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Published: March 1st 2009
Barbeque
These are the lids the Possums fling to get to the lovely taste DAY 113
We both slept quite well last night, the air was definitely warmer and we appeared to have no night visitors either, except that we did hear one Possum playing with the bucket outside the tent but we were both too tired to worry about it.
Out of bed first Andy wanders off to the camp kitchen to make the tea, while I shower, I look in the mirror, as I had done the previous day, to inspect the damage, I don’t look too bad all things considered. I still have all my own teeth (including the ones I paid for!), nothing that a bit of time and Vaseline won’t make better. I feel as if I have done 10 rounds in a boxing ring.
I join Andy in the kitchen; I have brought the breakfast with me, just toast and marmite today. It takes me ages to eat it and I have to wait until my tea is almost cold before I am able to sip it awkwardly from the mug. Still I am lucky that I am not eating and drinking through a straw.
We have come to use the camp kitchen quite frequently,
Dance Floor
Our Cooker looked like a Possum Dance Floor finding that they make things a little bit easier, especially with the cooler weather; the camp kitchens can be a nice warm place to sit in the evenings.
The kitchen is again warm and cosy, but outside we can see the blue sky coming through, it is going to be a lovely warm day today, but we have to move on, this site is fully booked so we were unable to extend. Our plan is to drive to Launceston today; we have a site booked for one night, and then hopefully drive on to Hobart the following day.
We were packed up and ready to go by 10.00, which is the usual check out time for campsites. We pop in to see Claire and thank her and her husband for being great “Park Hosts” Cradle Mountain Camp site (Discovery) is one of the best campsites.
We find ourselves chatting to an Austrian guy Alexandra Lienz, only to find that he was in Leogang in Austria covering the football last year in June when we were there. We chatted to him and his Hungarian girlfriend, she used to work in Worcester and loves England, but she did comment
on how all the English people that she speaks to want to leave England.
Alexandra is a journalist and is currently living in Melbourne.
Andy feels a little sad that we are leaving Cradle Mountain; he has thoroughly enjoyed seeing the wildlife up here. I too have enjoyed Cradle Mountain despite my mishap; we do hope to come back here for a couple of nights before we leave Tasmania.
What a beautiful day as we drive along the lovely quiet Tasmanian roads to a scenic lookout which happens to be a resovoir in the national park, which feeds the Milton Hydro power station. The countryside around here is absolutely breath taking, and so glad we have come to Tasmania.
Driving on in to a town called Sheffield, we spoke to someone back in Ulverstone who asked if we had been to Sheffield, he said you definitely want to go but I won’t tell you why, you can find out when you get there. We look in the lonely planet book as we are driving in, “Sheffield the town of Murals”, there are various murals dotted around the town denoting the history of the town.
The
Camp
Just a shot of some of the camp town of Sheffield looks great with the murals, highlighted by the sunshine of the day. Some of the murals are excellent.
It’s an interesting vibrant little town, we walk past a coffee shop, where a bloke with a huge white beard and a flock of white hair under his hat are sitting, he has taken his Alpaca for a walk, the creature is just sitting on the floor enjoying the sunshine. When we get in the truck we drive past this fella and his animal just to take a photo. I hope that he did not notice.
We are heading out of town in the wrong direction, but we just need to hook it round, on the way out we see another mural, possibly the what we think was the best one so we stop for another photo.
Andy gets out to walk back a bit, he is taking a long time. I get out of the car as it is too warm only to find Andy walking back down the road, he stops to beckon me over. He is standing outside an art shop called “Artetude and the world of Marbles”. In we go full of
childhood memories of playing marbles, some of these would have been worth a lot of marbles on the pitch. What a superb shop with all different types of Decorative marbles, you definitely would play with these in the street.
The lady asks us where we are from and we tell her, she announces that she is a Yorkshire Lass and has been away from the UK for over 30 years, but her Mum and Dad keep sending her property information trying to get her to move back, but she won’t although her husband likes Yorkshire and would like to move over there, he is a painter and found Yorkshire very inspiring.
