6th October 10

Once again we uprooted the annexe and packed up to head south to the small but beautiful town of Ross, which is known for its convict built bridge, like Campbell Town, but in this case the convict crew contained two stone masons who have given the bridge a very ornate appearance.  The two stonemason convicts were given their freedom in return for their efforts. It has curved steps down to the riverbank on both sides and both ends of the bridge, and has a row of stone bollards on each side of the approach road linked with chain as guides to avoid dropping of the raised road After crossing the bridge, the road enters a large crossroad with the war memorial in the centre. When you stand in the road and look along three of the four roads they are all tree lined and currently adorned in pale green petals, and we are imformed that the leaves come later..

7th October 20

Ross, which is the central town of the midlands, is waiting to hear whether it has won the Australia tidy town competition, and if left to us would definitely get it, meanwhile we are waiting for it to warm up again as it snowed on the highlands east of here, and the strong wind is blowing straight through us.

The street curbing is sandstone like the bridge and looks really good, but you wouldn’t want to hit it with your wheels as it is quite high and square topped. The town has many sandstone houses with neat gardens which are all in blossom, as are the trees that line both the approach to town and the main streets of the town.

There isn’t a genuine grocery type store of significance so real shopping has to be done in Campbell Town, but it has a cute post office, a great hotel and two bakeries, but several of the remaining shops (art, crafts and antiques) haven’t been open during the week, so maybe that will happen on the weekend. We have given the bridge a second look in daylight plus some night time photography around the town of all the lit up areas as it really is special and supports a beautiful little township.

10th October 10

A community garage sale happened today so we drove around the town visiting houses that displayed balloons on their front fence to see what was on over. Mainly clothes and old junk such as VHS video recorders, however, I wanted to find a small flat file and a small round file rather than buying them from a hardware store. No-one had them on display, and only one had any tools at all, but one guy rummaged in his shed and found one of each and gave them to me. The shops and market have come life for the day. We then drove out to the original graveyard as it on the tourist list and then drove 41km out to Tombs Lake which provided the town with water until last year’s draught that allowed blue/green algae into the low level system. It is now a playground for fishermen. The water is now piped from Campbell Town which is fed from Lake Leake.

On our return to Ross we continued on to Campbell Town, which is the northern town of the midlands, to check out any highlights that exist in that town other than the bridge, which provided some interesting buildings and statues. The bridge is quite amazing, although only brick and not ornate, as it was built in the days of horse and cart transport (mid 1830s) but now supports 18 tonne trucks without any alteration. We treated ourselves to a Banjo’s pie which we consider to be the best pies we have experienced since discovering them in Strahan.

11th October 10

The strong winds have returned making it cold and unpleasant again but dropped in the late afternoon allowing a quiet night’s sleep.

12th October 10

We had to go to the post office so used that as an excuse to also pick up some wood fire baked bread rolls and pies from the bakery. The rolls at lunch time were really nice and the pies for dinner proved to surpass the Banjo pies

13th October 10

We moved on to Richmond which is not far from Hobart to check out the town more thoroughly than the drive through that we had some weeks ago. On the way out we stopped to buy some more pies from the bakery. After setting up the camp in a park that doesn’t live up to the photograph in the caravan park book, we took Foxy into town for a walk and a little shopping. It is a very pleasant township but doesn’t match the high standard of Ross, but we haven’t seen it all yet, but like Ross it has plenty of holiday accommodation, antique and craft shops. We haven’t worked out where all these antiques come from, or who buys them, as we have never seen anyone enter or leave an antique shop. However, it is possible that they all come from Ross as the Market that only opens on the weekend had a sign offering ”Antiques made to order” which may also account for them being in such good condition.

14th October 10

We drove into town and parked in the winery car park for convenience to check the price and dog access to the model village, and didn’t like both answers, so walked on through the town to the 1839 convict built bridge and back down the other side of the road. We then drove homeward but stopped off at two wooden mazes associated with a cafe and spent quite a while in both mazes and never made it to the centre of either.

18th October 10

We drove up to the small township of Oatlands, which is the southern town of the midlands, for their festival and to meet up with Stu and Be once more. It was very overcast day but only produced one light shower whilst we were in Oatlands butthe wind due to the high alyitude was very cold.

Oatlands claim to fame is the currently renovated and now operative flour mill which will be officially opened in November but was open for tours during the festival, so we enjoyed a tour of the various levels, highlighting the intricacies of the wooden gears and braking systems. The rest of the festival was more like a market along the main road that had been closed off to traffic. It had a few bands, a fun fair for the kids and a parade during the lunch period, ut was still a glorified market, but for Oatlands it was a big event. The town itself has a number of old sandstone houses that add to its interest.

