So, back to New Zealand. Up at 4.00am, to the airport, Virgin Airways to Melbourne then Air New Zealand home with long stops in Melbourne and Wellington. Sigh........ How extremely boring it is waiting for flight links, but needs must. I'ts nice to go on holiday and visit friends and see new places but it's also good to get back home again. A&M are an inspiration on travelling in young/old age especially when wanting to add a bit of adventure to it. We thoroughly talked through biking in Europe and now hae that to look forward to planning for 2013.... read more

We decided that instead of heading north again we would go to Bruny Island for the next two days as there appeared to be plenty there to keep us occupied. We left the house at 9.30 and headed for Kettering where the ferry leaves from. Despite getting there early there was already a queue of cars waiting to cross to the island. While we waited we admired the lovely bay with a marina full of yachts and boats. The day was a beautiful clear, sunny and dare I say it, warm day. The ferry trip across to the island is only 20 minutes but it was time enough to admire the approaching island, the calm water and the large coastline around peninsulas, bays and islands. Once on the island we drove firstly to Bish’s (Bruny Island ... read more

We left Hobart and headed up the Derwent Valley where we took the road to the Mount Field National Park. The road went through rural areas where there was a lot of hop orchards similar to the Moutere and Motueka locations at home. On arrival at the Visitor Centre we took a look at the interpretation displays then walked firstly to the Russell Falls. The walk took us through rain forest not unlike New Zealand if you swapped the eucalyptes with beech trees. The tree ferns were similar but fatter and shorter in the trunks. The Russell Falls were really nice, falling from a number of stratigraphic horizontal layers so that the water fanned out on each level. We then walked the Tall Trees track taking us through hugh eucalyptus trees with enormous trunks and rising ... read more

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