Heading North and at Home again.

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Heading on up the Northeast trail in Tassie

Waited in the early morning sun for the frost to dry on the canvas chateau before we could pack her up.
Then said our farewells to our top little authentic Easter stay in Dover by the sea, where we had real rabbits running all around our camp, day and night. And then began our sunny drive up through the Huon valley, passing all the coastal shackies (Tassie for weekender or batch to the Kiwi’s) and the flourishing orchards, offering large bags of crisp, juicy apples for only $2 !! And all done using the old honesty box system in a little roadside shed/stall, just another thing that makes Tassie so special.

It was as though a bell had rung and autumm was delivered during the Easter break, and just in time for our drive through this beautiful valley, it was just so amazing to see -the red and wine colour tones of the maples and the rows and rows of yellowing poplars (reminded me so much of Central Otago NZ)- just glorious to see, especially, when they would sway in the breeze. And such clear blue skies in the background, all that day, we just always seem to be so lucky with the weather!

We stopped off at Sorrell, on the other side of Hobart, for lunch and a top up to the food supplies, then continued on to our next little slice of Tassie - about half way up the East coast --Bicheno caravan park and at night we walked down to the beach to see the fairy penguins at their rookery, such an amazing feat of nature, how they find their way back to their babies each night, is incredible. Next day we drove down the penninsula to Freycinet, past The Hazards mountain range and Ian and I did the hike up to Wineglass bay and then met up with Barb who had been reading her book and all went over to Cape Tourville, then it was back to The Freycinet Lodge for a little pre dinner cocktail, before driving back to the camper for dinner. Next day Ian and caddie did 9 holes at Bicheno course and met up with Stella and Gabriel Lee, some people from Sydney who know our friends The Kims, we enjoyed a friendly game of golf with them, then a drink at the clubhouse afterwards.
From Bicheno, we headed further north passing through Mt Elephant and it just so happened to be morning tea time---when we passed the famous Mt Elephant Pancake house, ---shame, but a good excuse for good 2 kingsized crepes, which we shared between the three of us.
Then a stop at St Mary’s, an eclectic little village, where we stumbled on this amazing personal collection museum, “Gone Rustic” run by a rather eccentric Tassie fellow, named Ian Summers, it was like a trip back, way back, in time, being in the place and meeting Ian, definetly one of Tassie’s all time characters, who has collected old cameras, pianola’s, minature toys, comics etc, etc. for over 50 years.
Some friends we know would just love this place!!
Then a lunch stop at St Helens at Diana’s Basin and the last of all the yummy Aldi goodies that Nicky and Pascal gave us for Christmas, in a sunny little spot on the side of Georges bay.


And then off to our “Piece de Resistance” of the trip camp.

---- The Bay of Fires, here we camped right on the beach at Cosy Corner north, this was what they call in campers lingo a “Free ranger” ie no cost camping, unbelievable !!
It would only happen in Tassie !!!

As often happens to us, we had a little stroke of luck along the way, when we found a big pile of wood, for free , so it allowed us to have an open fire every night, not always good for our livers, but, nothing better than it for a great chat, a laugh and a little Scrabble tournament, into the wee small hours.

And great help with the colder nights and cooler days.

One morning here we got up to find we had been raided by the local possums overnight, hence one half loaf of bread -gone, the next night we locked up, extra tight, so they just spent the night dancing on our roof, great fun!!

Barb has been dubbed throughout this trip as “The Breakfast Queen” she’s a champion at porridge and we have decided her fruit chopping skills are not to be equaled anywhere in the world.
We usually have the most amazing homemade soups for lunch which both C and B are excellent at brewing up and the dinner menu is C’s responsibility.
At Bay of Fires we cooked a mean chicken casserole and Aunty Ron’s Mango fruit cake in the camp oven on the fire, both turned out gourmet quality, thanks to our Ian’s fire and coal making skills.

During the day Cosy corner offered lots of lovely long beach walks,over the red,lichen covered beach boulders, some special shell collecting and time for reading, bit of craft and some more fun with the new camera.

Ian got to try his hand at fishing again here, but seems the season is near the end, so no one is having any joy, E included.

After 4 glorious nights here we reluctantly packed up, could have stayed a month.

Next destination was the Lavender farm at Bridstowe for B and C to top up the smellies and buy a few treats for loved ones back home and then up to Bridport, and ------Barnbougle ------- rated The 35th best publis access golf course in the world and first in Australia for “Tiger Ian” to play a round accompanied by his illustrious caddie C (at no charge).

