25 December - Christmas in Hobart

We had booked to have Christmas lunch at the Wrest Point Casino and it lived up to all expectations.  The food was amazing and even more special because I didn't prepare it.  There were prawns and oysters in a never ending supply and all the other Christmas fare with drinks coming as fast as we wanted them for 3 hours.

 At 2.30 we rolled into the first taxi and headed home for a rest.
We met a lovely couple (Geoff and Colleen) next door at the caravan park who we shared stories and drinks with each afternoon and also shared our site with a couple of locals as well.

                                I couldn't get over the number of chins one of these bunny's had

 Boxing day and the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race got under way and although neither of us are really boaty people we were interested as we were at the finish line.

Looking out to where the yachts will be coming in after the cruise ship moves out of the way

The Perpetual Trophy

Television Crews waiting for the yachts to arrive

Right in front of us was Sky News

A large sailing sloop just heading out to make room for the Yachts

Despite where it looks Wild Oats was nearly a kilometre away with 3 helicopters bussing around it and the crowds gathering on the pontoons in the harbour..

Bob Oatley just getting off a support vessel to congratulate the crew of his yacht

The Australian TV Crews swarming

The 28th was our Wedding Anniversary and as it is so close to Christmas we usually don't make a big deal of it and just usually go out for dinner but this year with so much happening for us in Hobart we didn't do the dinner thing - at least not officially.
Saturday is the weekly Salamanca Markets and that combined with the annual Taste of Tasmania which runs for a week and the day the Winning Yacht was to berth at Constitution Dock.  The crowds were in their thousands and to add to the numbers there was a cruise ship in the harbour as well.  Walking around the harbour foreshore was not good.
We tried some wine and we tried some food and we tried some more wine and finally made our way up to the point where the Yachts would be coming in.  As the winner was a foregone conclusion for some hours before the end we got a good spot right in front of where the winner Wild Oats XI owned by Robert Oatly berthed after crossing the finish line 1/2 kilometre away.
The second boat Perpetual Loyal came in about 3 hours later and the third place honours went to Ragamuffin which came in about 1 1/2 hours later again.
Next morning we moved form the caravan park to the showgrounds and went back to check out some of the other yachts that had come in overnight.
I really wanted to be there to welcome in "Faceboat Sailors with DisABILITIES"  Captained by Kirk Watson who is blind with a large number of the crew also with disabilities.  Unfortunately it wasn't due to come up the river until about 1.00am Sunday night.
New Years Eve we are heading back to the Waterfront for some celebrations with friends before we head down toward Port Arthur on Thursday.

24 December - IT'S NEARLY CHRISTMAS

 

As we trip around the state we came across many fields of Poppy's growing everywhere.  They are very controlled and sell the crop to pharmaceutical companies for the manufacture of medicinal products.

We also found acres and acres of cultivated plants with small creamy white flowers which we had no idea about and then found that they were pyrethrum plants which must be a huge industry in many parts of the state.

 

For the people interested in anything army we went to a small town called Legerwood, where an avenue of trees were planted in 1918 to commemorate the soldiers that died in the Great War.  In the 70's the trees had to be cut down but were turned into a memorial by a talented chainsaw artist.

Drove up into the mountains to the east of us and wanted to see Ralphs Falls but as the track continually led down hill I pulled out and went back to the car and Stuart continued alone because in this case, what goes down must come up and my knees were protesting already.  Then when we got to the St. Columba Falls I did the trip.  It was worth it, they were lovely.  It was very eerie walking along the path to Ralphs Falls as the trees created a thick canopy and with the fallen trees and the moss everywhere you almost expected to see a dinosaur come through the forest.  

The wildflowers along the side of the road everywhere were beautiful.

On the way to St. Columba Falls I noticed the giant tree ferns everywhere and how beautiful they looked just as they unfurled. 

Stuart climbing up from a creek bed.

 

On one of our exploring trips we found a little café overlooking Binalong Bay

We had 3 days with friends from the mainland Maree and Peter Cotrell at a beautiful free camp in the sand dunes at Bay of Fires.

A few wines around the fire each night was just what the doctor ordered.

                                                 Stuart and Peter sitting up on the rocks

I loved the character in this tree

            The different rock formations along the small stretch of coast were very interesting

We said goodbye to Peter and Maree and made our way south towards Hobart and spent the night just north of Bichino where we had an early tea and went on a tour to view the penguins.

The babies were so cute and fluffy

This was an amazing experience.  Each night they made their way in the thousands up onto the shore to the rookeries where they have been breeding for hundreds of years.  The area is protected and patrolled to keep out wild cats etc from decimating the numbers.

We saw them waddle up from the water, stop under trees to re-oil their little blue feathers and then with full stomachs make their way to their rookeries to feed their young which are hatched like all birds after about 35 days.

The babies with their Downey fur like feathers look as big as their parents.

