Blogs from Devonport, Tasmania, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Tasmania is three times the size of Vancouver Island and has perhaps six times more usable land. A welcoming committee handed us plastic bags, filled with discount coupons and advertising for the many tourist destinations on the island, as we drove off, the ferry, the Spirit of Tasmania II at Devonport under blue skies and a setting sun. That night we found a near empty caravan park at Burnie forty minutes west of the ferry terminal across the street from a beach where the clay berm at the top of the beach is home to families of blue-headed Fairy Penguins. The next day we cycled up the enchanting Guild river looking for platypuses, explored Burnie, listened to a naturalist talk about the penguins and just after sunset watched the penguins waddle up the beach to the ... read more

La Tasmanie... La tasmanie, c'est tout simplement superbe, très sauvage, plein de randonnées splendides, des cascades de partout, des plages de rêve (encore!), des animaux sauvages (mais malheureusement pas de diable de Tasmanie...). Comme je ne peux pas raconter les randos, je vous laisse admirer les photos; petite mention pour Cape Raoul, rando au début de laquelle un fermier a construit un sauna pour qui veut l'utiliser, petite pensée pour ma Norvège adorée... Puis, au gré des randos, j'ai traversé la ville de Dunalley, dans le sud, qui a été complètement ravagée par des incendies début janvier 2013, et ça a vraiment été un choc de voir l'état dans lequel est restée las ville! J'ai donc décidé de me porter volontaire dans une association (Blazeaid) qui s'occupe de reconstruire les clôtures de fermiers dont les terres ... read more

23rd – 25thDecember 2012. Yeah!!! It’s Sasha’s 14th birthday today. We are so very proud of her. Very early start as we needed to check into the port by 6am. This meant, breakfast at McDonalds on the way. Luckily, the apartment was only 5 minutes away from the port. After a long wait, we finally boarded but did not depart until after 9.30am. The Spirit of Tasmania is a nice ship, but it was rather boring. There was very little entertainment and the theatre was very small. Thank god we booked a 4 berth cabin and after lunch, we slept the rest of the trip. We arrived in Devonport about 6.30pm and managed to disembark by 7.30pm. We drove straight to the Big 4 Caravan Park (which we pre-booked online) and checked in. We left Taylor ... read more

Hello Everyone, Well we have been having an absolute ball and have done so much in two weeks already! On Monday, 28/11/11 we finally managed to leave Bunbury with the car packed to the brim with no room to spare at all! As we drove off towards Esperance we wondered if we should have got a caravan...Anyway, we had a great drive and by the time we got to Ravensthorpe, about 2 hours outside of Esperance, we had relaxed and started to feel that we were on holiday. We spent two nights in Esperance with our friends Merv & Jo and their kids Kate and Toby. The weather was glorious when we turned up and the kids a go on the new longboards (their early Christmas present from us) and then we had a BBQ tea. ... read more

My trip to Tasi was to be my first chance to experience backpacking and get organised for it before actually setting off for my big trip around the country. Rob and Emma (and newborn baby Jess) took me out for the day stopping of at a tech shop to look at SatNavs. Whilst in the shop I began to play with the cameras and almost bought one when I heard my dad's voice in the back of my head. I decided to leave it until after my week in Tasi to decide whether I actually needed one rather that just acting on impulse as per usual. I was dropped at the train station with just my rucksack for the week, rather than my big pack, my sleeping bag dangling off the back. Once the perspex and ... read more