The Devils in the detail

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So you’ve been wonderin if us little Tassie devils were lost in The Wilderness or one of the old penitentiaries, no such luck, we’ve just been having such a good time, so there’s been no time for any bloggin, but here we are at last, half way thru our current journey, better than never!

Yes, Bald and Blonde are “On the road again” and this time off to -The South Island of Australia - Tasmania for 2 glorious months in the cruiser and Cyt, our beloved little snail home and with our wonderful mate Barb.

So it was on Saturday 28th Feb we bid our fond farewells to 188, Al, Liz and little Tashi, drove up the MV hill to pick up Barb then off to “Maccy D’s” for our favourite trip special, a good ole fix of Hashy browns and then onwards towards Melbourne, with a lunch stop and a catch up at Yass with our Tim, who kindly drove from Canberra to meet us, enroute. Then it was onwards, forwards, towards Melbourne, a very long drive to do, all in one day, -over 1,000 kms, so as our E chooses to do all the driving B & B were keeping a close eye on the time and fatigue levels.
At about 5pm we tried to make a stop at Glen Rowan, but no beds available,(not even for Ned Kelly) so it was onwards, forwards towards Geelong for a 4 nite stopover with our good mates H and B.
We eventually made it to their house by about 9.30pm, poor E was well and truly wacked.
H had kindly prepared a gourmet array of goodies, which we all enjoyed in between a good chat and a glass of wine and then it was up the stairs to hit the sack, ----no rockin was needed for any of us that night!
The following 4 days were spent having lots and lots of good chats, a yummy lunch at the eclectic Oakdene and attending Brians’ 20 yr celebration in his business and in between Barb took the train down to Melbourne to spend some time with her dear friend Normie who is, so very sadly, one of the tragic victims from the Victorian Bush fire, who lost absolutely everything!!!. Barb described their time together as “very emotional”, but she was so pleased to have seen her and to have had some precious time with Norm and her family, their friendship goes back 50 years.


Then the day after Barb got back, Wednesday 4th March we bid our farewells to H&B and headed off towards Port Melbourne, had a dinner at the Local Pub, then at 8pm we drove on with all of our next 2 months worldly belongings on to “The Spirit of Tasmania” to cross the Bass Strait to Tassie, fondly known as by most Aussie’s as -“The Apple Isle”.
There are two things I will never forget about that crossing, first and foremost was how absolutely emotionally exhausted Barb was from her visit to see Norm, she had obviously given out every bit of energy she could muster, and by the time we boarded the ship she only had enough to just get to the cabin and CRASH, and that she did !! The second thing, some of us will remember was the 8 mtre plus swells that went on well into the night. Ian and I rocked and rolled well into the wee small hours, ----- but our mate Barb slept through the lot, and only woke at 7.30 am when we had arrived in Tassie and to the purser telling us all it was time to go down and get in your vehicles and get ready to drive off the ship, Barb, was the only one getting off the ship who looked 100 times better than when she got on!!
Nothing like a good nights sleep.


After a good $9.95 full breaky in Devonport at the local motel, we began to head northwest on the coast road towards our first planned stop in the far North west at the Historic fishing village of Stanley. We made many stops along the coast road, at Ulverston, Penguin and at Burnie to do a tour of the paper mill, which was great fun, Corrie actually got to make paper and buy some of the stock for her and Phil’s card making.
At the Wynyard Woolies, last one on the North West Coast, we stopped to do our grocery shopping, for the next 10 days.
It was a warm welcoming sunny day as we drove through all the quaint little seaside villages, making for a great start to our Tassie adventure.
We arrived at Stanley, on the edge of North west coast on the Bass Strait about 3pm, set up in the best spot for an amazing view of the 152 mtre high “Nut”, a monolithic extinct volcano, a famous landmark right on the edge of the coast. Btw -Stanley has recently been scientifically measured and recorded as having the cleanest air in the world.
So after setting up we shouted ourselves Scallop pies and fresh air for lunch, -to die for!!!
Ended up having 6 glorious days in historic Stanley, once the headquarters of the Van Diemens Land Company, West coast headquarters for the Merino wool industry. The population only 500.
During those days Ian fished,(and caught one, yahooooo) played golf, (Corrie as caddy) we went bike riding, took the chair lift up the Nut and got to know our neighbours Dave on one side and Gary and Jean on the other, had dinner at the local pub ( recommend it ) and generally began to settle into our camping routines --- which includes, lots of reading, (Barbs’ on a Tim Winton book, Ians’ on the American Dynasties and Corrie’s on Cherie Blairs autobiography) reviews are popular over dinner, with a red in hand, while watching the sunset over “The Nut”.
And other than that most days are planned around doing sweet BA (bugger all)!!!

