Appetising Pitstops Along Tassie’s Devilishly Sexy Great Eastern Drive

Tassie’s Great Eastern Drive is gaining some serious momentum and it doesn’t take one of those free local walking tours to figure out why. Seriously, one look at this Instagram and you get instant FOMO. Move over Great Ocean Road, this is one sexy beast of a road trip to get your rental wheels on.

Photo: Sean Scott
Photo: Lisa Kuilenburg

The island’s scenic coastline offers up all things beaut, like empty white-sand beaches, strollable grassy cliffs, boulders splashed with orange lichen and waters as clear as Taylor Swift‘s ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ swipes. As you can expect from destinations that have kept their natural appeal, primo food + wine straight from Tassie’s vineyards, paddocks and ocean are aplenty.

If you’re looking at getting down to Tassie (after this you probs will be tbh), then make sure the below tummy top-ups are strongly considered.

FREYCINET MARINE FARM

1784 Coles Bay Rd, Coles Bay
September-May, everyday 9am-5pm

Photo: Tourism Tasmania / Andrew Wilson

Freycinet Peninsula‘s Marine Farm is a lil’ slurp of shucking heaven, boasting the region’s seafood pulled from the ocean, including oysters, mussels, scallops, abalone and crayfish. You can take a tour, if you like, where you’ll be able to taste oysters and mussels that have been freshly harvested / shucked before your very eyes. Alternatively, simply enjoy fah-resh seafood (prepped onsite) and wash ’em down with local vinos and brews. Drench me with your delights, Tassie.

PYENGANA DAIRY

St Columba Falls Rd, Pyengana 
Everyday, 9am-4pm

Photo: Flow Mountain Bike

Get lactose deep with Pyengana’s award-winning cheddars, homemade ice cream and real farm milk straight from the paddock (aka the most content cows on the planet). Their robotic milking systems means that the Friesian cows pretty much milk themselves, and they actually line up for a back scratch as a reward afterwards. You can also see the cheeses being made using traditional methods (accompanied by a spiel about each flavour), sample some fromage or buy some for later. You’ll surely have a grate time. Not sorry.

MELSHELL OYSTERS FARM

1 Yellow Sandbanks Road, Dolphin Sands
Everyday, 10am-4pm

 

Photo: Rob Burnett

If you love a good shuck, keep an eye out for the Melshell Oysters sign (propped up on the roadside) as you weave your way along Tasmania’s East Coast. From there you’ll divert down a lil’ country road as you make your way to a bright blue caravan of the second-generation oyster farm run by Ian and Cassie Melrose. Choose your freshly harvested oysters with some tabasco, lemon and pepper, or simply stark naked, and sit by the dunes / accompanying view of Swan River. You can also watch on-shore operations while learning a thing or 25 about oyster farming. We’re there with gills on. Melshell, can you handle this?

THE PUB IN THE PADDOCK

250 St Columba Falls Rd, Pyengana 
Tues-Thurs, 10.30am-10pm

Photo: Kathryn Leahy

This is one of the oldest standing pubs in Tassie, and a true charmer with interiors reminiscent of your crazy uncle’s farmhouse. Plus, this place has a beer-drinking pig and it would be a true disservice to not include it in this list. Her name is Priscilla and she’s a Tassie celebrity. Outstanding. If you’re keen on knocking a few back with porky, be sure to book a room overnight and then, when your body’s ready, you can get back on the road.

DEVIL’S CORNER CELLAR DOOR AND LOOKOUT

Sherbourne Road, Apslawn
Everyday, 10am-5pm

Photo: Lisa Kuilenburg

Architecturally designed cellar door and lookout, Devil’s Corner, is the picturesque pit stop you’ve been looking for. It boasts uninterrupted views across vines and Moulting Lagoon, with the Hazards and Freycinet Peninsula in the distance. Cop some wine tasting at the cellar door, before heading to a courtyard that has grub worth ‘Gramming / drooling over (incl. plump oysters and wood-fired pizza). Be sure to use that panorama setting on your phone’s camera, because if there was ever a place for it, it’s Devil’s Corner.

Enter the labyrinth of an architecturally designed cellar door and lookout, that interprets the landscape as you would the subtleties of a fine wine. As you climb, tiered balconies expose the sky, the horizon and finally uninterrupted views across vines and Moulting Lagoon, with the Hazards and Freycinet Peninsula in the distance. Come down and you’re on the path to a cellar door and a Devil’s Corner wine tasting, then on to a courtyard with food to drool over. Conclude on the expansive deck overlooking a show-stopping panorama with wine in hand as you wait for plump oysters and wood-fired pizza to be swiftly delivered to your table.

KEEN? You’ve never wanted to be so at one with nature in your life, have you? You can enter the below comp to get yr butt down to Tas and do exactly that, or create your own story HERE. Good luck, good person of the internet.

WIN A WEEKEND GETAWAY FOR TWO IN TASMANIA

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