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Published: January 10th 2012
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Tuesday 3
rd January. Getting everything ready for Tassie proved to be a bit more complicated than we had anticipated - as well as swapping lots of gear between the caravan and the car we had to make sure the caravan was off its current site by 10:00am. Firstly, with the temperature rising rapidly, Graham drove the car the short distance to the storage area and emptied everything from the car, putting it in a neat pile on the grass adjacent to where the caravan would be. In the meantime, I was packing all of the clothes we would want into our two holdalls and identifying any thing else we might need, bearing in mind we may have to “camp” occasionally so this included the tent and the blow up mattress. It took quite a while to do all this but by about 9:45am, after Graham had prepared the caravan for moving (he had to do just as much for the 30 meter trip as if we were travelling 30 kilometers!) we were able to move the caravan onto her rest area. She’ll be there for a fortnight when we’ll have to reverse the process to travel about 50 meters!!! During this
process the temperature rose dramatically and Graham, all hot and bothered from his efforts, went and sat in the swimming pool to cool off. Eventually we reached a point where we were virtually ready to go. We had no time constraints as we weren’t on an official pitch and the park people were happy for us to stay in the storage area for as long as we wanted. We were wondering how best to fill in the time until our ferry departure which wasn’t until 7:00pm. We needn’t have worried – Anna rang to invite us to have lunch with her, Grant and the girls and it was too good an offer to refuse. We had a bit of shopping to do which we managed on the way to Box Hill and we stayed with Grant and Anna until about 4:15. It was lovely to catch up with them again and relax in their air-conditioned house! Meanwhile the girls were in the pool and even the dogs went in for a while! We were very comfortable there but eventually it was time to leave and we made our way through the city to Port Melbourne. Even from a distance, we
could see The Spirit of Tasmania preparing for people to board.
We joined the queue and began to move forward a bit at a time, passing through security checks, quarantine checks and then the ticket and boarding pass processing which, probably through vehicle rego recognition, was very swift. Along with our boarding passes we were handed our cabin keys although we then had quite a long wait before we actually moved forward again to begin driving onto the boat. The loading system seemed a bit unfair as the order depended on, we think, vehicle size rather than time of arrival. We had arrived quite early and had, eventually, been directed to a long line of 4WD vehicles which were almost the last to be loaded. In the meantime, vehicles of all shapes and sizes, some towing caravans and trailers, which had arrived very late, seemed to sail past us to be loaded first!!! But we boarded eventually and soon found our way to our cabin which was compact but with good facilities – where we left our gear before finding the restaurant for an evening meal. We finished eating just before the boat began to depart and, with the
weather still warm and bright, we were able to stand on deck and watch Melbourne disappear into the distance. These days the ferries are huge and have a considerable amount of entertainment laid on like shops, restaurants, bars with musical acts, a cinema, numerous television lounges and a swimming pool. We knew we would have an early start in the morning so we retired fairly early and settled in for what we hoped would be a good night’s sleep.
We were awakened at 5:50 am by the ship’s normal announcement reminding drivers that we would dock at 6:00am and drivers should be ready to drive off at 6:30. We had decided to have breakfast in the town of Devonport, the ferry’s destination, so getting up and getting ready was a leisurely affair for us. We were ready in good time but Deck 6, where our car was, would be one of the last decks to be cleared so there was never any rush. More queuing and checking took place as we disembarked but we were in Devonport in very good time and a few café’s were open early to greet the early-birds from the ferry. We found an excellent
café and had breakfast before finding our way to the main town area of Devonport, by which time the Information Centre had just opened. Eventually, armed with plenty of leaflets, we began to make our way to Burnie where we were to stay with Gerry Davies, an old school friend of Graham’s. We had suggested an arrival time of 11:00am so we had a couple of hours to spare but as we didn’t spend any time in this area on our last trip eight years ago there were plenty of places to visit before we reached Burnie. We travelled on the coast road and made our way to the quaintly named town of Penguin. Not surprisingly, the town’s main image revolves around penguins although it was a little disappointing to discover that penguins no longer inhabit the area. They used to and models, sculptures, murals etc still adorn the town, even on the rubbish bins. We found our way to The Groovy Penguin, a café that features in the local tourist guide, and had some mid-morning drinks.
Afterwards, we continued along the coast road passing through Ulverston before arriving at Burnie at about 10:55. Gerry and his wife Steph
were both there to greet us along with Gus the dog and they all made us very welcome. Gerry’s house has probably the best view of any property in Burnie with a 180 degree outlook down over the nearby beach front and the Bass Strait beyond. In order to get such a stunning view, however, there’s a bit of a steep climb before reaching the substantial plot containing their magnificently placed house. Graham and Gerry were soon reminiscing about fellow school colleagues, teachers and sporting successes, many of which they shared. They both played in a very successful rugby team but whereas Graham went on to concentrate on athletics and cross country running, Gerry became a top class cricketer and played for Tasmania against England in the late 1970s. His wife, Steph, was a former Australian International volleyball player and their son Evan and daughter Olivia are both State hockey players so sport was often the major topic of conversation. After the death of his parents, Gerry took a chance by emigrating to Tasmania after a brief spell of teaching in London’s East End and has taught and lived in Burnie for 40 years. After lunch Gerry and Steph took
us on a brief tour of the immediate area taking in a whisky distillery, which included a bit of sampling, and a nature reserve where platypuses are plentiful. Needless to say, it was the wrong time of day for them to be active although they had been spotted by others a little further upstream from the viewing platform where we were. The absence of platypuses was compensated for somewhat when, after our evening meal, and after we’d taken Gus the dog for a long walk on a nearby dog friendly beach, we were able to drive the short distance to the Burnie beach where, at one end, is a Fairy Penguin colony. As darkness fell we were thrilled to watch as a number of adult penguins returned from their daily feeding routine at sea to identify, greet and then feed their youngsters that had been waiting patiently for their return. Of course the only photos I took were pretty fuzzy as I have no infra red facility on the camera but it was a special end to a very special day.
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