple of hours of driving eastward across the top of Tasmania, and we made a few stops along the way to delay our arrival to time with our 3 pm check in.
Our first stop was for brunch at the Blueberry Barn Café which was in the middle of nowhere but delivered up a wholesome and satisfying brunch. Our next stop was at Pipers Brook Vineyard to sample some wine where we found two Pinots that we liked but felt the prices were a bit too high to justify a purchase. Our final stop was at Bridestowe Lavender farm but it was the wrong time of year to capture images of the vast purple crop so frequently seen on Instagram.
It was 3 pm by the time we arrived in Bridport and this worked out well for our check-in into our accommodation. Our little apartment was in a great location, near the cafes and shops and just across from the beach / inlet area, and was one of three apartments on the block, one behind the other, with ours being at the front so having a good view. Apartment 2, slap bang in the middle, is currently for sale for offers over $545,000! Apartments 1 and 2 had the same floor plan but Apartment 3, at the back, was a two storey place having 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a 3 car garage. We wasted little time after dropping our bags though and headed out for a walk along the inlet.
There had been a brief thought of cooking a meal for our dinner but this was short lived and we ended up dining at the Bridport Bay Inn which was just a short walk up the road from our apartment.
Tue 24th March
It was a slow morning for us today as we had been on the go a bit for the last few days. Our first outing was just up the road at the Bridport Cafe where we seemed to be the odd ones out. The place was very busy with lots of different groups of golfers.
Our plan for the day was to go on a drive and take a couple of waterfall walks. The first of these, the St Columba Falls walk, was about a 90 minute drive from Bridport. We had to do a detour before this walk though as we both hadn’t had any breakfast and found that we were quite hungry. The one and only cafe in the area was closed, but it was fortunate for us that this random little restaurant in the middle of nowhere, Pub in the Paddock, was open and so we stopped there for an early lunch. It was a rather underwhelming meal but at least it filled the hole in our stomachs. We were reminded though about how all of the remote cafes, bars and restaurants that we had recently visited in New Zealand offered food and services to a very high standard and we believe this is a lesson that some places in Tassie would be well advised to heed!
St Columba Falls was only about a 15 min drive further along from Pub in the Paddock and the walk to the falls was about 30 minutes return. The waterfall was also rather underwhelming and I was glad the hike in hadn’t been much longer. Our next stop was about 30 minutes further along at Ralph Falls but along a very rough gravel road so I was glad when we arrived. This was only a 20 minute return walk and we would likely have done the additional longer loop except that it started to rain as we reached Ralph Falls. The view out to the falls was impressive although the waterfall was only a narrow part of the impact.
It was only 3 pm by the time we got back to Bridport so Mark headed out for a bike reside and I took a walk out along the beach. Dinner for our last night was at The Bridport Bunker Club which was highly recommended and just a 2 minute walk down from our apartment.
We had enjoyed our short time in Bridport but it is one of those places that we were glad to say we’ve seen but we wouldn’t bother to return. Don’t get me wrong, it is spectacularly beautiful but a few days is plenty of time to soak up what the area has to offer. I had thought we might do some swimming but the water temperature at 16° put a stop to that. There is lovely scenery in and around Bridport but it is quite a drive to get to many of the notable sites. I can imagine that it would be a lovely retreat for people coming to play golf, and we have seen plenty of those folk around the area. We haven’t seen many young people or young families in the area but plenty of elderly on walking frames so I do wonder if Bridport is a bit of a retiree town? Bridport does offer a surprising number of dining venues for a relatively small little town so there is plenty of dining choice available. Should you find yourself needing to stay in Bridport though I would highly recommend our accommodation as it was well located, very clean and very comfortable.
Apologies for the photo dump at the end of the section below but our final morning foreshore walk gave so many Instagram moments I just had to capture them.
