Day Nine - 21st July

Back home to the Gold Coast

We woke at 7am and enjoyed our buffet breakfast once again and then packed the hire car and set off for the airport - 18 minutes away. We checked in for our Jetstar flight back to the Gold Coast and settled down in the Qantas Club for morning tea.  Our flight left right on time at 11.05am and arrived into the Goldy at 1.20pm and we were home just before 2pm.

 In summary of our Tasmanian holiday, we all thought that the Gordon River boat trip was the most memorable exerience (followed very closely by Louisa's Walk).  Our most favourite dinner was at the Mures Upstairs Restaurant last night (followed closely by our lunch in Ross).  We were all undecided as to which accomodation we enjoyed the most - Nick loved our little 2 bedroom cottage in Stanley with the fireplace, Jonathan thought that the Mercure Hotel in Hobart was the most comfy, the Ross Motel was the funniest (because we had to throw a bucket of water over the windscreen in the morning to rid the windscreen of ice) and he liked the Country Club in Launceston for "its cleanliness".  I think I would vote for the Ross Motel as it was immaculately clean and the decor was just lovely. Jonathan thought that the whole holiday "was fun" as we had lots of laughs and he even thanked us for taking him back down to Tasmania! What a lovely son.

Day Eight - 20th July

A good nights' sleep at the Mercure and we even slept in until 8am.  Great buffet brekky and then we were off to explore Hobart.  We firstly walked around the Salamanca area and then drove south to the Shot Tower at Taroona - about 10 minutes drive away.  Nick and Jonathan climbed the 318 stairs to the top of the Shot Tower and I stayed down the bottom as I had climbed to the top on a previous visit and I was "freaked out" by the open tread stairs!

 Afterwards we dove back into Hobart and wandered around the Docks area and admired all the wonderfully old buildings and had a quick lunch.  Then it was back in the car and a five minute drive to the carpark of Cascade Brewery where we were to meet Chris and Judith for our "Louisa's Walk" tour.  We all thought that we were going to have a talk about the history of Hobart but the Louisa's  walk was far more interesting.  The tour was a true story about Louisa who convicted of stealing a loaf of bread in London in 1834 and sentenced to gaol for 7 years in Van Diemans Land.  The story told of her sentencing, her voyage to Hobart and then of her life in the "Female Factory" (not called women's gaols) in Hobart.  This Female Factory actually housed more inmates than at Port Arthur. The main gaol wall was still erect and some of the "serious" offenders cells (10' x 3") were still visible. Louisa was a model prisoner and was "let out" to be a servant for a wealthy Hobart family however she fell pregnant to her "master' so she was placed back into gaol where she subsequently had her baby daughter, Eliza.  Eliza was weaned after two weeks and Louisa was imprisoned in "hard labour" for six months for her crime of getting pregnant.  Unfortunately Eliza did not survive longer than a few months and is one of 900 babies/children to be buried in unmarked graves close to the prison site.  Luckily, Louisa paid her time and married a local brewer and lived happily ever after. We thoroughly enjoyed the play/walk/tour - it was a really sad story but gave real insight about how prison life existed during the 1800's.

After the Louisa's Walk tour which finished about 5pm we went back into Hobart and dined at the upstairs Mures Seafood Restaurant and the food was absolutely fantastic.  We can thoroughly recommend this restaurant if you are looking for fine dining in Hobart.  We topped off the evening by driving to North Hobart and walling around their restaurant area and purchasing Cold Rock ice-creams.  Then it was back to the Mercure to settle down for the night.

