We left Friday morning. Sun shinning and nice and warm. Horray.... Visited a Salmon Farm, which had 3 large ponds, filled with different species of trout, which we were allowed to feed. If you are in to trees there was a large variety of trees to see all labelled with what type they were and a museum with different types of lures, reels and anything to do with fishing... very well presented.. While we were there a platypus scattered by Dave from the river into the fish ponds.

After leaving the Salmon Farm.. We travelled all the way to Franklin to our next camp site. We stayed here for about 4 days and each day travelling to different destinations on the South Part of the Island. (Tahune Skywalk, Mt. Wellington, Dover & South Port.)

We are now on our way from Franklin to Bruney Island. The photo's below are some of the views of the scenic drive we saw between Huonsville and Kettering, which was along the Huon River and D'entrecasteaux Channel.

  Once we got to Kettering we took the Ferry over to Bruney Island.

The photo's show the boats moarned at the marina at Kettering. Dave and I on the ferry going over to Bruney Island.

Dave & I at Eagle Neck, having a little bit of fun on the beach.

It was a very lovely day weather wise, as we head out on the waters around the coast of Bruney Island.

It was a 3 hour trip, with 4 coastal vessel boats all went out together at a speed of approx. 50 ks per hr.

I was looking forward to the trip so much, but I ended up getting sea sick almost right through the whole 3 hour journey.

Anyway Dave really enjoyed the trip and he said it was fantastic. For what I saw, I think it would of been fantastic also, but my poor stomach didn’t let me enjoy it at all. I spent a lot of the time with my head buried in my arms on the hand railing and also getting sick..sick...sick.

Our first stop was to see some different type of seaweed, one type was clinking to the rocks on the bottom of the formation of the cliffs and the other which grows from the sand of the ocean which can just be seen floating to the surface. These plants produce oxygen into the atmosphere. We then saw some caves which were around 10 to 25 meters into the rock. Our skipper then in a fast speed, manovered the boat between two rock formations and we didn’t think he was going to fit.... but it was so enjoyable that he went again and we sounded just like kids screeching with enjoyment. Some of the rock formation looked like Organ pipes and the blow hole was so fascinating to look at. The rougher the sea the bigger the spray... We then carried on with the boat speeding ahead and shooting the waves and riding the high swells. Even though I wasn’t feeling well I enjoyed it. We saw a few white bellied sea eagles hovering over a nest of mutton birds... The skipper said he will take us to see a Shag on a Rock, when we got there there was hundreds of Cormorants all over this rock. As we carried on out to the deeper waters to the tip of Bruny Island we came across hundreds of Australian Fur seals lazing on the high rocks, some were swimming in the water. A little on the nose I ’m afraid... We were hoping to see some dolphins and whales, but we missed out.

Port Arthur, its is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula. It was a full day walking around amongst all the ruins and buildings relating back. 

                                                                                      
Monday, another beautiful day we spent the morning sight seeing at Eaglehawk Neck where we saw a blow hole, The Tasman Arc which was created by a very large sink hole. (This is where the ground below collapsed and the wave action finally created a big hole, which made it look like an Arc. ) The Devil Kitchen was a long skinny deep Gorge. And we also went to the Look Out, to see the Tasman Sea Cliffs. All were very beautiful to see.

   
From here we drove over to the Tasmanian Devils Conservation Park. Within the Park there were of course the Tasmanian Devils, they were laying around so lazily, until feed time and then the action began. There was only 2 in each enclosure female and male . There feed was dead wallaby, but the tug a war performance was so specular to watch and the chasing around for this wallaby feed. The Tasmanian Devil is a meat eating scavenging marsupial, which feeds mainly on dead animals, wallabies, possums and also birds that have reached there life’s end.. Also in the Park we saw Eastern Quoll, which is a cousin to the Tamanian devil. This creature is a great climber and raids bird nest for eggs and the young. They also eat lizards, insects, larvae and worms to make up their diet. We also saw possums, and different type of birds within the bush setting, such as the Wedgetail eagle, Brown Falcon, Galas, Frogmouth Owl, Rosellas and a white Parrot, which really fascinated us. He was sitting up in the tree and when he saw you he would work his way down and wobbled over to the wire fence and said hello. He took Dave’s attention and he enjoyed playing with him. At the end of the day there was a bird show, called the King of flight, which involved the audience to participate. Pretty clever animals...

