Tasmania

We did lots of walking and then decided to do some more driving. Marilyn had told us about the small village of Ross. We arrived and parked in front of an old hotel and walked around the village. One of the places we came to was an old female prison area. We could walk in some buildings. Notice how worn the steps are.

On the outskirts of town was another bridge, built by the convicts.
Their sentence in Australia was not an easy one.

Interestingly enough, at our stop in Launceston, we stayed at
the Ross Bakery Inn. Below is a stairway in the front lobby.
Many ovens and reminders of the bakery are visible. We stayed in the
family suite above the stable.

We were very much in the centre of town and so we walked
to the Gorge walkway. It was very well developed so as not to be
too strenuous.

There was a suspension bridge there as well.

It is also the site of the longest single span chairlift.

Here is the exterior view of the Ross Bakery Inn Hotel.

We came upon this little lizard without a tail. They will
leave their tail behind if confronted by a predator in hopes
the predator will go after the tail rather than the lizard.

On a walk around Dove Lake in the Cradle Mountain National
Park, we came upon a beautiful rainbow. The short walk here
was only 6 kilometers. It's amazing that we gained weight
on the trip.

We had a hitch hiker on our trip. Look closely at the taillight and
you will see a huge spider. Theranger said that it wasn't poisonous but it
sure was big. I hated the show 'Arachnophobia".

We did get to see a live wombat in this park as well. This
guy was not worried about Jannose walking up close to him to take
the picture.

Jannose also took this picture of the baby Wallaby.

We went to a Tamanian Devil Interpretative centre. We found out a
lot of information about them. They look very cute and huggable as long
as it's not feeding time or you infiltrate their space.

Then you get this reaction.

In Strahan, we went for a little snack and of course, had to buy
this Ginger Beer.

It went well with these all-dressed fish burgers. They contained:
a fried egg, pickled beets, fried onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato, cheese, pineapple.
I forced myself to eat it all. And then, we headed on a boat cruise
up the Gordon River. I bought a CD of some local musicians containing
stories and songs about the river.

Before going up the river, we made a dash out of the harbour to
the ocean. The captain wanted us to see how difficult it was to enter the
harbour. That's why I took this picture. We were on a twin
Catamaran so the ride was very smooth.

We came upon these circular traps. They are used for raising(farming)
salmon. Tasmania is noted for its salmon. I didn't realize it was farmed.
We had it on the buffet on the boat tour and it was fantastic. In the lower picture, the
salmon are being fed. One of our guides used to work on the salmon
farms and said that it was very difficult work. There were about 10 circular
nets just in this area alone.

Melbourne to Tasmania

Welcome to Melbourne. We were very happy to get to Greg and Marilyn's house so we could relax before our trip to Tasmania. I was going to be driving and was a bit tense about that. I practised a bit because I followed Greg to the rental company to drop off our rental. He said that I was always a bit to the left as I drove. How did he know my political beliefs?
It was very hot in Melbourne. It was going to be almost 40 degrees the next day (Feb. 7) so we planned to stay inside out of the heat for the whole day. Their son, Heath, was coming over that evening for a BBQ. We put on some old videos and did some computer stuff. We closed the drapes and exterior awnings to try and keep it cool in the house. When Heath arrived, he said there were some fires very close by. We went outside and saw a lot of smoke. There were fires within 1 and a 1/2 kilometers of the house over the hill. We could see the helicopters flying back and forth dropping water on the fires. Greg decided that we had better get ready to evacuate. I was going to have to drive his Mustang, Jannose would drive the Subaru, Marilyn the Ute, and Greg the truck with his equipment loaded on it. We repacked our suitcases, Marilyn grabbed papers and photos and everything was at the front door. The winds reversed the fire upon itself and we were safe. We then had supper(tea) and then I let the boys know that we were okay. I didn't take into account the media portrayal of the fire, the thirsty koala and bodies in the street. They contacted External Affairs to find out where we were and if they could collect the insurance money already. We were already in Tasmania by that time, a long way from the fires. We did travel by that area 9 days later and saw the destruction.

This is the view from the back yard and if you look closely, you
can see the helicopter directly in the middle, just above the tree, in all the smoke.
It was a scary time for all of us.

On Sunday, we took the train into Melbourne and met Shaun and
Rebecca, two transplanted Brits that we had met last year
in Bangkok. They met us in Federation Square in downtown
Melbourne. We went to an artist market and then walked
around the area before taking a boat trip down the river.