22nd September 10

Today we moved from Bruny Island back through Hobart to Seven Mile Beach on the East coast slightly north of Hobart, and will be here for a week. The gale force wind that has been around for the last week and a half has finally abated and allowed the sun to show through for some of the time, but rain is forecast. We had booked in for two weeks but discovered that our grandchildren Jack and Rory are visiting Launceston so will be moving to Legana, just north of Launceston to catch up with them.

24th September 10

We called in at Stu and Be’s to pick up some mail. Stu was at work unfortunately but Be’s mum Jenny and father Michael were there and we were able to stop for a coffee and chat. They were going to go up Mt Wellington to see the view, and snow, but the cloud was very low so they wouldn’t have seen anything.

29th September 10

We moved camp from Seven Mile Beach to Legana about eleven kilometres north of Launceston, in order to be available to see two of our grandchildren, Jack and Rory. This was a rush job as we didn’t know they would be in Launceston until a week ago, but now gives us the chance to see the kids and have a proper look at the towns on the Midland road, such as Ross where we are booked to stay for a week, Campbell Town and Oatlands.

2nd October 10

Jack and Rory were delivered to the caravan park nice and early and we headed towards Beaconsfield and Beauty Point but turned off prior to both towns to a bush maze which also had several fascinating puzzles. The maze was a well kept thick bush and kept us occupied for quite some time, as did the puzzles.

 We then went on to Beauty Point to Seahorse World and the Platypus/Echidna House where we also had lunch. This gave a great explanation of the life of seahorses and took us through the breeding laboratory.

Similarly the Platypus and Echidna tour allowed views of the platypus both above and below the water which you don’t normally see, plus we saw both being fed .

On the way back to Launceston we stopped off at the Beaconsfield Mine Museum which had a good collection of old machinery including many interactive items, plus the ruins of the original buildings.  It also gave us access to the veiwing area that the press used during the underground tragedy.

Later in the afternoon on the way home we stopped off for a game of mini golf before having dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then dropped the kids off to join their mum’s party group.

3rd October 10

We collected Jack and Rory and took them to the Tasmania Zoo which is privately owned and claim to have the largest breeding program for Tasmanian Devils in the world. They hope to breed sufficiently well enough, along with others, to produce colonies that are free from the facial cancer that is killing them off. This cancer is apparently caused by a Queensland frog that carries the decease. Along with cane toads, Queensland has a lot to answer for. We watched the ‘Devils’ being fed and then checked out the rest of the zoo, which is very unlike other city zoos.

After lunch we took the kids back to their mum to fit in with her other arrangements. It was short but very sweet seeing the grandkids after a two year break, and hopefully we will catch up with them again in Canberra when we return to the main land

1st September to 17th September 10

1st September 10

A fine day so we visited the Botanical Gardens which was a pleasant surprise for the time of year. The Japanese section had several water features that unfortunately were not operating due to the water policy of the management, as there were leak problems but generally everything else was good. The succulent and cactus house was interesting and spiteful, whilst the orchid house was a brilliant splash of colour.

The experience took about three hours which included tea and coffee with blueberry muffins and then we drove out to the shops in Glenorchy for a few items, and then to the only garage in the area that serves autogas. Autogas is not an easily found commodity in Tasmania and would be impossible to run a vehicle on gas alone. On the way home we called into Runnymede House and took the tour through the ten roomed early settler house which has seen several families in its time including the Bayleys and the Baylys, and still contains much of the original furniture and wall hangings.

We are ready packed to move on as the owners are due back today and we will leave tomorrow for Bruny Island for a few weeks.

5th September 10

On the 3rd, we left Hobart in bright sunshine just after midday and arrived in Kettering with plenty of time for the 1.45pm ferry trip to the island which was quite interesting as the ferry was much larger than expected (it holds at least eighty cars) and they put the vehicles with the high side wind resistance, such as caravans and trucks, on the lower deck. The trip across to the island takes about 15 minutes and the journey from the terminal took us across the north island before heading south to the south island, which took another 30 minutes. We didn’t set up the annex straight away as we usually do but simply set up the caravan and then enjoyed a walk on the beach with Foxy instead. That was nice but obviously a bad decision as it decided to rain all night, all of the next day and night and is still raining today. This is only light rain, and is probably the bottom edge of the downpours and flooding that Victoria is experiencing. We have now got the awning out so that we can let Foxy out without her having to get wet which isn’t her favourite situation, and will put the annexe up when it dries out a bit. The caravan park is about a three minute walk to the beach which means we can hear the ocean breaking on the beach because it very quiet with very little road noise.