 
We were on the move again to get to Mayfield camp ground. We thought we better find a spot before the Easter holiday campers, otherwise we might not have a chance to find a place. Camp Free.... donation at the box.
Mayfield campground a very lovely place, situtated along the Great Oyster bay with a pathway down to the sandy beach. We had many campers come in during the Easter weekend, but some left early as one night bad weather turned them away. We enjoyed our one week stay meeting up with many travellers and locals. We had a good time with John, Maureen and their family and of course cannot forget Frank. John had taken us out on his boat which we really enjoyed. I managed to catch a few for dinner and so did Dave.
Photo's show of the Mayfield campground, Dave fishing at the jetty and chopping some wood for the camp stove.
Dave talking to Frank a near by camper.

The Spiky bridge along the Tasman Highway between the Mayfield camp ground and Swansea. This bridge was built by the convicts.
                                                                       

                                                                                     
On Good Friday, we went out for the day.. and took a drive up to Bicheno and Freycient National Park.
We travelled in to Bicheno first, where we went to another blow hole which was amongst a plateform of rocks, which was interesting to see.

From Bicheno, we travelled to Freycient National Park. Would of loved to have seen Wine Glass Bay, but that was a hike and a half to go to, so I’m afraid another miss... We did see some lovely view of a mountain at Coles Bay off the jetty where there was many people fishing and catching Leather Jackets, whiting and flathead...

We then carried on until we came to Sleepy Bay. where we went on a short walk down through some lovely bush setting to see the cliff and ocean and water rushing in amongst the rocks. The rocks and cliff walls looked as though they were painted with 3 different coloured brown tone dye. Looked rather fascinating... with a very earthy look.

We then worked our way up the top end to see the light house. It was an easy walk up from the car park with a curving board walk leading the way up to the light house on the outer edge of the cliff over looking the Tasman Sea with the view of the coastline and a couple of little islands.... before return home after a lovely day out.

The trip over to Campbell Town was only 65k away. The roads were still winding and hilly, but not as bad as it was on the West Coast. We went through a section of forestry type of terrain with lots of dead wood around and very rocky looking soil. Then through lovely looking woodland. Campbell Town had a few historic buildings within the town but not much of interest.

We then travelled down to Ross...which was only 10 k’s away. This was a rather quaint pretty little township, the main street was lined with rows of big old Oak Trees amongst old stone block houses and again historic buildings which gave it some character.

We are now camped in Oatsland near a lake which looks more like the wet lands as the water is rather shallow with the ducks and swans swimming amongst the reeds. Everywhere we go the ducks seem to come quacking at our door..

We were quite surprise that Oatlands had lot to offer to see, more than what we expected. We first went on a tour through an operational Flour Mill and through the surrounding buildings and ground... Very interesting to see the step by step process of making the flour... We spent some time strolling along the streets of this unique township of historic buildings. So beautiful to see.

From here we ambled on towards Richmond. By this time it was mid afternoon. We did manage to go to the Miniature village of the Old Hobart Historical Village.

We did manage to walk up through some of the street and had a look at the Old Richmond Bridge. We did have a lot more to see but time was running short, so we just carried on..

On Friday we spent the day in Hobart. We had a problem trying to find parking, so we finally had to go down near the Botanical Gardens.

From here we caught the Red double decker bus that tours around Hobart for 90 minutes. It is a hop on and hop off tour or you can just do the whole tour of 90 minutes. From here we took the bus down to the waterfront and tried to do the tour on foot of the close attractions as much as we could, but the map we were given of the bus route, was not very well constructed to follow, lucky I had another map of Hobart or who knows where we would of ended. We did manage to do some of it, but those hills in Hobart are quite a tackle, so once the bus came around to where we were we just hopped on and did the rest of the tour on the bus. We did manage to take a few photo’s while we were walking, but found it rather difficult to take photo’s from the bus... The commentary on the bus was rather interesting. We did feel one bus was not enough to cater for 4 rounds a day, as if you missed the bus at a point you had to wait over one hour for it to come around again, so it actually made you walk.... From what we saw of Hobart we loved it... Must admit it has many historical buildings which gave it character. The bus took us through many streets of the city of Hobart, its a city of hills, no matter where you went. The houses around the city were of old homes but well maintained and looked beautiful. Our ticket was for a 3 day pass, but we decided not to do another day, as Dave did have difficulties walking up and down the streets.