Reluctantly, 6 days later we packed up said our farewells to Ivan and Ngaio the camphosts and headed off to ‘The Dismal Swamp’, the worlds only Blackwood sinkhole forest, named by a European farmer back in 1828. It has a 110mtre slide down to the floor, which Ian was brave? enough to take, Barb and I walked down to met him on arrival. And then at the bottom we all enjoyed the magical walk through the thousand year old unique ecosystem, which has crayfish surviving in the bottom along with 40 species of fungi and a multitude of ferns and mosses and just one only tree variety, the Blackwood, it was such a worthwhile stop, so unique!
From there we headed to Marrawah, an up and coming surf destination, (only for the diehards, I’d say,) overlooking The Great Southern Ocean on the West coast, a pretty wild and b rugged looking beach it was!
Then our journey continued on down the Western Explorer route towards the wilderness of the West coast first stop,- the Arthur River and a remote little village on what is fondly known as The Edge of The Earth, a top spot. We spent only one night there in a cottage with water front views of the ocean and the river inlet, watching the sunset, caught the latest TV news (first for a while- but nothing much had changed in three weeks) and we baked Aunty Ron’s mango cake in their oven and just to top that off, the locals next door gave us 4 of their freshly caught Abalone, what a treat for us all, we cooked up per the instructions and all thoroughly enjoyed the experience, a first for each of us!
Next morning we said our farewells to Betty the landlady, visited the landmark “End of Earth” and we headed off at about 10.30am onwards down the Western Explorer past Couta rocks and on to Corinna where we had some lunch before doing the punt crossing over the Pieman river and then took a side trip up to the Reece Dam, where we discovered and set up camp at a glorious picturesque spot right on the edge of the dam for 5 nights and all for free. Great little spot for the beginning of the Scrabble tournament!!!
During those 5 days a few others joined us in their cosy caravans but when the weather started to get stormy they all scootdaddled--(wooses!!) and that left just us in our little camper to weather the coming storm alone.
Ian proceeded to get every ground sheet we’ve ever owned all secured around us to give us as much shelter as possible and did a mighty job of creating a warm and dry spot for us. Thank goodness he’s so strong and so safety focused,such an engineer!! Thanks to E when the storm really hit, we hardly moved and we didn’t get a drop of rain inside, but just the same it was really quite scary.
For about 4-5 hours it just didn’t seem to let up, the thunder, lightning, ongoing sounds of the pouring rain and the stormy winds getting under the plastic ground sheets making them swirl and rustle continuously around us.
At one stage Ian and I were out there in the storm trying to re secure the camper pegs and I remember Ian tying one of the camper ropes to the landcruiser, so we at least would’nt fly away. At that point, I don’t know what concerned me most,- the camper flying off into the distance with Barb in it, or the fact that if it did, --we had nothing on but our raincoats!
Next morning we found many of our belongings scattered far and wide from our camper and our shower/loo shelter was lying on it’s side,soaking wet, but apart from that we soon dried out and prepared to pack up and head south to Strahan.
We were lucky to get accomodation in Strahan, very busy touristy spot, but with our luck we managed a lovely little spot in the caravan park for another 5 glorious days, one during which we went on the Historic West Wilderness Steam Train Trip , it required a bustrip to Queenstown and then the train back to Strahan , a great experience and fantastic commentary with all the history and an all Tasy gourmet lunch provided, such a worthwhile trip.
And then came the morning we woke up to crystal clear blue skies(of course) this was the day for our cruise up the Gordon river, gateway to Tasmania’s World Heritage area, with a stop off in the wilderness for a Nature guide walk, then another stop off for a guided tour of Sarah Island in the Maquarie harbour, --one of the first convict penal settlements dating back to the early 1800’s, so interesting, it was the setting for the Marcus Clarke novel “For the term of his natural Life” Over 1,300 prisoners were sent there for a variety of offences, some seemed so minor ! -like just getting drunk!!How would we all go?
Lunch back on board was another gourmet experience, just like in the camper!!
And then that night we went to see the local play “The ship that never was” which has been running for over 14 years , it is a re-enactment of a true story, of one of the great escapes from Sarah Island. The play only had two professional actors in it and the other 8 characters were chosen from the audience, Ian ended up as the Islands’ cat and Corrie was roped in as the pumper on the bilge, she laughed so much she nearly fell overboard. In the case of Ian, we believe he has been taking lessons from Tashi, as he truly went into such a lifelike character, so much so that as long as we have travelled through Tassie since, people have been coming up to him and not saying hi, just meowing!!
It truly was Oscar stuff, such a good show!!
In between our time in Strahan, we did some cycling and Ian played golf (I caddied) did par 3 on the last 5 shots, very good!!!!
And out cycling one afternoon we ran into some old friends of Wazza’s and Sue’s, Jan and David, who are travelling around Aus for a year.
We all loved Strahan, very touristy, it’s true but a nice spot and lots to do, not to be missed!
But as always the time does come to move on.

