The Nixon Family
Hello from Steve,Julie, Stephanie, Dannielle and Samuel. Where is the Watergate Hotel
We have decided to sell the house, take 7 months off work (and School) and travel around Australia.
We would love for you to tap into our travel journal from time to time to find out where we are and what we have been doing on our family adventure.
Our journal begins more than 12 months before we head off, with the initial planning, picking out the van we have affectionately nicknamed the Watergate Hotel (We are no relation to Ex President Richard Nixon,we think), buying a vehicle strong enough to tow "The Watergate" the 20000 plus KM we plan to travel and of course hopefully, if we are on the ball a weekly update of our adventure.
Hope you enjoy. Your comments would also be great.
Travel Blog Posts
December 27th 2008
We boarded the Spirit of Tasmania 1 very early and were on our way to Melbourne by 9am. The ship only had 250 people on board (it can carry over 1000) so we had heaps of room to spread out. The sea was as flat as a tack which made for a great sail across the ditch. We kept a look out for some of the yachts in the Sydney to Hobart but no luck. The only boat we passed was the Spirit of Tasmania 2 heading to Devonport. We arrived into Melbourne by 6.30pm and made our way to the van park. We planned to stay in Melbourne for new years eve but when we arrived at the Ashley Gardens there was a fair bit of an issue with our site. 95% of the park ... read more
December 24th 2008
We are currently at Kelso about an hour nth of Launceston Best wishes to all. Press play to hear our Christmas message... read more
December 21st 2008
The spent the next couple of days exploring Launceston, visiting places like Cataract Gorge then we travelled to Kelso north of Launceston at the top of the Tamar River. This is where we relaxed and waited for Santa to come. It was a great Place for the kids to run around and play or relax end get some sun because the weather finely got better. The possums were really cheeky here, they loved to climb up the ropes and crawl all over the top of the van at night. We went for a drive one day to visit Beaconsfield the place were the miners got trapped and also Seahorse House where we learned all about the cute little creatures. A visit to Tamar Valley Winery and a lavender farm completed the day. Santa finally arrived and ... read more
Great tasting Elephants, Colour and Cuteness
Published: February 13th 2009Oceania » Australia » Tasmania » Bicheno
December 15th 2008
We made our way back to a place near Hobart called Seven Mile Beach for a day and a night to catch up on some school work and the like before heading up to Launceston. We decided to free camp at a cute park in Campbell Town half way between Hobart and Launceston, it is one of the oldest settlements in Tassie. A lot of convicts settled here after they completed their time in Hobart or Port Arthur. We arrived in Launceston and got settled. The next day we decided to do a day trip and drive to St Helens and Bicheno on the East coast about 2 hours drive from Launceston, Just south of Bicheno is Freycinet National Park and Wineglass Bay, we couldn’t do the walk we wanted to do because of the weather ... read more
More winding roads and hills followed by Extreme Adventure
Published: December 19th 2008Oceania » Australia » Tasmania » Hobart
December 6th 2008
We travelled one of the hilliest mountain roads in Tassie from Strahan to Hobart, it took 5 hours to travel 238km and we spent most of our time in the clouds. We were so happy to arrive in Hobart, Steve arms were very sore from steering left and right so much. A big difference to the long straight roads of the NT and QLD. We took a quick trip into the city and Salamanca Markets for the afternoon. The next day we made our way into the city and boarded the Double Decker London Bus for a hop on hop off tour of Hobart. We travelled past Wrest point Casino, Cascades Brewery, The female factory( the scene of the infamous Potato Factory story about female convicts), and Battery Point which is a part of the city ... read more
Mutany on the west coast of Tassie
Published: December 19th 2008Oceania » Australia » Tasmania » Strahan
December 3rd 2008
We headed off on yet another thin and winding road from Cradle Mountain to Strahan. We arrived to a very wet and cold place so we spent the rest of the day in the van catching up on school work and travel diaries. The next day the weather wasn’t much better so we didn’t get a chance to do the Gordon River Cruise or Wilderness Railway like we had hoped, but we did go and see a pantomime “The Ship That Never Was” about the Fredrick it’s a long story but the short version is that back in the convict days when the ship building workshop on Sarah Island near Strahan was closed the Convicts built the last ship and then stole it and escaped to Chile, when they arrived they sank the ship and a ... read more
December 1st 2008
We followed the winding, hilly road to Cradle Mountain, we got a rare break in the weather after we arrived and made a mad dash to Dove Lake car park for a view of the mountain, the weather in the National Park is so fickly it can be go from raining cats and dogs to sunny to windy to freezing cold with in half an hour. The sun was still shining even though it was freezing cold so we walked the 600mtrs around the edge of the lake to “The Boat Shed” , we were about half way there and the cloud came over in seconds and it began to rain ice balls so we made a mad dash toward the little timber shed on the edge of the lake. Sam and Dannielle climbed through a ... read more
November 30th 2008
Stanley is a beautiful little town, full of cute B&B Cottages and a spectacular bay. We started the day with a chairlift ride to the top of Stanleys main attraction “The Nut”, we decided it is Tasmania’s own “Ayers Rock” We walked around the rim of it in the cold wind but at least we had sunshine . We then travelled the 40 minutes west to Dismal Swamp a rainforest in the largest sink hole in the country, Dismal Swamps main draw card is the 110m Slide to the rainforest floor. We put on our helmet and jumped into a specially designed sack and away we went 40 - 50 km/h down the slide, what a buzz!!!!! ... read more
November 28th 2008
After heading back to the shops to finish off the Christmas shopping we made our way to Station Pier to board the Spirit of Tasmania 2. The crossing of Bass Strait to Devonport started off very smooth but by midnight the sea came into a 2-3 metre swell and things got a bit rocky, but luckily none of us got sick and coming into Devonport things settled down. The weather in Tasmania was not the best, wind and rain continued for the rest of the day as we made our way along the north west coast to Stanley. ... read more
November 25th 2008
We settled in Melbourne for a few days, got to know our way around , we discovered the Carousel in the middle of the city and walked along the river. We couldn’t get over the amount of trams and just had to go for a ride on one so we hopped on to the free city circle tram and as you do when you get to a city WE SHOPPED. Christmas shopping was the main reason and we managed to get most of it done in a day. The next day we went into town and after a ride on the carousel in Federation Square before we went to see the big man himself. We found SANTA hiding in the Christmas Cave at Myer, Sam got to give Santa his wish list and then ride the ... read more
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