An interesting bridge.

Do we have clearance, Clarence?

Melbourne also has a super-size Ferris Wheel. Unfortunately,
the architects didn't take into account the extreme heat and some
of the steel has warped. Not being used now for a while or perhaps
forever. The locals joke about it as a circular mass of scrap metal.

A couple of very interesting bridges.

This is the entry to the downtown Casino. Honest, the
walkway is flat.

This is the home of Aussie Rules Football in Melbourne.
Unfortunately, the grass doesn't get enough natural light to
grow so they have to use these artificial lights to encourage
growth. Greg's favourite team plays out of here. They have tailgate
parties just like we do in Western Canada.

A picture taken as we are driving for the first time in Tasmania.
Jannose took this picture as I am driving. Do you see the
large shoulder for each lane? Me neither. Sometimes, I even drove
on roads that had no center line. After three days of driving
like this, Jannose ended up needing some chiropractic care.

Our first stop in Tasmania was a town called Bicheno.
We went down to the ocean to check out this blowhole and it was there we saw our
first penguin(below). this baby had been abandoned by
its parents and had spent the day on the beach access. We hoped that it would be gone by the
next day.

Bicheno was a whaling town and we climbed this small mountain
called Whaler's Lookout for views of the area.

The next day, we headed to a National Park. While walking to
the beach, we passed these pine trees. We thought that the
water on the needles looked kind of neat.

You won't see these signs in Canada.

Three views of the ocean area from the Coles Bay Lighthouse.

We found a few wallabies in the parking lot.

Then, we climbed up and over a mountain in order to see
Wineglass Bay. We could have walked another 2km to get to
the beach. Didn't.

This is the viewpoint of Wineglass Bay. Check out the size of these
rocks. It was a great climb to get up there and the views
were worth it.

It seemed that we saw fantastic things around every corner in Tasmania. We spent one week here but it wasn't nearly enough. Next time, we spend two weeks here.

To the ocean and Melbourne

We spent three days touring the Blue Mountains and Canberra. then we headed towards the ocean. The temperature has been hovering around the 30 degree mark ever since we landed in Sydney. We are getting used to driving on the other side of the road but still need to pay attention when crossing streets.

This was our first view of the ocean as we came from Canberra.

We are table # 8. Where is table #9? In all small cafes, you
order and pay at the kitchen area, they give you a number and
then deliver the meal to you.

Mussels, anyone?

This is the front lobby of a small hotel we visited. It was originally
built as a house for a rich sawmill owner. He went broke and eventually, it
became a very posh hotel. They have a private beach and beautiful grounds.

Ever been doing something, and you have an audience
paying very close attention to what you do? The guys cleaning
the fish feel like they can't go fast enough to keep
the birds happy.

Saw this caravan parked by the pier. Had to take a picture:
Memorial colours, Eskimo colours and Australia colours.

This was our first close-up view of Kangaroos. It was on a golf course
at Mallacoota. As they were really close, somebody took
about 15 pictures. Here is one of them. Later, we came to the golf course
restaurant for dinner, and found almost 20 of them eating their
dinner on the fringe of the 18 th green. They are very used to
golfers and allowed us to walk to within ten feet of them. Greg took
a picture of us and it may soon appear as our new picture for the blog.

Then, we went to the docks and watched some sport fishermen
come in with their catch of 'flathead'. This is a very popular fish
for fish and chip dinners.


The next day, we went to an underground cave. Here are a couple of
pictures of that experience. The best thing was that the temperature
in the cave was around 15 degrees, not the 37 outside.

As we continued our drive towards Melbourne, we drove through some
farming area that reminded us of the Okanagan. Note how dry
the area is.

At Lakes Entrance, we visited the beach. Very few people at the beach.
This guy had been there with his two boys and their dog.

Our first view of a koala. We kept calling them koala bears.
They are not really appreciated too much by the people here
because they strip these gum trees of their leaves and can kill them.
They also get drunk from the eucalyptus oil and get noisy
and sometimes fall out of the trees. In order to help them from
falling out of the trees, they have very sharp claws in their paws
which they use to keep in contact with the tree. but, sometimes, they fall
asleep(get drunk) and fall out of the tree.


There...Have I spoiled your view of koala now?

This was one of our last stops before we arrived in Melbourne. We arrived in Berwick, Greg and Marilyn's subdivision, on February 6. We would spend a couple of days with them there, see some sights in the area and then head off to Tasmania. Were we in for a surprise.....