January 6 - New Years Eve and the Week Following

 

Hobart at the moment (just before New Year) had the most wonderful weather end we intended getting up to Mt Wellington which is in the middle on Hobart ASAP.

Hobart from Mt Wellington with winds blowing a gale and freezing.  (reported to be 190kph a few days later)

 New Years Eve at the "Taste of Tasmania" in Hobart.  We had to sit on the benches because all tabled seating was sold for $100 per person.  You got nothing else - just your bum on a seat and a table to rest your arm on.
Karen and Greg from Western Australia, Colleen and Geoff from Brisbane and us (Notice who is in charge of the wine)

We travelled out of Hobart to visit the town of Richmond which has many very old buildings and a father and son have changed their backyard into a scale model of Hobart as it was in 1823, complete with over 400 clay figures and the Derwent Rivulet which now runs under the city.

We also went to a small animal sanctuary called Zoo Doo near Richmond, which had lots of meerkats

                                      I could watch the antics of these little creatures all day.
and lots of Tassie Devils along with 3 young cubs who had no table manners or respect for their mother when it came to who got the biggest share of the bone.

 

They had some beautiful white lion cubs which for a fee of $250 we too could have gone in and patted and played with them
 

Dad watching on

One of quite a few of white wallabys

some very cheeky emus and ostriches looking for food

We had a coffee with our friends at the caravan park and headed out towards the north again up through the middle. 
For the first few miles we followed the Derwent and looking at the river we were probably making the right decision to leave Hobart to the windy weather.  I hadn't seen whitecaps on a river before.

Our first stop was at Russell, in the Mt Field National park.  It was very windy and the parks people had one of the roads closed off because a tree had partially fallen down and they were waiting for someone to come with a chainsaw to chop it down.  After we got back to the end of the walking track to Russell Falls the track had been closed as well due to the strong winds and chance of falling trees. 

 As we drove out of the park someone was shifting branches off the road where a small tree had come down.  It was big enough to do a bit of damage if it landed on the car or van as you went along the road.

We pulled into a free camp a few hours later, went to boil the kettle and found we had no gas (or so it appeared). We packed up again and drove to the next caravan park at Bothwell.  We decided to stay til Monday as we had to be in Launceston on Wednesday to get a part for the caravan.
Next morning we drove to Deloraine which has a very large craft show every November - all I really wanted was buttons but I had to justify the drive.  There was only one craft shop and it was mainly Alpaca stuff.

The drive up to Deloraine was very picturesque, we drove almost the full length of Great Lake which is the second largest lake in Australia and covers an area of 114 square miles. 

There are a lot of houses scattered along the foreshore of the lake and a few little villages as well.  The area is so different from the coastal regions we have been used to with fairly rugged mountain ranges with sparse vegetation and unusual rock formations.

  We also saw some very interesting native flowers as well.
 

Next night we had a bit of rain but a lot of wind and about midnight we decided we had better bring in the awning and put the chairs away etc.  I hate nights like this it just interrupts our sleep but we have it down pat now, we each have our own jobs to do.  Stuarts is to don a waterproof jacket and go out and roll up the awning, bring in all the struts and Ty- downs and put away the chairs in the wind and the rain and my job is to keep his side of the bed warm for when he comes back in wet and frozen.
We also did a trip up to see one of the other large lakes in the region - Lake Sorrell.  Again, whitecaps on the water and actual waves being formed by the strong winds, I guess.

 

As there was only bad weather where we Were going we decided to stay in Bothwell.  Not a lot of things to do in Bothwell so our came my sewing machine and I did some more work on a project I started about 5 years ago (Sophie the Stitcher). Can one of my craft friends please tell Mary that I have her pattern as I told her I didn't think I did.  I will return it ASAP.

I also made inroads into a lovely petite cloth doll called Maple who lives among the maple leaves in Autumn.  It has been hard to get any sewing done on my machine up til now but I realised that I don't take up as much room on the table as I thought and Stuart still has a little corner to do his thing. 

AS we started to make our way to Launceston we stayed the night at Oatlands, a small town on the Midland Highway where we visited a small flour mill and shouted ourselves seafood crepes for lunch which were amazing.  the scallops down here leave our Queensland ones for dead.  (They probably come from here anyway but are not as fresh)