Tasmania 2016 Brisbane to Devonport

Sunday 11th September

After a big night celebrating our Bowls Pennants win, go the “Woods”, we were up and about packing. We made good time and were on the road by 10:30am.

We have had a heck of trip down the east coast averaging between 350klm and 1 day of 620klm. First night we got to a little town called Bellingin, just south of Coffs Harbour, where we camped in the car park of the local AFL club called the Belingin Bears. The club makes it known that they want RVs in the town to help with security of their fields. Amenities were clean and tidy and had the place to ourselves. Our next stop was when we dropped into see Neil and Moni at Saratoga, Gosford. As usual Neil and Moni were great hosts and looked after us, we even behaved ourselves and didn’t drink too much. The next stage was 620klm to the original Ettamogah Pub at Table Top, Albury.

It was built 2 years prior to the one built on the Sunshine Coast. It looks like the highway has been developed after the pub was built and now it is quite hard to see. Luke and Summer are the new

managers and have been running it for 3 months. Free parking in the car park so long as you spend $10 in the pub. Luckily for them we had no problems spending the $10 buying a couple of stubby coolers, a few beers and a bloody nice meal. The drive to here was beautiful with fields of Canola which looked like a patchwork of yellow running up the local hills and fields.

We woke to the sound of heavy rain, they are expecting a month’s

worth of rain today. As it turned out we seemed to be dodging the rain and had a good trip to our last stop before Melbourne was beside a creek in Seymour. Lovely spot normally, beside a creek with plenty of room EXCEPT it has been pouring with rain and everything is very wet. The river is normally 4 metres below the top of the river bank but now it is only about 1 1/2 metres, the water is flowing very quickly and there is a lot of debris. We decided to pick a point on a tree and if the water rose above that we would move on. The point was a small branch stick about 6" out of the water. We went inside to have a beverage and came back out about an hour later and the stick was gone. Had it been swept away or had the water risen that much in an hour? I made the decision that it must have been swept away and much to Patrice's horror I went to bed. She would only let me sleep if I set an alarm every hour so that she could check the level, and she did. The water did go up a little bit but she was just panicking.

Beautiful sunshine this morning so off to Melbourne we head

ending up at the Big 4 caravan park in Coburg, it was a simple run down Elizabeth Street into Lygon Street through Melbourne city to the Port of Melbourne. Off to visit family, Patrice's sister Karen, her partner Chris as well as nieces, Bee and Jac, partners, gorgeous babies and nephew Chris.

We caught up on washing filled water tanks and had a day to get ourselves ready for the big adventure to Van Diemen’s Land the next day.

17^th September 2016

Saturday morning 4:30 in the morning the alarm has scared the heck out of me, it is time to pack up the van, hook up and get down to the Melbourne 
ports to board the Spirit of Tasmania. 5:30 we are on the road heading straight into Lygon Street to get to the wharves. I am following another van as he appears to know where he is going, traffic lights everywhere and now a tram. We are staying close to the other van when I notice a Keep Left sign, we are on the right of it, too late, two 21 foot vans straight through the tram stop, we were only just following the tram.

We made it to the Spirit of Tasmania in a little over 30 minutes and we are one of the first there, the people we were following Greg and Margaret from Bathurst, they are staying in Tasmania for 3 months as well. The Spirit of Tasmania 1 is a big ship and by the time we start loading there are a lot of vans, motorhomes, trucks and cars but it flows very well. We load from the bow onto deck 5G, the second highest garage level and the first to unload. Once on you have access to levels 6 to 9, we have recliners in a private lounge on level 8.

The trip to Tasmania was a little overcast but the seas were flat and
ship was pretty steady for the whole trip. We left Melbourne around

9:30am and with a cruising time of 9 hours have hit Tasmania at 6:30pm.

We were going to head to a

free stay for the night but it is dark and raining so we head to the Big 4 caravan park in East Devonport where Pat is the manager and not a bad bloke. We pulled into the driveway and there is Greg and Marg again in front of us.

Sunday 18^th September

 
Raining, raining and more raining, went for a drive into town, most shops don’t open on a Sunday. We came back for lunch and managed a 4klm walk around the foreshore up to Pado Beach in between showers and freezing our dangly bits off. The foreshore was strewn with piles of driftwood and the beaches are not sandy just gravel. Greg and Marg have invited us over for happy hour, a really interesting fellow, worked underground mines for over 40 years starting when he was 16. Also a very good wood worker who retrieves logs and cuts his own planks from all around Bathurst. He gave me a pen that he had made.

Monday 19^th September

Woke up this morning, not too early, can’t be in too much of a rush but it is a beautiful day. Sightseeing is on the agenda today so off we head.

First stop Anvers Chocolate factory, their fudge was to die for. We stocked up on some fine chocolate. Fine chocolate is tempered down to 15 microns whereas commercial chocolate is around 30 microns. The difference is the softness and feel of the chocolate in the mouth.

Next was the Cherry shed just south of Devonport at Latrobe.

Cherry season doesn’t start until December so we settled for Coffee, scones cherry jam and whipped cream and a good chat.

We had been told about the Axeman’s Hall of Fame but they have had a flood about 4 months ago go through here and the attraction is now closed. This area is supposed to be the capital for platypus habitat, we went for a walk looking but they must have been on holidays.

