Tasmania - Hobart and surrounds

Well well, another day and another late blog. We have now decided that stories only need to be told when we can be bothered. I hate typing and sharna, well can't be bothered (and i can't blame her)

So since our last check in we have stayed at Richmond (20 minutes north east of Hobart) for a total of 6 nights, ventured down to Cockle Creek on the southern tip for a night of free camping, headed back up through Hobart and further on to Bicheno on the East Coast for 2 nights. We left Bicheno this morning after 8 hours of non stop rain and STRONG winds. Packed up in the rain and ventured north (in non stop rain) to St Helens near the Bay of Fires and here we have both cracked it and sharna has used her "Get Out Of Camping Free Card" and we are now in a dry warm cabin with its own ensuite (trust me she didn't need much convincing from me)

So in that week or so these are a few of the pictures and movies that we have to show!

The Huon jet boat was pretty awesome. I made a film of us travelling in it, well made a few, one went for about 10 minutes, so i'll put on the short one so you get the drift. it was prett cool! Actually, my internet connection here is too slow, so will have to do it at a later date. Pics will have to do for now.

I didn't actually take this one, it came on the pics the boat people gave us, but its a pretty sweet picture of the boat and jetty.

The next few are from the Cascade brewery tour that we went on in Hobart. Actually the only pics worth putting on are for my Dad, looks pretty similar to your old beast down in the shed! wonder how many cartons or kegs had sat on this beast over the years.

Pic from the Cadbury factory. We were too late in the day to make the tour of the making of chocolate, but not late enough to miss out on our chocolate binge at the cellar door sales! $20 later we were loaded up and ready to put on some pounds!

This is the suspension bridge (or one of them) at the Tahune Airwalk.

This is Sharna on a hang gliding ride at the same place. It towed you up a cable and released you so you flew back down, did this twice! pretty shit tho! wouldn't reccomend it!

This is me fishing at the most southerly point of Australia. For such a big spot in Oz, I wished the fishing was something to remember! None.

Here is the plaque at the end of the most southernly track!

Barna and me on top of the Wineglass Bay lookout. Pretty rubbish day, but nice enough on top. Pretty steep hill climb, 40 minutes up but all straight up!

Us at Honeymoon bay.

This is my first pike. Caught on a spinner. He had mega teeth!

The blow hole at Bicheno. 

These are the penguins. We went down to the beach after dinner to watch the penguins come ashore. Problem was we got there at 730 and they don't come ashore until full darkness (after 9pm) so we sat around, i fished! Nothing again! finally we heard them, but only seen the butt of one as it ran across the track. We finally gave up and left at 930, tho we drove home along the esplanade and finally seen one waddling along the road. I'm not sure if we are allowed to take pics of them with a flash, but he didn't complain too much!

And thats where we are at. Keep reading, one day you might actually read something worth reading!

Later!!

Tasmania - North west down to South East

OK so we are very slack this post and are going to give you guys the brief run down or what we have done in the last week or so....so here goes...................

This is Arthur River meets the ocean on the west coast.

This is wifey freezing her butt off!  The sun is very deceiving!  Its at the lighthouse at Bluff Hill.

Marrawah Beach with the wind farm in the back ground.

Dismal Swamp.  There is a slide down to the swamp but there is no way we were paying $20 each for a 20 second weeeeeeeeee!

On top of the WORLD actually the Stanley Nut.

Otherside of the Nut.

The Nut from afar.

My little iceberg at the Cradle Mountain lookout.  Which all the silly people had no idea which one it was but wifey knew (not sure how though maybe the cloud gave it away!)

My second encounter of a live echidna.  The first was almost disasterous for the echidna and my tyres.

Cradle Mountain.  Mum you would have loved the wild flowers.

Freezing stunning wild creatures and Cradle Mountain.

Can you find wifey????

There she is!

Pretty creek on the dove lake circuit.

BIG MOUNTAIN

Boat Shed

Little bit hotter now after the walk

My first salmon after the first one got away!

Cascade Brewery

Ready, aim, FIRE!

On top of Mt Wellington.  This is Hobart.  It was freezing on top at 7 degrees and in shorts.

Us getting a quick shot before running back to the car.

Old Richmond Bridge.

Fatty ducks eating my chocolate muffin.

View from the Tasman Blowhole South

View from North

Devils Kitchen Lookout

We have done other things but the photos didn't cut it so.......

Thats all folks!

From Jindabyne to Tassie!

We apologise now for being lazy but to tell you the truth its only going to get worse!