Day Eight - 20th July

A good nights'sleep at the Mercure and we even slept in until 8am.  Great buffet brekky and then we were off to explore Hobart.  We firstly walked around the Salamanca area and then drove south to the Shot Tower at Taroona - about 10 minutes drive away.  Nick and Jonathan climbed the 318 stairs to the top of the Shot Tower and I stayed down the bottom as I had climbed to the top on a previous visit and I was "freaked out" by the open tread stairs! afterwards we dove back into Hobart and wandered around the Docks area and admired all the wonderfully old buildings and had a ucik lunch.  Then it was back in the car and a five minute drive to the carpark of Cascade Brewery where we were to meet Chris and Judith for our "Louisa's Walk" tour.  We all thought that we were going to have a talk about the history of Hobart but the Louis'a walk was far more interesting.  The tour was a true stary about louisa who convicted of stealing a loaf of bread in London in 1834 and sentenced to gaol for 7 years in Van Diemans Land.  The story told of her sentencing, her voyage to Hobart and then of her life in the "Female Factory" (not called women's gaols) in Hobart.  This Female Factory actually housed more inmates than at Port Arthur. The main gaol wall was still erect and some of the "serious" offenders cells (10' x 3") were still visible. Louisa was a model prisoner and was "let out" to be a servant for a wealthy Hobart family ut she fell pregnant to her "master' so she was placed back into gaol where she subsequently had her baby daughter, Eliza.  Eliza was weaned after two ekks and Louisa was imprisoned in "hard labour" for six months for her crime of getting pregnant.  Unfortunately Eliza did not survive longer than a few months and is one of 900 babies/children to be buried in unmarked graves close to the prison site.  Luckily, louisa paid her time and married a local brewer and lived happily ever after. We thorooughly enjoyed the play/walk/tour - it was a really sad story but gave rel insight aout how prison life existed during the 1800's
After the Louisa's Walk tour which finished aout 5pm we went back into Hobart and dined at the upstairs Mures Seafood Restaurant and the food was absolutely fantastic.  We can thoroughly recommend this restaurant if you are looking for fine dining in Hobart.  We topped off the evening by drivin to North Hobart and wallking around their restaurant area and purchasing Cold Rock ice-creams.  Then it was back to the Mercure to settle don for the night.

Day Seven - 19th July

Caroline fom Ormiston House gave us a wonderful breakfast and gave us a "takeaway" pack full of raspberry muffins for journey back to Hobart this afternoon.  In the meantime we drove to the harbour and boarded the "Lady Jayne Franklin II" a superb catamaran cruiser.

It was our day to spend on-board this luxurious boat touring Macquarie Harbour (six times bigger than Sydney Harbour) and going through Hell's Gates which is the tiny 20m opening to the harbour. We also motored past giant salmon breeding fish farms which is where most of our "atlantic" salmon is produced. We reduced speed through the Franklin/Gordon River World Heritage area and this area is not to be missed.  It is absolutely gorgeous! Tannin is leached out of the soil into the river and the water is almost black in colour,  When taking photos of the rainforest and the river together, a mirror image effect is formed.  It is a magical place and all three of us were in awe of the beauty of the area.

 
On the way back to Strahan we stopped off at Sarah Island which is an old penal settlement.  Our narrator
Richard was a local actor from Strahan and was extremely entertaining telling us about the harsh life on Sarah Island.  We were very intrigued about Sarah Island and purchased a couple of books to give us further information.  The cruise was just wonderful, they provided us with a delicious buffet lunch and there were only 40 passengers n the boat which normally carries 220. When we arrived back in Strahan at 2pm we then headed off back to Hobart which was 4 hours drive away.  We really loved Strahan and we will definitely return to do the ABT Railway trip by steam train from Strahan to Queenstown. It is a really windy trip back to Hobart with just a couple ot stops to admire the scenery and to look at the snow.  It was the first snow that we had seen in Tasmania so we were quite excited,  Luckily, a snow plough had been through and ploughed the road so that it was safe to drive.

 It took us exactly four hours to drive the distance from Strahan to Hobart.  We were met warmly by the staff at the Mercure hotel in Hobart and had dinner in the hotel restaurant instead of 'going out" for dinner.

Day Six - 18th July

It was lovely to sleep with our potbelly fire running all night. We woke to a clear blue sky. We apologise for the intermittent blog posting but we are having difficulty getting signal for our wireless dongle.

 Now back to our day - We ate breakfast at Moby Dick's Breakfast Bar - a beautiful hearty breakfast of Eggs Benedict, Canadian Breakfast and waffles!. Then it was off to Highfield House for a quick look around this historic, iconic homestead. Then we were off on our long trek to Strahan on the far west coast. No hats or gloves needed again this morning - iust beautiful weather.

We drove south along the Murchison Highway through Jersey cattle country of rolling hills, then through the township of Yolla, and then the Hellyer Gorge which was a beautiful rainforest. We stopped at the mining town of Rosebery for lunch at the local bakery and continued to the next mining town of Zeehan and then it was another 35 minute drive into Strahan. We covered the 177km of the Murchison Hwy with only 17 cars passing us on the other side of the road - amazing!  We stopped at the Henty Sand Dunes and climbed slowly up the mighty hills and ran down the other side. It was heaps of fun!