Oh and just a by the way ---you should see us now, we’re into week three and we all look sooo fantastic, sooo rested and relaxed!!! More relaxed and we’d be in a coma!
And Barb’s leg is making excellent progress!

From Strahan we headed to another very special spot Lake St Clair in the National park, where without a booking we managed to scrounge “the best campsite in the whole camping ground” and maybe the world, right overlooking the lake and across to Cradle Mt!!!!
6 nights here, lovely long walks everyday, caught up with fellow travelers Tony and Janet and Mr Hoy and The Parrot from the play (Peta and Peter), all great scouts, we do always seem to meet the best bods on the road, all such good fun!!
Hey we spotted our first ever Quoll here!! Went looking for Platypus , but no luck.
Scrabble tournament got a little out of control, E kept bloody winning, B & B think he maybe cheats!? Or sleeps with dictionary?!
One day we took ourselves 6kms off up the Derwent Bridge rd to a local gallery called “The Wall -in the wilderness”, and what a “world wonder” it was --- woodcarvings done by Greg Duncan, a local Taswegian fellow, that leave you in awe of the man.
Greg is in the progress of carving , what will end up by 2012, a 100 metre long Huon pine wall, which tells the story of Tasmania, beginning with the Indigenous people, to the pioneers and the miners, to Tasmania today.
He and his unbelievably talented family, who are obviously born with a rare gene, have built a gallery of world class which displays their art, heritage collections and Greg’s amazing carvings, some of workmans gloves, clothes and boots, that when you stand back and look at them, you would swear they are in fabric or leather as they would be, never would you guess they are carved from Huon Pine.
Greg is a world talent.

From Lake St Clair we headed off to the big city of Hobart with over 250,000 pop, traffic lights, Woolies trolleys that you have to pay for and cars that go fast, yuk, yuk, yuk.