Today is a new adventure to Eden.  We left Jindabyne and Sharna drove to down the ranges towards the coast again.  First stop was the Bega Cheese Factory for lunch and to sample the goodies :)  Next was a half an hour drive to Eden but for some unknown reason it took us an hour! Once we finally got to Eden we checked out two parks and decided that Garden of Eden Top Tourist park was the winner.  We set up to the sound of ten thousand bell birds and not a sole around us we have about 40 sites to choose from it was awesome!  Oh and they had wild waskely rabbits :) 

 

The next day we headed south over the boarder to Mallacoota and took on the small towns on the way.   On the way we went to the Whale Museum.  Bit boring for Sharna not into Museums but I thought it was ok.

We headed North the next day and got caught in Tathra at the historical wharf.  We had lunch on the wharf watching the fisherman try and win a catch and then it was on!  Everyone was catching these fish I had never seen before.  We looked them up and found out they were Bonito and I wanted one!  We decided to stay and give it a go.  We checked out what all the other guys rigs were and tried to copy them but to no avail. 

We got back to the wharf the next day prepared to catch one!  Sharna caught the live bait and I caught the BIG fish!  First cast and I was on!  Pulled a Bonito on the smallish side so used him as bait for sharna.  Next cast and I was on again but this time it was a thumper.  It was so good because you could actually see the fish coming up from the depths to take the live bait that was swimming around under the float.  The water was so clear you could see about 15 metres in depth.  On my last throw out I caught a green back tailor.  It was a good day all round.

We crossed into Victoria and there is not much in between Eden and Orbost.  We decided to stop in Orbost for lunch and continued onto the Lakes Entrance for 3 nights.  The park we chose was original $54 a night in the school holidays UNBELEIVABLE!  Lucky we only had to pay that for one night.  Great park though.  Not much done today just moving but it was a very special ladies birthday!  Happy Birthday Nana hope you had a fab day!

Today was the hottest day EVER!  By 7am it was wayyyyyyyy tooo hot in the camper!  But 10.30am it was already 38 degrees!  With a top of 40 predicted!  So we decided to make it a drive day so we could sit in air conditioning.  Headed south to Bairnsdale, Paynesville, Metung and lastly Sale.  Also called into a place called Holland's Landing which was a scary ghost town!  Went shopping in Sale and Sharna scored a sale in Sale.  Headed back to Bairnsdale and went to the pub for a beer then a movie.  Saw Love and Other Drugs not bad a movie only ones in there too!  Went into the movies with it being 40 degrees and came out and it was 28 degrees LUSH!  True Victorian weather.  Then headed back.

Decided to get up early to go fishing.  Drove for about 20 mins stopped and fished and caught three baby flathead nothing to brag about.  Started to head off and the motor died just wouldn't accelerate only idle.  Decided to head back and not risk it so the fishing lasted 10 mins and crawled home :(

Another moving day.  This time to a room no camper this night!  We headed to Melbourne in preparation for our voyage to Tasmania!  Decided to try and book a place before we left Lakes Entrance.  No parks available to it was onto hotel motels on wotif.com.  Two words NEVER AGAIN!  Well not unless we see the place first.  We arrived at our nice warm room for the night and realised that the place rents the room out for the day between 11am-4pm.  It was the biggest dive ever!  The people that lived there looked like the scum of Melbourne!  Lets just say we both slept with one eye open that night and I have never seen Sharna get ready to leave so fast in my life!

The big voyage day has arrived!  We got to the port about 7.15am with departure scheduled at 9am.  Well it turned out we didn't get onto the boat with the car until 9.30am and didn't leave until 10am.  But the cabin we booked was LUSH!  It had a porthole with two single beds and own toilet and shower!  Soooooooo good!  We checked out the boat and had breakfast then headed back to the cabin for some shows. 

Had a 2hr nana nap then back out for arvo tea and then we were there!  Tasmania was in our sights.  Of course we did not book anything for the first night and thought we would have many options but to our stupidness there was not much.  We ended up at a caravan park near the docks.  They were really nice but the amenities were below standard but good for $20.  Had McDonalds for tea as it was the only thing open at 9.30pm.

Packed up and pissed off early to head North West.  Spoke to a lovely lady named Ros at the Devonport Information Centre and then we were off to tackle Tassie.  Went to Burnie, Wynyard, Smithton, basically everywhere along the North West Coast and out to Arthur River on the West Coast for the night.  Heading back to Stanley tomorrow to climb the Nut and then down towards Cradle Mountain.

Well thats it for the update.  Its about 8 degrees and Sharna's hands are about to fall off typing this update so we better sign off now and hope everyone is ok and doing great and enjoying work!  Suckers!

 We stayed there until 5pm and still nothing.  I was keen and conned sharna to stay another night and come back tomorrow.  Such a great wifey she said yes!  After an hour of rigging up all the rods we were set for tomorrow.