On arrival, Ian went to check us in, as we had decided to go from Free range to luxury for a night (it all evens out in the end).
When he came out of reception with the key, we were all soo excited ---- just the thought of a real shower, let alone no camper to put up, makes us all go quite silly!
But then low and behold we were just piling into the car, excited and giggling, like silly kids, to drive over to our beach villa and we spotted some old friends of Ian’s family Sandy and Bruce, much excitement, as we hadn’t seen anyone we knew since Hobart.
They were also at Barnbougle to play golf the next day, and had been making their bookings, they looked very clean and smartly dressed, especially to us!! Not sure what they thought of us, as we possibly looked and smelt quite the opposite, ---after 4 days free ranging---with camp fires every night!!!!

We would have been smelling mighty pretty!

After a good chat and giving them lots of travel Tassie tips, as their hol had just begun,we then headed off to our villa and fought for first place in the shower!!
We then got ourselves all frocked up as Ian had booked us a special, belated birthday dinner at the clubhouse, which we all thoroughly enjoyed, such good food and we didn’t have to cook it or do the dishes, yahoo!

Next morn Barb had a lie in, watched TV in bed and had a good read while Ian and C went over for a pre golfing breaky before hit off at 8.40 am, so civilized, we were both so excited!!!
Ian hired a full set of long clubs and a buggy and off we went. The course was a links style through the 22 metre dunes along the Northern coast of Tasmania where the wind blows strong and the rain goes horizontal but today was a beautiful still overcast dewy morn - thank God - as the rough was unforgiving and a noted “ball eater”. It was a wonderfully prepared and designed course of 6,000 metres plus the up and downs. First nine yielded the same score as a flat track at Bicheno and only two lost balls so the caddy and I were pretty happy. The second 9 was not as good as at about the 14th, after a birdie on a Par 5, the golfer started to run out of energy and we just relaxed a little and lost another 2 balls with a slice out to sea here and there. Overall a golf course worth the experience if you ever get the chance. Sandy and Bruce were 3 holes ahead of us all round and we joined them in the club house at the end of 18 and they were off to do another 18!!!
And by the way Ian got a birdie on the 11th, such a champion!!
After golf we once again reluctantly drove off, to our next experience---- Janz and Pipers brook wineries, which helped us move on.
Then through Launceston into the Midlands and down into Longford, where we scavanged “The Honeymoon suite” on the river, a beaut site right on the river, surrounded by the autumm leaves and a flock of ducks, which gave us our morning wake up call, both days we spent there.
One of these days, C was in seventh heaven, as it had been allocated to Antiquing!
The other day we did a 2 year old boutique winery for lunch-Joseph Chromy and snuck in a few more antique/bric a brac shops, one amazing one named Amnesia was in Evandale, with an incredible collection of old linens, patterns and memorablia, B and I both did a little retail therapy here.

From Longford with much excitement we made tracks up to Cradle Mountain, passing by many of the roadside apiaries, producing all the famous Tassie honey,yum!
Another of their little treasures!
As we pulled out in cool but dry weather, the skies began to darken and the rain continued all day to come down, in varying degrees, but relentlessly.
On the way we stopped at Deloraine, for a little”craft fix”, finding an exhibition of a Silk artwork, done by 300 women of the district taking over 10,000 hours. There were 4 panels each 4x3 mtres of embroidery, appliqué, patchwork and crosstitch used to tell the story of the region, it was a masterpiece, so good that Barb and I decided to see the presentation x2 as there was so much to take in, such talent!!!!
We then made our way into a little shop called Bohemia and meet a delightful English couple Jacque and John, she was doing sculpting, contemporary patchwork and they both were musicians, actually their talents were endless.
Many of the shops had window displays of WW1 &11 memorabilia for Anzac day on the 25th, such good Aussies!
From here we drove on in the rain up to Mole Creek and a little lunch stop at the Guest house.
Then onwards towards the Mountain, rains still coming down and temperatures in single digits, it didn’t take too much discussion to decide that our accom would not be our Canvas Chateau in Cradle Mt.
On arrival we upgraded to a cabin, “great decision team”!

Next morning we awoke to cold—(minus 3 overnight we were told) but the blue skies were peeking through so we made our picnic and off we went to do the Dove Lake Circuit walk, another magic walk through one of Tasmania’s enchanted wilderness forests!!
They say there are many people who go to Cradle Mt and never get to see it out of cloud, but not us it was clear of cloud at least 75% of our walk, now you think that’s amazing,----well there’s something even more amazing about this 6 km walk/hike, you see less than 8 months ago Barb had a hip replacement operation and she did the walk, all the way!!!!! What a hero, such an inspiration to us all!!!
And then while Barb took a well deserved break in the car Ian and C did another 2.5 km walk from Ronny’s paddock back to the visitors centre, were we saw wombats and wild hens along the way.
Scrabble tournaments were popular,the TV movie channel in the cabin got a spin and the heater was on full blast at all times!!
Temperature overnight was -4!!
The next day, dressed in every layer we possessed, I think B had about 7 and C topped it with 10,(thanks to Al and Liz, sending the care package from home),we made the most of a crisp but clear morning and took another walk to Knyvet Falls and Pencil pine. Spotting all the fungi along the way through the enchanted rainforest, such beauty on this island, still after 8weeks of it, never ceases to amaze us all.