6th September 10

It stopped raining sometime during the night but is now significantly colder, but there is a promise of some sunshine by midday so we have set up the annexe.

 In the afternoon we drove through the township to the end of the road and stopped off at the Captain Cook’s Landing Point Memorial.

We then drove back through the township and turned off to Cloudy Bay which meant travelling on a dirt road over a small mountain with nasty sheer drops in some places. After travelling about twenty kilometres we arrived at the 100 metre point from the Cloudy Bay beach where we were greeted with a “no dogs” sign followed by a “not even in your vehicle” sign. We ignored this as the only place we could turn round was in the car park at the beach, so we took some photos and left. There is only a toilet block and a beach at Cloudy Bay. We travelled back on the bitumen which is nearly as rough as the dirt road but travelled through two smaller townships of Lunawanna and Alonnah and on until the road joins the from the Ferry to Adventure Bay were we are camped. Adventure Bay is the only township with a shop but the quality of the fruit and veggies is diabolical so we will be taking the ferry ($15 return) back to the mainland for shopping on Friday and take a look at the top end of the Island which is almost an island in its own right as there is only a narrow strip joining the two land masses.

8th September 10

We woke to a heavy frost and couldn’t get the water to run at the hand basin at 7.00am so assume the hose outside was frozen, although it was okay by 8.30am when we did our washing. We had a message from Stu and Be to confirm they would be joining us on Saturday.

 In the afternoon we drove along the narrow spit to the parking area for the penguin rookery and lookout. The lookout involves about 120 steps (we didn’t count them) and provides a great 270 degree view of how narrow the spit is. When we descended, we continued down more steps and boardwalk to the beach, but as Foxy wasn’t allowed out of the car we didn’t stay on the beach for long. We returned to town and drove out to a picnic spot where albino kangaroos are seen grazing but were too early but took a nature walk alongside the stream. On the way back to town we stopped outside a property that had some albino kangaroos but were further away than we would have liked. There is supposed to be about 200 hundred of them on the island.

10th September 10

We took the ferry back to the mainland and drove back to Kingston to visit the bank and do some grocery shopping which allowed us to stop off at a road side fruit and veggie shed. As this all took longer than we expected, including lunch, we didn’t tour the top part of the island as we caught the 3.45pm ferry. At the ferry terminal we became aware that Foxy was not feeling very well and was very listless for the rest of day without eating at all.

13th September 10

Stu and Be arrived on Saturday a bit later than we had expected , but they had taken a look at Lunawanna and Alonnah driven back over the mountain. After lunch we all walked through the township of Cookville to the end of the road, calling in at the Cook’s monument and the jetty. On our return to the caravan park we drove out to the picnic ground we found the previous day to look for the albino kangaroos. There we none at the picnic ground but we did see several on the way there but none stopped to have their photo taken, or at least not clearly. We spent the evening in Stu and Be’s cabin where we had oysters, prawns, cheese and crackers for supper.

On Sunday morning we walked in the other direction to the Penguin Cafe and enjoyed a superb breakfast and then drove over the mountain, yet again, and on to Cape Bruny lighthouse at the south west tip of the island. This provided some magnificent views of the rugged coastline on the way, and from the light house area which is at the top of a long and very steep uphill walk.

 This unfortunately meant Stu didn’t get to see the view from the top as the concrete track was too narrow for his wheelchair. We drove back around the mountain and stopped at the Morella hothouse cafe for a late lunch and then back to the caravan park to collect Stu and Be’s car and then followed them back towards the Ferry with a detour into Barnes bay on the northern land mass of the island. Here we said our farewell to Stu and Be as they had to head for the ferry to return home as they had to work the next day, but as we were in the north end of the island we continued on the circuit road over the northern mountain for more splendid views on narrow dirt roads with hair raising passing manoeuvres with oncoming traffic, with us on the dodgy side. The width of the roads is more suitable for Suzuki Vitaras rather than Nissan Patrols or Toyota Landcruisers when it comes to squeezing past each other.

Fortunately the weather for both days was dry although cloudy and chilly, and now that the wonderful company has left us the weather changed to rain again during the night, and few degrees colder.

