Spirit of Tasmania

In February 2024, we successfully booked our travel on a night sale, which included a cabin for our crossing to Tasmania on January 20, 2025. We could not book our return trip from Tasmania then, as bookings are only open for up to eleven months in advance.

Finally, on June 4 2024, we booked our trip to Geelong for May 20. Once again, we will be travelling on a night sail with a cabin included. 

Four months should be ample time without being rushed. It will also allow us time to bunker down when the weather is less than ideal, which we understand is a regular occurrence in Tasmania.

Before boarding the ship, we stayed for several days in Point Lonsdale and parked our van on my brother's driveway. 

In preparation for our boarding date, we checked the route to the terminal from Point Lonsdale to ensure a smooth and worry-free journey. Boarding starts 2.5 hours before departure. Since our departure was at 18:45, we left Point Lonsdale around 15:00 to travel the 35 kilometres to the terminal.

We've heard about the facilities, or lack thereof and the difficulties of boarding the Spirit from Port Melbourne, but since the move to Geelong in late 2022, the process for boarding the boat has become so easy. In just fifteen minutes of arriving at the terminal, we were checked for our vehicle and van length, given our passes, which included our fobs to access our cabin and went through the security check to ensure we were not carrying any fruit, plants, honey or other items not able to be taken into Tasmania. They even removed the fire starters we use for our campfires.

Ros was concerned about seasickness, as she doesn't travel well on ships. She had arranged with her doctor, who gave her a script for seasick tablets.

Thankfully, as indicated on my "Windy App," our trip across Bass Straight" showed maximum wave heights of just 1.6 metres. The drone of the ship's engines kept us awake on and off during the night. The journey across Port Philip Bay to The Rip, which is at the entrance to the bay, took three hours from the terminal, so during this time, we enjoyed drinks and dinner before retiring for the evening.

The bubbles in the wine glasses were caused by the throb of the engines as we made our way across the bay.

I used my Exploroz Traveller mapping software to plot our course from the terminal across Port Phillip Bay. Lastly, at 04:38, we were twenty-five kilometres north of Devonport, watching the lights come into view.

Disembarking went as smoothly as getting onboard in Geelong, and after leaving the terminal, we drove to Latrobe for our first night to shop for fresh fruit items that we could not bring across on the ship.

"Reliquaire" is a most unusual and fantastic shop in Gilbert Street in Latrobe.