 

 Strahan is a very pretty town and we decided to stay at the Ormiston House B & B.  A great choice as we had two rooms and bathroom to ourselves and the decor in the rooms was quite sensational.  Once all booked in, we went for a drive around town (which took a couple of minutes), collected our boarding passes for our boat cruise the following day and then went on a bushwalk to the Hogwarth Falls through amazing rainforest.  It had been raining lately in the Strahan area so the falls were "at their best".  We ate dinner at the Hamer Pub & Grill - roast lamb dinner and chocolate pudding.  Back to our B & B for coffee, port anc chocolates! 

Day Five - Sunday 17th July

We had a wonderful night's sleep at Barbara's "Alexandria" B&B. Barbara and her daughter, Jo, made us a magnificent English Breakfast and Jonathan was made Apple and Cinnamon Pancakes. We relaxed in their Dining/Longeroom (with an open fire), and Nick and JR were able to help Jo with some computer issues. Unfortunately, it was a rainy morning but we still happily set off the 56km to Smithton to the Tarkine Forest Adventure to visit the Dismal Swamp. 

 It was a beautiful drive in the countryside with lush green rolling hills - we were in dairy country! We arrived at Dismal Swamp, under a dismal sky and to our dismay the giant dismal slide into the dismal swamp, was dismally closed, due to the dismal drizzle! The Swamp (over 100m deep) floor is covered in rainforest and it would have been wonderful for us to slide into the swamp but alas sunshine was needed. We will have to return to Dismal Swamp another time as it looks like a lot of fun. We drove back to Stanley and had a leisurely lunch in the "Chin Wag" Cafe. We then sought out accommodation for the night and paid $130,00 for a really cute and clean two room cottage called Pol's Cottage.  Afterwards we walked/climbed "the Nut" - a huge rocky outcrop in Stanley and we huffed and puffed to the top (although one of us ran most of the way) and then we walked around the summit.  The views were just stunning and we could see islands 30km away quite clearly as the drizzle and clouds had dissipated. 

 We then went for a stroll along the foreshore of Godfreys Beach in search of penguin's burrows but we were later told that the penguins hadd "moved along"and wouldn't return to stanley until October.  We dined at the bistro at the Stanley Hotel and once again we were not dissapointed with the choices and quality of the food.  Back to Pol's Cottage to sit by the open fireplace and relax with our books.

Day Four - Saturday 16th July

Once again, we had a lovely night's sleep and awakened to another lovely clear sunny day. We thoroughly enjoyed our breakfast at the "Links" restaurant and waddled out to our car and drove to Cataract Gorge for some morning exercise of walking and for Nick and Jonathan to go on the Basin Chairlift. There were great views from the chairlift, the many walking tracks and the suspension bridge.

 We walked off our huge breakfast! Next, a 20km drive north to the Platypus House at Beauty Point where we watched an informative video about a platypus and its "puggles" in the wild. We then had a guided tour informing us about the four resident platypi (named Jupiter and Porky - boys, Dusk and Piccolo - girls) and their two echidnas (Eddie - girl, Edwina - boy). Eddie was in hiding under a huge muddy/leafy messy nest in semi-hibernation but hopefully giving birth, so we didn't see her. But Edwina was a fascinating little creature who gave us a wonderful show of eating his lunch which consisted of termites, ants, farex, fly larvae, olive oil and water. A delicious meal for an echidna with a long tongue!

Once again we were on the road but this time heading through the picturesque countryside for our next stop at Elizabeth Town. We pulled into the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm to stock up on raspberry jam.  We also sampled their delicious chocolate covered raspberries - a real delight!  We then pushed on and our next stop was the "House of Anvers" chocolate shop/factory where we stopped for a hot chocolate and to buy some "goodies". We then drove onto to Sheffield to buy some special apple cakes that we had eaten on a previous visit to Tasmania and we were bitterly disappointed that the bakery has closed for the day! We then travelled in a northerly direction towards Devonport passing through the quaint little townships of Railton and La Trobe and amazing countryside to view. We passed through Burnie and Penguin and decided to stay the night in Wynyard at a very nice B & B called Alexandria B & B.  We went to the local pub called The Wharf Hotel for dinner - excellent food once again and then baack to the B & B for port and chocolates!

Tip of the day - if you ever need to catch a platypus in the wild, always hold the platypus by the tail for two resasons.  Firstly, if you hold a platypus around its body you could crush its thin bones and seondly, if the platypus is a male, it could seriously harm (or kill you) with its very poisonous back spur. 

Second tip of the day - never ever take Green Tree Frogs into Tasmania because for some unknown reason they poison the local Platypi in the wild.