17th September 10

On the 15th we had another ferry trip and returned to Kingston as Merry had developed a severe toothache and we were lucky enough to jag a same day appointment. We correctly expected it to require an extraction but we hadn’t expected it to break in the process and become a drama. We also hadn’t expected a $217 bill. It also rained most of the day in advance of the predicted gales and cold front.

On the 16th the cold front hit with a vengeance, with hail that built up to 3cm deep against the annexe at times, and the park ground was completely white as if it had snowed, along with high buffeting winds. The park is protected by wooded hills on the west side that the wind was generally blowing from so mainly went over the top of us but some seemed to bounce back and hit us from the ocean side which we didn’t appreciate, especially from the annexe point of view.

We survived the night but have another day of wind to go yet but it does seems to have eased a bit and so far no rain, or hail.

Today, Merry is still suffering pain from the extraction and is worried that they may have pulled the wrong tooth, but could also just be the result of the brutal procedure.  This got worse, so in the afternoon we took the ferry and returned to the dentist in Kingston who provided Merry with more treatment to ease the pain and supplied more of his magic remedy for use over the weekend.

2nd August to 22nd August 2010

2nd August 10

We had to go into Hobart to hand in some papers to Centrelink so took the opportunity to visit Salamanca Square for some more photos and a look in some of the art galleries, and also moved on to the harbour to photograph some more statues in that area.

8th August 10

Merry has spent many hours this week slaving over a hot sewing machine making covers for the seats in the caravan to help preserve then. They were professionally treated with Vantec, which is much the same as Scotchguard, but Diane gave us some surplus material so the covers have been made to protect the seats from dirty little dog paws. Merry also made a cover for the satellite dish for when it is placed on the bed during transit and a bag for the fold-up clothes hoist for when it is stored in the shower during transit and will be making some storage bags for Barry’s spanners to separate metric ones from Imperial ones. Meanwhile Barry has fitted several additional shelves into cupboards to improve storage in the caravan.

12th August 10

It finally genuinely rained all night and day cutting some roads and getting dry rivers running again and had a small amount of back-up rain on the following day. This means we should be able to visit Russell Falls (reputedly the most photographed waterfall in Tasmania), Horseshoe Falls and Lady Barron Falls which are on the same three hour circuit, and see them with some water falling. During the high winds that came with the rain, one of the wind turbines on the roof of the Harbour building started to break-up, a week after I filmed them, and only about four weeks after installation.

22nd August 10

The weather since the 13th has been rainy, although not persistent, or very cold and windy which didn’t entice us to visit Russell Falls but we did go into Hobart on the bus to cast an early vote in the elections. There was some snow on Mt Wellington on the 20th August which remained until this morning which meant that snow would have fallen on Mt Field in the Mt Field National Park where Russell Falls happen to be, plus being an hour drive West means there would have been more rain there than we received in Hobart in the last week, so today being a dry sunny day it was our chance for the long awaited visit. 

Russell Falls is about a ten minute walk on bitumen track from the visitors centre and thanks to the rain and melting snow had plenty of water, in fact maybe too much as it cause a lot of spray which didn’t help the photos with moisture on the lens. We were told that up until the rain, there had only been a narrow strip of water on the left hand side.

From here we climbed the 100 plus steps to the top of Russell Falls and then continued on for about 15 minutes to Horseshoe Falls, which being on the same water course had the same amount of water flowing over it

We then headed through the tall tree walk and on to Lady Baron Falls, about an hour walk away on another water course, along a good track but unfortunately had several uphill bits as a result of downhill bits, but we made it in a slightly longer time frame than the younger visitors.

One of them appeared to have jogged in whilst we sat and had our lunch prior to the hike back to the visitor centre, supposedly a 40 minute walk on a slight downhill gradient. The Falls had plenty of water, like the others, but as with all waterfalls had its own personality.

 

The slight downhill gradient was actually an undulating gradient that eventually took us to the bottom of a wooden staircase which just happened to have 260 steps in it, and fortunately some built in seats at convenient places. On arrival at the top we found that the track continued uphill quite steeply for another hundred metres or so before heading downhill for another ten minutes to the visitor centre. I guess that any exercise that you survive has to eventually have been good for you, but is that fact or only theory. Either way we did survive and thoroughly enjoyed the sights and our day out, even if we do suffer tomorrow.

18th July 2010

July 18th 10

Stuart and Belinda picked us up and took us to the market on Elizabeth Street where they collected their week’s vegies and then took us to Salamanca Square for a superb late breakfast. We then went with them to Blackmans Bay to look at a house that has may be a possibility for them to purchase. The view across the bay from the back of the house and kitchen is quite special. On the way back via Kingston and the coast road also drove through more of the harbour which shows we have several more bus trips into town to look around.

