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Published: August 6th 2014
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This morning's first stop was at Cataract Gorge the final passage that the South Esk River navigates before flowing into the Tamar River. After the rain of the last two days the river was absolutely gushing through the gorge in spectacular fashion! We parked the car near the First Basin area and walked down into the Cataract Gorge Reserve. I believe there is a swimming pool in the lawn area near the basin, but this was completely inundated by the amount of water flowing through the gorge at the moment.
From the lawn area we took the path to the supspension bridge from which we were able to stand over the torrent of water flowing underneath and be in awe of the incredible force of nature. The gorge is a world class kayak run, but I doubt anyone would be even thinking of tackling the current deluge in a kayak! From the bridge we walked along the section of the gorge below First Basin where it was, if possible, tumbling even more powerfully between the dolorite cliffs.
Back in the car we set the SatNav for Elizabeth Town where we called in at the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm and
Cafe. After eggs and bacon for breakfast again this morning it was a bit too early for us to have lunch, but the cafe is obviously a very popular brunch/lunch destination. We settled for buying a jar of raspberry jam (I've almost run out of Bernie's Mum's homemade raspbery jam) and some raspberry lip conditioner, oh, and we managed to fit in a raspberry sorbet each - delicious!
Our next stop was the Ashgrove Tasmanian Cheese Farm. This is a much bigger enterprise than the other two cheese farms that we have stopped at. Rather than someone guiding us through the cheeses and giving some background to its manufacture we just helped ourselves to the samples that were labelled start here and work your way to the right! A bit clinical compared with our experiences at Wicked Cheese and Pyengana Cheese Farm.
We didn't make it to Sheffield for the murals on our first day in Tasmania, but decided that we had plenty of time to cut across there today before heading back to Devonport. On our way we passed through Railton that is promoting itself as the Town of Topiary. I guess that's in an effort to
compete with Sheffield's murals? Some of the topiaries seem to be works in progress with the topiary frames not quite filled out yet with greenery.
So after a minor detour, presumably caused by storm damaged trees over the main road, we made it to Sheffield and took in a few murals before lunch and then walked the rest of the main street to see more of the murals. Most of the murals depict events of importance to the discovery and establishment of Sheffield and the surrounding area. The best shop in Sheffield though, was the glass blower's studio that incorporates the World of Marbles. We both appreciate blown glass artistry and we were quite captivated by the incredibly intricate marble runs in the store. One was automated with a big DO NOT TOUCH sign on it, but the other two were interactive so we had a bit of fun loading the marbles and watching them race through their steel runs.
With our Tassie holiday drawing to a close we headed next for Devonport. We made excellent time so we arrived a bit too early to queue up straight away for the boat. Instead we parked the car near
the beach and took the Eastern Foreshore Heritage Walk between Thomas Street and Tea Tree Lane which filled in an hour very nicely and ensured that we achieved our 10,000 steps before boarding the Spirit of Tasmania!
It seemed to take much longer to be loaded onto the ferry at this end so that was a bit tiresome especially when Bernie had hoped to be on the boat watching the Richmond vs Greater Western Sydney game on one of the many televisions in the lounge and bar areas of the boat!! He had to settle for listening to most of the game on the car radio, but managed to see the end of the game on the boat. Yay, five wins in a row for the Tigers! It's just a shame that it's a bit too late in the season to be finding some form?!
Steps for the day 14,931 (10.17km)
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Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0253s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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