The next town we come across is Railton, I remember vaguely having to drive through here a couple of nights ago when Andy took me to hospital. “Railton Town of Topiary” is a small town, there are a few gardens with decorative topiary in, and some in the stages of development, you can see the frames that are in place where people are encouraging the growth in a particular shape. I had not realised that frames were used; I just used to think that it was all
down to the cutting.
Turning right out of Railton towards Launceston onto another provincial road it was not long before another driver coming in the opposite direction flashed us. We realised there must be a hazard ahead we proceeded with caution. We see the lights of the emergency services so we slow down. In front of us a lady has stopped, in the process of turning around she wound down her window to speak to us, she explained that the road was closed and would be for at least another hour. Looking at our registration plate she said “you’re tourists”, “yes” we replied then she said “follow me”. I did not like to tell her that I was happy to work it out on the map that I was holding, so Andy turned round and before we knew it she was racing down those country roads with us in tow.
This kind Lady pulled over at the junction for Highway 1, we thanked her for her help and on we went to Launceston. It added mileage to our journey but there was no short way around it unless we wanted to wait.
Soon after joining the 1
we pulled in to a rest area for lunch where we saw a couple of motorcyclists, one with a Honda Goldwing. The interesting thing about this motorcyclist is that he was towing a trailer; upon closer inspection I noticed it was a camper trailer, just like ours, however his trailer was somewhat more compact and bijoux, just right for towing behind a motorbike. This man and woman had been on Tasmania for a month and were just heading off to Devonport for the night sailing back to Melbourne. They were making their way back up to Queensland, taking in Sydney on the way.
Well, we made it into Launceston check into the campsite, this is a Discovery Camp Site, they are soon to be an affiliate of Big 4, I had asked about the Big 4 Discount on the telephone and they said they would honour it, however when I booked in the receipt did not show the discount, they only started to come up with excuses when I mentioned it saying that they should not give the discount before the other branch in Devonport and as the Devonport branch were not yet an affiliate then they were not
Mural
A Mural In the Town of Sheffield in a position to give the discount, it all sounded like a bunch of excuses if you ask me. The Cradle Mountain Discovery site had honoured the discount. (nb, when calling about sites in Hobart I was told that the Discovery site there would too honour the discount). I get the feeling that they could not be bothered to do the paperwork.
We make our bed for the night and then to the Golden Arches for the internet, after all we had been out of touch for a few days so had a bit to catch up on. We sat drinking latte while catching up on email, but we could not get into the blog, so that was another day delay for us.
Using the great camp kitchen again, we cooked our dinner sat and typed up the blog before retiring.
While I washed up a lady came in to the camp kitchen we got talking about touring in a camper, she mentioned that she and her husband went to Europe for a year to tour. They thoroughly enjoyed England and found the campsites better than Australia. I am surprised at that as the Australians are really
Mural
Another geared up for outdoor living.
She also said that she and her husband had not been to London since 1974, “probably before you were born”. I am amazed that she thinks I am that young, tee hee, the Australian air must be doing me some good. Or is it the fact that I am not working, so there is not stress and the mountain air here has done me some good?
Just a note here about Launceston, when I was a little girl I used to pronouce Launceston as it is spelt, however my parents corrected me with the pronunciation, well on Tasmania they say it the way I used to say it and now I cannot get it right.
Animal Score to Date in the wild.
Wombat 19 + 1 baby
Tassie Devil 1
Eastern Quoll 2
Eastern Grey Kangaroo’s Lost Count
Wallabies Lost count.
Pademelons Lost Count
Echidna’s 2
Platypus 1
Possums Lost Count.
Fairy Penguins 3
Koala 1
Wedged Tailed Eagles 3
Eastern Brown Snake 1
Skink
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Chris
non-member comment
Wildlife
You forgot one: Tassie tigers: 0. If the snake was in Tassie, it'll more likely be a tiger snake. No Eastern browns in that state. Chris.