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First task on landing at Launceston Airport at 7pm was to find accommodation for that night... Also Joe had to remember which of the car rental places he had booked with (fortunately there were only 6 so it didn't take long to queue at each desk before discovering that we were with the last!) Managed to get us a fairly decent Motel nearby too and all before our luggage came out - hoorah!
The next day we went to Cataract Gorge which is only five minutes drive from the centre of Launceston and was created as a Victorian “pleasure gardens” complete with rotunda, English trees and peacocks! They drained the area and “tamed” it, before damning it. Having said that it is actually very pretty and the chair lift was excellent - the largest single span in the world, and the kids really enjoyed it. We did a few short walks at the top and had our obligatory coffee and cake without which Joe could not survive! In the afternoon, Joe wanted to visit a lavender farm which he’d seen advertised, so we wound our way through the hills for about an hour, a very pleasant journey but unfortunately we
were about two weeks late for the lavender which was no longer blooming!
On Saturday we drove the length of the island to Hobart, travelling the long way through Elephant Pass and down the coast. It was quite cloudy which was really dramatic - thin lines of clouds dividing the mountains in half (which of course necessitated lots of photo stops!) However, the cloud also meant that we couldn’t really see the valleys from the Pass, but the glimpses we had were spectacular.
It was still raining on Sunday so after a brief look around the Wharf area of Hobart (complete with some very lovely boats), we decided to visit the museum. Things have really changed since I was a kid when museums were boring, now they’re much more interactive and our two are always keen to go. Having said that, this museum mainly seemed to consist of stuffed animals and some footage of the now extinct (although rumoured to have been seen many times) Tasmanian Tiger. Joe and I both dozed through the 3D film!! After that we wandered through the city to admire the Georgian architecture, down to Salamanca Place for coffee and up Kelly’s Steps
to Battery Point and its nineteenth century workers’ cottages.
On Monday we drove to Point Arthur, the convict colony. Although it had been recommended by lots of people, we still weren’t all that bothered about going as we felt we’d seen enough convict history, but decided maybe we should. We were really glad we did! We started with a free walking tour which was really interesting. We learnt that only a small percentage of convicts (the really hardened ones) went to Port Arthur; that it was very modern for its time in terms of trying to reform the mind and not just doling out physical punishment; that there was a hierarchy in the prison cells - the worst offenders at the bottom; that there was an escapee who dressed in a dead kangaroo skin etc... We had a brief look around some of the officers’ cottages and a cruise around the harbour. Then we had to dash from there to get to the Tasmanian Devil Centre where we saw at least six, fighting, eating and making lots of strange noises!
On Tuesday we drove up Mount Wellington which is the mountain overlooking Hobart. It was extremely windy up
there but offered the most amazing views of the city, mountains and coastline. We then drove out of our way to go to Richmond, a heritage town, with the oldest bridge in Australia (1823). We had lunch by the bridge but got hassled by hundreds of ducks, before heading over to the maze which the kids loved. Finally we drove to Russell Falls as they were featured on one of my stamps so I was keen to see them. However, the ten minute walk from the car park turned out to be well over an hour for us with Charlie who had to stop and examine every stick! But, it was a pretty rainforest of fern trees and swamp gums and the falls themselves were lovely. We passed one fallen swamp gum that had topped in 1965 when it was 120 years old and it was huge!
The next day we were driving through windy roads heading back up North when Charlie complained of feeling sick, then promptly brought up his breakfast all over the car - yuck! It took a while to clean it out at the roadside, but he felt much better after that! Carried on winding
up Surprise Valley which had some more spectacular views before stopping at Queenstown for lunch. Queenstown is an old mining town which has completely denuded the surrounding area of all trees so that it looks like a barren, lunar landscape. At least there we could buy chemicals to disinfect the car, but the smell still lingered.
On our last day in Tasmania we drove back up to Launceston and up to a place called Beauty Point where there is a Platypus House which Bella was keen to see. The platypus were a bit elusive (the male had apparently been quite frisky with the girls so they had gone into hiding!) but we managed to see a couple. The adjoining Echidna Garden was great though - 3 echidnas snuffled about us climbing over our feet, and one even stuck its nose into Joe’s pocket! Finally it was time to head back to the airport, drop off the rental car (still smelling) and get to the check out early once again! The only problem this time was that some of the washing I had done the night before (including the sick covered clothes) still hadn’t dried so took our baggage over
Tiger Airways strict allowance! Eventually our frantic re-packing and ditching of anything vaguely surplus worked and we were allowed through.
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