July 20th 10

We had enjoyed the coastal road trip with Stu and Be so we did it again in the other direction heading for Kingston first and stopped on the way at the old shot tower.

For the sum of $7 each we had the dubious pleasure of climbing 316 steps (157 feet six inches) to enjoy the view over Hobart and the bay.

We then proceeded to Kinston Beach and Blackmans Bay where we stopped at the beach front and had our picnic lunch. After lunch we continued on southwards as close to the coastline as possible, to Margate where we encountered the Margate train.

This is an old steam train with half a dozen carriages that have been turned into a sweet shop, a second hand bookshop, a barber’s shop, an organic shop, and a pancake parlour.

We then went on to Peppermint Bay, passing the restaurant that we will be visiting with Stu and Be in a few weeks time for lunch via a coastal cruise, and on to Snug, Kettering where the ferry for Bruny Island operates, Woodbridge, Middleton, Cygnet and up to Huonville. In Huonville we called into the visitor centre to find out if the Model village that we visited 10 years ago is still in operation, but were told that the couple that built it are now in elderly care. This didn’t really surprise us as they were cracking on when we met them. They have left a huge legacy behind that the relatives have not yet decided what to do with the house and model village that covered the whole of the garden. From Huonville we headed home via the main highway at a leisurely pace.

July 23rd 10

We had another day out by driving over the Tasman Bridge and found a few places where we can take Foxy for walks along the river front and then parked and looked through the Museum at the Bellerive cricket ground.

Their history is not as long or as great as Victoria’s but still impressive. There are some interesting displays showing complete process of how cricket bats and balls are manufactured.

We then drove on to Rokeby and Lauderdale and then down to South arm and Opossum Bay at the tip of the peninsular. We were disappointed with this southern end as we had hoped to find a spot looking out over the ocean to have picnic lunch, but there just isn’t anywhere so retreated back towards Lauderdale until we spotted a dirt road going out to a lookout which as it turned out also had a track down to the beach.

The lookout gave a view of a small lighthouse on an offshore rocky outcrop. After the trek down to and along the beach we returned to the car and had lunch in the car park with an ocean view.

We continued on towards Lauderdale with a short detour to Clifton Beach. We headed on through Lauderdale to Seven Mile Beach and across the two causeways to Sorrell and then up to Richmond.

This is a pretty village with a convict built bridge over the river with a picnic area by the river and quaint old shops on the main street.

From here we drove to Compania and on to Bridgewater and Old Beach so that we followed the eastern side of the Derwent River and then crossed over the Bowen Bridge back to Newtown.

July 24th 10

We took a return trip to Dutch orientated Salamanca Market without Foxy so that we could explore it in full including photos of the surrounding gardens and statues.

It is the largest outdoor market that we have experience that actually displayed products that were better than the usual cheap and nasty stuff. There was a lot of Tasmanian wood craft and leather craft along with the usual glamour and jewellery, and surprisingly few food stalls considering the overall size and the obvious popularity of the event, but those that were there were well patronised. We bought some vegies at the end of our trip through the area and headed home.

26th July 10

It actually rained, although not on us, but looking towards Mt Wellington it obviously was.

31st July 10

We walked to Stu and Be’s place to discuss the solar power installations as we are all considering having installations at our respective homes, and then drove down to the harbour to go on the previously mentioned cruise to Peppermint Bay.

The cruise took about 1.6 hours but included stopping at various points of interest, such as the Alum cliffs at Kingston Bay which gave us a great close-up view of the cliffs.

They also lowered a camera down 7 metres almost to the bottom and allowed the boat to drift whilst we watched the various underwater life stock and plants.

We then entered the D’entrecasteaux Channel between the mainland and Bruny Island and checked out the salmon farms before cruising on into Peppermint Bay. Our little group of four left the boat for two hours and went to the restaurant overlooking the bay whilst the rest of the passengers had local platters delivered to eat onboard. The meal which was really nice was helped down with some local wine and we then returned to the boat for the cruise home. This was closer to the Bruny Island coast and then the Eastern side of the Derwent River and on up the river to the Tasman bridge. Here they explained how the ore carrier managed to get out of control and collide with the bridge, and how the driver of one of the cars left teetering on the edge, a Holden Monaro, was the first car to cross the bridge during the opening ceremony of the rebuilt span, 3 years later, I imagine the driver would have been a bit nervous.