We left the camp and A&M at Port Arthur and took the peninsula loop road to White Beach near Nubeena to take a look then headed for the Coal Mines at Norfolk Bay . This was a location that prisoners were sent from Port Arthur if they were very bad or recidivist offenders. They were put to hard labour down deep shafts digging coal which was brought to the surface manually. The site consisted of many old fallen down buildings with piles of bricks around them marking the place where walls once stood. It covered an extensive area in an extremely beautiful landscape. The location is absolutely stunning looking out to a tranquil harbour and calm, clear water. It belies what was happening on land. Because of it’s location there were a number of semaphore stations ... read more

Today dawned cloudy, cool and windy again but I started the day with a walk along the 2km beach and back at Coles Bay. Again, it was a lovely curved, white sandy beach. At 9am we departed for our journey towards Port Arthur. First we stopped at the Tasmanian Bush Garden established by voluntary labour and opened in 2010. It was set in an old quarry and contained a vast array of native trees, shrubs and grasses. One thing that stands out is that the plants nearly all have small, spikey leaves and do not have a large number of trees – rather shrubs and bushes. We stopped for a very good coffee at Triabunna then continued onto Sorell to stock up on food (forgot wine) and then had our lunch on the side of the ... read more

Annamaria and Michael were going to catch up with us later in the day at Coles Bay in their campervan so we headed off with a list of places to visit along the way. Heading east past the airport we stopped at Sorell to get groceries and wine for the next two days. From there we passed where we should have stopped at the Tasman Bush Gardens, but, never mind, we could do that on the way back in a couple of days. Next we stopped at St John The Baptist church (built 1820’s) at Buckland to look at the stained glass window dating back to the 14thCentury from Hastings Abbey in England. The building is made of the local cream sandstone and the glass work on the other windows is superb especially the flowers. The ... read more

After staying at Neal's father's house in Seatoun Heights overnight, we were up at 4am for a taxi to the airport and an early morning flight out of Wellington. Unfortunately, overnight a huge storm (weather bomb) had brewed up over the middle of the country bringing heavy rain and high gale force winds. We boarded the plane on time but sat on the tarmac bouncing about for about an hour waiting to leave. Eventually, they towed the plane to a more sheltered location so that the bags could be loaded. Surprisingly enough once the bags were loaded we were able to leave despite the high winds. We flew out directly into the wind and with a bit of turbulence eventually cleared the clouds into calmer weather. Air New Zealand endeavours to make sure you have the ... read more

From the Valley Camp we walked back to the Cricket Pitch and climbed up the hill and along the old pack track to the fencer's camp in Shingley Creek. The pack track was used for carting fencing gear and mustering in this part of the station. Along the track was an old snow fence built in the the 1930's to stop the sheep getting too high in the mountains. It remains in remarkably good order and not as rusty as one might expect. From the highest part of the ups and downs of this part of the track we eventually wound our way down and around a valley and onto our destination of the Bush Hut just over 8 kilometres from our start. Parts of the track are fairly slushy after rain so it pays to ... read more