Fonz’s Woodworking was our next stop, Fonz is a lovely guy who have lived in Tassie all his 76 years and actually pointed out the house that he was born in. He is a collector of Toyota Caronas and have about 70 of them. There is one which is a driver which is exactly the same as the one I used to drive when I was about 18 years of age. I looked in and it was like going back in a time warp, memories…. We stayed for a while with Fonz, chatting and being shown his collection of timber work, the smell of Huon Pine was beautiful.

Off to The Spreyton Cider Company where we tried 7 different ciders, would have been so easy to sit down and have a very relaxing afternoon but we had sightseeing to do.
We are now heading back to make sure that we make the Don River Railway trip before 3:00, we made it in plenty of time but no trains today. A suggestion was made that we head to the Maritime museum back in Devonport so off we go.

The museum is housed in the original home of the harbour master, quite a stately home at the head of the Mercy River. The models and history were fantastic, over 1,300 ships have sunk in Bass Straight and over a Thousand lives have been lost over the years. I got to pilot a ship in a simulator, slow start saw me sink the ship but after I got the hang of things I managed to pilot the ship across the Bass Straight and into the Port of Melbourne. Back to camp for happy hour ready to move on tomorrow. 

Tuesday 20^th September

Decided to move 14 klm South East to the tiny town of Forth. It appears to be based around the

Hydro Electricity production just up the river. Last year the electrical link to Victoria was broken and Tasmania had to rely purely on Hydro Power which dropped their dam levels down to 5%. You would not know it now has all dams are filled to capacity. A small town with a service station, come grocery store and a small pub, we camped on the banks of the Forth River beside the AFL ground. There is only us and 1 other van who is not very friendly and just wants to keep to himself, probably a wise move. Happy birthday to Patrice’s sister Jennifer who lives in Canada and will be taking good care of us next year.

Wednesday 21^st September

Got a call from the Turner’s Beach bowls club, I had called them day before looking for a game of bowls. Trice is a little crook so I took the opportunity to accept their kind invitation to play on their very slow greens running at a bit over 12 seconds. A great bunch of people, they are all sports mad. Most of the bowlers are younger guys who switch between cricket, AFL and bowls. They promote the game to schools who regularly participate and although the club numbers are low, there is a very high participation rate. Pennants season is about to start which runs for 21 weeks, a little different to the Brisbane comp which runs around 7 weeks.

Happy birthday Merv you would have been 88 today.

Thursday 22^nd September.

A big drive today back to the coast, to the town of Ulverston travelled

14klm to the big 4 caravan park as we had to do some washing. $60 for 3 nights, a bargain. Walked into town to get some exercise and a bit of sightseeing and grocery shopping. There are 2 girls camped behind us that attracted Trice. Jill and Nerida came to Tassie for 2 weeks and are still here after 18 months. 2 girls travelling in a tent and an old ambulance going by the name of Tilly. They were very friendly so we had to have drinks with them and as we were sitting in Nerida’s tent she lights up a bong, Patrice freaked so it was time for us to leave. I was offered some but told them that I didn’t smoke. They did tell us that they were getting visitors later, bloody hell they partied until 3:00, I was not happy.

Friday 23^rd September

Today we are going for a drive to see what is around. We made our lunch just in case and headed off towards Leven Canyon. It is stunning, we walked to the upper most look out. You see the Mountains and Leven River and Devil’s Elbow, caused by volcanic disruption a little time back. We headed to the lower lookout via

the 697 steps, we know all those steps or should we say that our calf muscles knew them very well. Down to Eagle Hawke Lookout and yet more steps. It is all uphill from here our bodies better be liking this. Daffodils, Daffodils and even more Daffodils everywhere, just beautiful. I pulled over and dug some from the wild so Trice can admire their beauty. She hopes to get them back to Brisbane to grow in the shadows of her craft room.

Kaydale Gardens, you can’t drive past them without going inside, Daffodils everywhere, I didn’t realise that there are between 40 and 200 different varieties, Kaydale have around 160 here. The gardens are stunning and decided to stay for lunch which was home-made soup and bread rolls, Blackberry Jelly, caramel tarts, icecream and coffee – just a tad more interesting than the salad sandwiches. Kay, the owner gave Trice a beautiful bunch of daffodils so Trice felt obligated to buy some bulbs and have them shipped back to us next April. Next stop is Preston Falls, spectacular but even with all the rain they were not flowing at their full capacity. We were intending to go to the

caves at Gunns Plains but we had taken so long getting to here they were closed so onto Penguin to have a look at the free camps to see if we are going to stay here. You won’t believe it but the railway line runs right on the coast line, I mean right on the coast line. The surf club at Penguin has the railway line between it and the beach. This road used to be the main road so the easement was made for the railway and road and then everything else came. Another fire tonight was planned but by about 7:00 it was so bloody cold we went inside to watch the football and turn the diesel heater on.

Saturday 24^th September.

We have been in Tassie for a week already and the weather has been cold and overcast most of the time. Cold again this morning around 11 degrees at 8:00 so Trice and I have chosen to stay in bed and watch TV. It is windy and overcast and I know that there is a game of bowls on at the bowls club

across the park from us. What the heck, I can only get wet, suffer from frost bite and freeze, a game of bowls is worth it. The Ulverston Bowls Club was established in 1914 and some of the members look like they are the originals. They only have around 80 male members and around 40 were there for a social game today with around 16 women. Almost all the members play pennants which runs for 21 weeks. Again the greens were slow but had good feel, I was happy with my game, I was asked if I would like to hang around and play pennants for them. Trice joined us for a beer and a chat, they were very welcoming and the game was free.