That night we took ourselves off to the see the iconic Tassie Devils feeding tour in the rain and cold, but regardless of the weather, we would do it all again, it was like all the touristy things we have done in Tassie, excellently presented, educational and interactive, we got to pat one!!

Then it was back to our cabin for a warming curry and a movie before we hit the hay.

Middle of the night, the excitement began to build as we met on one of our nightly loo calls for a peak out the window, at -----THE SNOW, coming down, wow and it was Barb’s first ever viewing of snow falling, and she was sooooo excited!!

When we all awoke, our car, the bikes and camper and all the surrounding flora was dusted with snow, it looked so beautiful, it seemed such an incredible sight to see our camper, bikes and car covered with snow, such a contrast to it’s usual red bull dust!

Ian rugged up and went off to the visitors centre to check out the road conditions, as Barb and C got packed ready to come down off the Mt, the temperature overnight had been -6, such a good decision to get a cabin!!!!

Not too long after the snow had stopped and with Ian’s morning report and cameras in hand we all made a dash for the car and slowly made our way down the mountain, reminiscing about all the wonderful moments we had enjoyed during this little stay, while the snow melted away off our little home and car.

From Cradle Mt , down the winding road, passing by the falling autumm trees we made our way to Sheffield, famous little town known for all the wall murals, such creativity and we were also lucky enough to catch the annual mural art show--- such talent!!
And then a lunch stop at Latrobe, for a little retail and antiquing therapy, with some help from Jacque, back at Deloraine we then discovered one of the worlds unique boutique retailers “Reliquaire” ---wow such a clever concept, all set up in a well preserved Victorian building with every room full of everything new that looked old, plus thought provoking books and games. C was in her element and didn’t want to leave, it was such a surprising experience.
But we needed to make tracks before dark, for Port Sorell on the north/east coast for our last 4 night stay on our Tassie adventure.
On arrival, it seemed so much warmer than up the mountain, so up with our Canvas Chateau.
Three great games of Scrabble and a few glasses of Tassie Pinot Noir, while we cooked dinner in the warmth of the camp kitchen at the caravan park was great fun. But eventually we put our bods out of the camp kitchen to feel the coldest temperature that we were about to ever spend in the camper, it was -4 and we were about to sleep in canvas,oh no!!!!! The Pinot definitely helped eased the pain or maybe I should say, made us giggle (nervously) as we braved it into our Pj’s.
But nothing changed the fact that it was below freezing, even our breathe was smoky.
So less to say, the next morning at the team meeting, which was held at about 12.01am, in bed , we made the decision to pack our baby up and upgrade to a cabin for our last 3 nights in Tassie.
So next morning, which produced a lovely warm ,sunny day we spent the day washing all our linen etc and generally giving our Canvas Chateau a Spring or should I say early Winter overhaul/clean and then moved ourselves into a cabin. We all agreed it was such a good decision.
No more cold nights for us!

Next day we had a day out, and it was such a great day, firstly we went to Beauty Point to see where Barb’s son John had attended The Australian Marine college at 17 years of age, it was quite an emotional stop for Barb, but good to see and a text to John, made it all worthwhile.
Then we did something quite unique, we went to a Seahorse research centre, ---what an amazing little creature this is, ----wait for this bit of trivia,----- in the seahorse world the blokes have the babies and they can have up to and over 1,000 at a time, short life span, wonder why?
From there we hit Barbs’ and mine favorite Tassie Pinot Noir producer, a winery named Holm Oak.

Next day, we awoke to departure day back to the mainland, we all arose in a mixture of sadness and excitement, our Tassie adventure was about to come to an end.
But we were going home.

But first thing Ian and I did was to go on our last little bike ride to buy us all our last Scallop pie for lunch, just one to share!

And we also picked up 3 little bunches of flowers for a little memorial and farewell to our very good friend Wendys’, grandson and special soulmate Johnno, a much too young lad who recently and suddenly passed away. And seeing we were here when it happened and not able to be in Sydney to give Wendy our support and that when Wendy was a youngster her family had a shacky at Port Sorell, we thought this was a great opportunity for us to say our farewells.
It was a beautiful day on the Port Sorrell Bay when we all said a little prayer and put the flowers into the bay and watched them float away with the tide, with the seagulls all hovering above.
Love you Wendy, our thoughts are with you, you’ve been traveling with us a lot in these last few weeks.

But then the time had come to drive to Devonport, to board the Spirit.

What a trip we have had!!!!
So many great spots, we really can’t name the favorite, there have been so many!
Tassie is truly the jewel in the crown, if you haven’t done it you should plan to.

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