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Published: March 17th 2013
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We have just spent a couple of nights by the beach in the lovely town of Burnie. What with its huge coastal boardwalk, free penguin viewing area and platypus in their natural habitat only 3km from town it has many drawcards for tourists. It is a must do destination with a thriving community even though many jobs were lost a few years ago when the pulp and paper factory closed down. The factory is in the process of being demolished and not surprisingly a huge Bunnings will take its place!
We were delighted that our patience paid off and we watched a platypus in the river for ages and then moved on to the penguin viewing place and again lucky enough to see a chick plus several adult penguins coming ashore to feed their young. They were so cute. (Wish I could have said the same about all the little brats of kids that were yelling and screaming and being proper pains in the asses. I honestly think that some parents have blinkers on when it comes to how their offspring behave in public!
Before heading inland we ventured further along the coast to the town of Penguin where
I, of course, had to get a photo next to the Giant Penguin on the main drag! The next touring route we were advised to take saw us was the “Letter box” highway where we took photos of some very creative boxes made out of recyclable materials. These towns are very ingenious in how they certainly attract the tourists to come and spend money there to help the local economy. The town of Sheffield is known as the town of wall murals, with the town of Railton has many amazing topiary shaped into all kinds of animals and people some of which I will put on my blog.
Cradle Mountain is right up there on the things to see and do in Tasmania so Pete and I naturally headed there. As expected we were not the only ones in this very touristy but beautiful part of the country but I have to say it was very well organised with shuttle buses running every 10 minutes to transport hikers and day walkers around to the start of the many varied trails. We chose to do Marion’s Look out and the famous Dove Lake Circuit and were not disappointed as we
had amazing views of Cradle Mountain from both trails. The weather was great and very timely as today has been overcast and windy.
Today, therefore was a perfect day to visit a Belgian Chocolate where Pete and I certainly made the most of the free chocolate samples (just to be sure that we purchase the right product of course). Next stop was a cherry farm and even though the cherry season has unfortunately now finished we were still able to sample the delicious cherry wine, cherry port and cherry liqueur.
Once again, Pete, unfortunately, got bitten this time by a bull ant which are many many times bigger than a normal one and once again his ankle swelled to twice its normal size and looked very ugly. He downed 3 anti histamines and was out cold for the night and woke up thank goodness to see the swelling going down. If he ever gets stung or bitten around the neck I will really need to get him to a hospital very quickly I think.
Our daughter Tessa has now joined us for the next week and we are really enjoying showing her around this beautiful island. Today
we had a tour of a historic house where 6 generations of the same family lived until, unfortunately the last son chose not to marry and decided to leave it to the National Trust to administer.
The next few village stops were to inspect several bridges built by the early convicts, all of which are still being used today. (The bridges not the convicts, of course).
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robert
non-member comment
fantastic adventure
Hi Pete and Suzanne how are you? great to catch up again due to a computer failure I had lost all your details what an adventure your having sounds fantastic wish I was there I'm off to New Zealand next month (South island) on a pushbike adventure havent camped of a bike before Helen is still stuck at home with her bad leg and doesnt seem to be getting any better send me your mobile number and I'll give you a call to hear how your going all the best Robert