We got away reasonably early heading south after a wet night with our chairs dripping with water and everything pretty damp inside and out.  When we got to our site near Coles Bay we were a bit concerned with a group of about 5 young men camped a bit away from us and hoped they didn't get too loud.  By dusk the music started and they started drinking so our concerns heightened.  Then one of them came over to us and asked if their music was too loud and after we said no (it was really nice music) they turned it down anyway and their drinks were either water or soft drink and they had a great time together.  Thanks guys

Soldier Crabs by the thousands along the shore reminded me of the thousands we used to see on Far Beach (now Illawong) when I was a kid and cycled to the beach on weekends.

We went down to the shore to film the sunset and I came back thinking that I was too late.  Stuart on the other hand got a magnificent photo.

Still heading to Hobart and we made our first stop at a huge craft shop in Triabunna.  It was a converted house called Suri's Craft and Christmas shop.  She had half the shop so filled with Christmas stuff it was hard to walk around and the other with patchwork and quilt fabrics.  So girls - if you are in the area - Triabunna on the south east coast of Tasmania close to the Freycinet Coast.

We had a night at the show grounds in Hobart and then on to the caravan park.  Not a big park and only 3 caravan spots, the rest were cabins.  The first time I have seen the concept because of the very low number of sites where they had an ensuite for each caravan housed in the same building.  Very clean and neat and newly painted.  It is the Hobart Cabins and Cottages.

Today we ran the gauntlet of shopping before Christmas and got the last of our grocery items and some prawns which, strangely enough had to be imported form the mainland as Tasmania does not have them.

Tomorrow we are going to the Wrest Point Casino for lunch and on Saturday we are going in to watch the first boats come in in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

To all who have been following us on our travels over the years Stuart and I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a safe New Year and hope 2014 will make some of your wishes come true.

December 1 - TASMANIA

I only had a few days to soak up Tasmania and I was on a plane back to Mackay for the breakup  dinner for the year 12 boarders.
A couple of nights we free camped and if this was an example of free camping in Tasmania, we have a great time ahead of us.

 

When I got back from Mackay we attempted to split Tassie into sections and attack it that way so we will be doing the area around Launceston and west to Stanley.

Sitting round the campfire one night and glanced over my shoulder and saw this tree silhouetted against the skyline.

These little guys must have bred like rabbits, there were so many of them.

At Sheffield nearly every business had a mural on the wall of their establishment.  Most told a story about the business.

We drove around until we had been to every little area shown on this sign post

 

At Cataract Gorge there were lots of these peacocks all vying for the heart of a peahen

We took the chairlift up and walked back down - or was it the other way round

Right up in the north above Launceston is the town of Beauty Point.  They have a seahorse farm where they export these little creatures to pet shops and aquariums all over the world.  We saw them from 1 day old to full grown.

The most unusual of all was the sea dragon with all its little appendages looking like a piece of seaweed.

Even an octopus up in one corner

Across the road was a platypus and echidna place.  The platypus grow to nearly twice the size of the mainland cousins and are really in abundance down here.  The echidna just waddled around our feet after they had finished their lunch for the day.  Much bigger than we see in the wild also but maybe that is because they feed them every tour which is about 4-5 times a day.

We have been fortune to have the type of weather where we could have an open fire most nights and my hunter gatherer had to put his axeman skills to the test again.

On one of our walks through the rainforest I came across these tree formations and root systems which I found very interesting.

One of the many waterfalls we encountered.

One of our camps were at a place called Boat Harbour which showed proof that the area was a very active volcano area thousands of years ago.  A lot of coast looked like this with volcanic rock all along the beach.

Yep that's us tucked into a little corner for privacy and a lovely spot to pull up the chairs and get out the wine.

We went on a little walk through the rainforest near that last camp which was on the banks of the
river.  Gee it was nice.

We called into the little town of Warratah which started out as a tin mining town and the stamper was run by a waterwheel at the top of these falls which are in the middle of the main street.

Tasmania certainly knows how to grow tall trees and some of them are really huge.

Stanley is situated at the top of the state on the western side of the north coast and has this huge rock formation for which it is famous.

We stayed at the caravan park and the wind blew and the rain was almost horizontal at times and on one of the clear days we decided to take the chairlift up to the top of the "Nut" but the wind blew so hard and cold I refused to walk around the top and left it to Stuart while I sheltered in the hut at the top of the chair lift.  The trip down was the coldest I have felt in a long while (even Europe).

The township of Stanley from the top of the Nut

We travelled further west towards the coast as we were headed towards Arthur River and stayed at a free camp called Green Point where there was a very dirty dog there to greet all travellers.  I hope he is owned by one of the farmers in the area and I hope they bath him soon.

At Arthur River we took a cruise up the river where we fed White Sea Eagles and pulled into the bank and were fed a most luxurious lunch of gourmet sandwiches, fruit, cheeses, antipasto, wine, tea and coffee and juice.

Watching the sea eagle swoop in to get the fish thrown into the water was something else.

For three nights we stayed at the Narawntapu National Park  and had plenty of wildlife to entertain us every day.  It was great to see all the wombats just wandering around eating.

We have just about seen what we want to see of the North West of the state but reserve the right to backtrack if necessary.