Today we packed up and did a full day of driving from Hobart, Bothwell, Poatina to Corina where we camped for the night. There was not much of interest in this area, but it was a very lovely long drive.

Sunday we travelled from Corina over to St. Helens on the East Coast.. It was a rather long day as we were having problems trying to find a camp ground that we liked to stay at... We did go up to all the camp grounds that followed the road to The Gardens at the Bay of Fires, but all were booked out as this coming weekend there is a fishing comp on and they all have been camping a week in advance.

                             Scenic views of the Scamander Forest while driving to the camp sight.

 Anyway we finally found a place at Scamander in the Forestry camping ground, which took us a little while to find as there was little signs of direction. It was a lovely camp ground beside the river.

At this camp ground we happen to meet up with Donna and Joe who were at the

same camp ground in Riana, who were lovely company for us.

                              I took these photo's as the cloud formation facinated me.

Monday we did some touring around along the shore line in St. Helens and up to The Bay of Fires and Binalong Bay.

The waters at the Bay of fires are so lovely and clean with such lovely bluey green tinge of colour to them a joining the white sands along the shore. We were told on a very nice sunny day the place looks like paradise. We found out how the Bay of Fires got its name... Its when the settlers tried to get on to the island, so the Aboriginals started a fire along the bay, so the settlers wouldn’t attempt to come on to the land.

Binalong Bay, was on the same stretch of road from the Bay of Fires to the top point.

The road from St. Helens to Lilydale was very picturious , the minute we got around the corner away from the Coast the scenery just changed dramatically. Lovely green pastures set amongst the background of the hills, we also went through winding roads of rain forest terrain. A very enjoyable drive.

This morning we left camp and now are based at Lilydale for one night. I’m afraid my directions took us way out of our tracks so we decided to make camp here for the night and in the morning to have a look around this area before heading to Myrtle Park on the Tasman Highway which we were intending to go to..

From there we went to the Lilydale falls which was on a path leading from the Reserve that we were staying at. It was only a small fall, but like all falls they are lovely to look at.

We arrived at Myrtle Park around 2.30 pm. A very large beautiful park, with green grass, trees, along St. Patricks river. The park has shower facilities, camp kitchen with electric BBQ’s and has wooden bench/table settings and fireplaces scattered within the park. Cost of $3.00 a night a real bargain. I’m afraid no phone or internet reception here. I’m afraid its been raining all afternoon. Hopefully a lovely day tomorrow...
Dave collecting water from the river for washing up.
Dave and I with friends we had met on a working holiday from Germany. Joanna and Georg.

Today being Friday, we stayed put at the park. It was absolutely a beautiful Autumn day and rather warm. Today, was baking, car wash, and maintenance day on the caravan..

Margaret cutting up some kindling for the camp oven for baking up a few batches of savoury and date scones.

Looks like we are back to wet weather again.. Today being Saturday, we drove up to George Town, via Launceston. Finally found some rather flat and straight roads the A8 highway.

Lovely drive over, but in misty wet weather that went on all day. Our first stop was at the info centre.. from here we found out some places of interest. Our next stop was at the tip of Low Head here stood the Low Head lighthouse over looking Bass Strait and the entrance of the Tamar River. The low clouds and mist didn’t allow much viewing.

Further along on the Tamar River coming towards town we stopped in to the Pilot Station Maritime Museum, which was rather interesting. Down along the same stretch of road between the lighthouse and the Pilot Station there was a colony of Fairy Penguin burrows with tours being conducted after dusk.

In the township we went to the Bass and Flinders Centre, which was all about the history of Bass & Flinders and a replica display of the boat that they sailed on and the short dingy boat which was called Tom Thumb. Many other beautiful displays within the centre... This filled in our day and return journey back to the camp ground before getting dark.

Sunday, after doing the laundry in Scottsdale, we went for a drive to Bridport, which is on the Top end of Tassie along the Bass Strait. It rained most of the morning, but the sun finally came out and gave us some time to walk around Bridport. Bridport was a place where you can have family outings at, where you can swim along the beach foreshore of a coastal picnic areas. They have lovely vanilla slices at the bakery. Bought 4 and we got another 4 free....Lucky us.

A lovely rainforest drive in misty weather inbetween Myrtle Park and Scotsdale.

 

We arrived in Bridport just in time to catch the bakery and have afternoon tea along the beach. I caught Dave picking at the vanilla slices. Slap Slap.