Set up camp at Seven Mile beach, very nice thankyou.
Woke up next morning to a beautiful sunset, long walk on the beach and then a catch up on the chores.
Barb made contact with Normie’s daughter Sally, who insisted that we come in on Saturday night and have a night or two at her Dad’s hotel, The Woolshed, a lovely little 4 star , right in the heart of Hobart.
Barb had not seen Don, Sal’s Dad for over 35 years so she was a little hesitant to say the least, but both Sal and Norm insisted, up to Barb, we shall see!
That night we headed into Hobart for the opening of The Tasmanian Arts festival.
It was a Junk arriving in Constitution dock to music and with a film clip superimposed onto the sails.
Hmmmm? We’re still not sure what it all mean’t?
Just the same, we really enjoyed our first wanderings around Hobart, a city with so much character, old historical docks and buildings, such charm, like a small Sydney, but without the bustle and the climate.
We did go and take a little peak at The Woolshed and by now Barb had had a few more chats with Sal and she was pretty well decided it was a go, tomorrow we would pack our bags , leave the camper and head for the bright lights, a normal shower and loo, yahoooo!

But the real big news, about the next day, even bigger than the hotel escapade, was The Salamanca markets were on and we were going, Barb was awake from about 6am, waiting for the alarm to go off, she who hates shopping???!!!
We were there by 8am, had a lovely breaky, with E and then we left him. And at 2pm we all meet for lunch and then at 3pm we headed for The Woolshed, for check in and some feet up time before we frocked up and went to meet Don and Sally and friends in the bar at 7pm, for drinkies and reuniting.
The markets were great and we managed to catch up with Mr Hoy and The Parrot and Tony and Janet, plus we bought lots of little goodies for loved ones and ourselves, such fun!!!!


But now it was off to the bar for Barb to meet Don, someone she hadn’t seen in 35 yrs, would she recognize him? No, but Corrie did, she had meet him in business about 15 yrs ago, but he didn’t remember, a funny meeting at first, but it turned out really well, especially when Sally arrived as she had known Barb constantly over the last 35 yrs, of her growing up years. So they all had a good chat and then at 8pm we all went off to our prospective evening plans, with the arrangement of meeting the next morn, for brft at 9am.
We then headed off to the Customs house pub for dinner and then on to the second of our festival events,-
Kenny Lopez and an evening of Cuban music at the concert hall, but unfortunately the ecoustics were a little short of great, but we enjoyed watching the Latin dancing and listening to some of the tunes we could recognise.

Sunday morning breakfast, was fun lots of laughs about our respective nights on the town.

Later that day we went up Mt Wellington 1760 mtres high, for a spectacular view all over Hobart and the surrounds.
Then hit No 3 for us of the Festival events, with a little musical satire of comparitive life in Samoa for a local and a tourist, quite interesting in parts.
Home for takeaway pizza and our second wonderful night in the warmth and luxury of The Woolshed compliments of Don, weren't we lucky!?!!!

Monday, off for hit No 4 (last but not least) of the festival events , (such "Culture Vultures“)---A Musical Walk on Maria Island” - a remote, uninhabitated nature reserve about an hour and half North East of Hobart.
From Triabunna we boarded the 11am ferry, 40 mins later we were on Maria for our musical walk.
The walk was with a girl playing the accordian, and 2 guys playing sax and trumpet and endeavoring to emulate the sounds of nature,interesting!!
Maria was beautiful, the very best moment was when we spotted 3 wombats, then a wallaby and some dolphins, how lucky we are!!
The festival events, were a great attempt by us all at supporting the local cultural activities, but we have done it now, so it’s back to the bush for us now, with our very own natural sounds of nature, and with some good ole Aussie John Williamson as we bop along down to the Gordon Dam , our next port of call.

So it's farewell to the Hotel life, been a wonderful little sojourn in the middle of our Tasmanian adventure, something we will never forget, thankyou Don.

So we’ll say goodbye to you all for now, hope you’re all in good health and happy wherever you may be, goodbye from us 3 little Tassie Devils.

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Comments

[Pennie]

Aaahhhh....
So that's where you've been hiding, looks like a wonderful trip, cheers Pennie

[Pam]

Great blog
Great blog all- loved the photos - lovely to see what you hvae been up to especially as phone service is sporadic down there. Looks like you are having an amazing time. We, however ,are back in Sydney struggling to get by without Barb- but don't you worry :) Keep having fun. Love Pam