tasmanian travels

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After leaving Merimbula we travelled to Lakes Entrance in southern Victoria which was a 270 km trip. It was a nice sunny day and the country side was lovely as it is mostly National Park country with a few small quaint towns along the way. At Lakes Entrance we met up with some friends of ours whom we met whilst in Cairns as they were parked next to us in the caravan park there. We had a lovely time with Tony and Gwen and they took us for a drive up to the small town of Buchan where there are some caves. Although we didn’t go through the caves we had a picnic lunch in the park near them where there were some fabulous old trees and the area was so picturesque. We had dinner with them and then we drove onto Sale where we met up with another couple who are friends of the couple in Lakes Entrance and they were also in the same caravan park in Cairns so we had a lovely day and evening with them.

We are gradually working our way across to Melbourne to catch the ferry on the 15^th and we stopped at Moe to visit another lady we met at Wonga Beach north of Cairns. We had morning tea with Mary and then drove onto Pakenham where we caught up with my sister Julie and her partner Sasha who live in Melbourne. They drove out and we spent a lovely afternoon having lunch and a couple of wines with them before they had to leave to travel back to Melbourne.



Last year we house sat for a couple down on the Mornington Peninsula so our next stop was down there to visit them. We stayed with Ross and Alison and had a wonderful time catching up with them and also their lovely dog Midas as well as their daughter Rachael and her two young sons Tully and Kip. We drove to Sorrento one day to have morning tea as there is a cafe down there that is supposed to have the best vanilla slices and we thought they best be as they are $8.50 each so we shared at that price. It was great, but we still declare the one we had up in Bamaga up Cape York Peninsula the best as we rated that as a 10/10 and this was 8-9/10. We left around 3 pm after working out our best way to drive to the ferry terminal and making sure we would avoid any low bridges as our 5^th wheeler is 3.8 metres high. We were doing really well until we were coming up to a set of lights and we were in the middle lane to go straight ahead when all of a sudden I saw a large flashing sign saying low bridge ahead all trucks turn right so here we are in the middle lane with the lights green and the turn right light on red and us in the middle lane with our blinker on wanting to turn right and cars behind us wishing to go straight ahead. Luckily for us the light turn green and cars let us in to turn right as usually size always wins and we suppose they knew the predicament we were in. So after planning for some time that morning and checking on the maps for low bridges we missed this one, but it could have been worse we could have gone straight ahead and found ourselves backing up with all the traffic around, that would have been a lot of fun, not. We arrived just before 4.30 pm as that is the time they start boarding everyone and we were about 6^th in line and we drove up to the first guy and he looked at the 5^th wheeler and told us we were too high to go in with all the other vans and cars and we would have to do a U turn and go down to the freight terminal section and go on with all the trucks and semis which was okay, but we couldn’t do that until 6.30 pm. Fortunately not too far away we were able to park the rig down near the beach to pass the time away. After finally boarding at around 7 pm we had dinner and then went to our seats where we were to spend the night trying to sleep. We did get some sleep as Bass Strait was so smooth the whole way, it was like a mill pond. The ship arrived at 6 am and we were at our first destination of Latrobe by 7 am as we were almost the first off the ship.



We spent two lovely days in Latrobe at the free caravan and motorhome park which is set up just behind the main street so all the shops are within easy walking distance. There is a 48 hour limit on staying there which is good as it allows so many people to take advantage of it. We caught up with Lily who is one half of the couple we will be house/dog sitting for in April as her husband Andrew has a fly in/fly out job back in Dalby. They have a very nice house with a magnificent view overlooking the countryside. We had a few drinks soaking up the lovely view and then had dinner at one of the local pubs. We also bought our first kilo of cherries in Latrobe, one of many as they are quite cheap down here and soooo delicious.



We then drove onto Penguin, a small town on the water, just over 30kms north west of Latrobe so it was rather a long drive for us that day. We stayed on a property which is owned by a friend’s father of ours (Shay) from Brisbane and he also lives in Brisbane and comes down here at times during the summer months. We have a fantastic view up on a hill overlooking the water so we are very lucky. We spent just over 3 weeks here and during our stay Shay and her husband Dave came to Tasmania for a couple of weeks holiday and spent some time at her father’s place so we had a nice time catching up with them and sharing a few dinners and wines together. We took in the sights from Ulverstone to Wynyard and behind during our stay looking at land but nothing to date.

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