TASMANIA

Well we are off to Tassie. this is the Spirit ready to load.



Matt, Amy, Maya & Jack seeing us off from Port Melbourne.'

Well we have made it to Tassie, arriving at 6.30pm on Sunday the 6^th of Feb. after a pretty rough crossing. Lots of banging from below.

After arriving we drove about 8 ks to Latrobe where we stayed at the Mersey River Holiday Park which is quite nice , no permanents, lots of green grass and nice management. Whilst at Latrobe we did day trips to Stanley, Wynyard, Penguin and Ulverstone one day just to see where we might go next and also Cradle Mountain via Sheffield, Barrington (obviously named after Mike) and Railton. We will see more of this area just before we leave Tasmania.



Next we moved to Wynyard, staying at the Beach Retreat Tourist Park which put our van backing onto the beachfront with a nice boardwalk running into the town. We spent several very nice days there visited Stanley, where we explored the Nut, which was covered in mutton bird burrows and is inhabited by numerous tiger snakes of which one large example crossed the walking path in front of Bonnie, much to her distress. The next day we went to Burnie and visited the cheese factory (yum) and the distillery where we had a lovely lunch. The scenery in Tasmania is amazing and almost directly contrasting to what we had experienced in the north of WA.

After leaving Wynyard we camped out on the Macintosh Dam on the way down to Strahan. Magnificent views but some large March flies and Charli and I came across another tiger snake whilst taking a walk but it didn’t take much notice of us.

When we arrived at Strahan we found that we could camp at the golf club which was great so Bon and I played nine holes which was a bit of fun. We went on a coach to Queenstown and returned to Strahan on the steam train which was fantastic. The endeavour of the pioneers who built this railway in very mountainous, wet terrain was amazing, especially the third geared rail to pull up the steepest climbs. The hospitality in the premium class carriage was pretty good too.

Yesterday we went on the Franklin River Cruise into the World Heritage area and although the day was pretty average the cruise and the boat were beautiful.



We have been in Tassie for 2 weeks and so far the weather has been almost 50/50 nice days to wet days although the last 3 have been ordinary (that’s how I found time to blog).

We are leaving Strahan tomorrow and heading south east with some trepidation as everyone tells us that the roads are very, very hilly and winding but there is no choice as there is only one way out of here. Will let you know what it was like in the next edition.