Today we bade a fond farewell to Coles Bay, where the temperature this morning was 6 degrees, feels like -1. The wind was brutal, but no snow to be seen.

There are some nice towns along the way, such as Swansea and Sorrell, but right in the middle of nowhere we came across this coffee shop, where we enjoyed a nice cuppa and a Mars Bar slice. Lunch was cheese and ham on buns, enjoyed in the warmth of the car in a park in Sorrell.

The Salamanca Inn is located right next to the famous markets, but road closures made it hard to find our way in. We pulled over when we could find a parking space and rang the hotel. The receptionist cheerily told us to drive around the Road Closed barrier and into the car park where she would raise the barrier for us.

We found the place and checked in. This is our room…

Very classy!

With an hour to spare before closing time, we wandered down to the markets. It is exhausting just looking at it, let alone walk around the stalls. Apparently this happens every Saturday.

There are numerous transport options available. The Spirit of Tasmania does not normally come to Hobart, but is here to show off the latest incarnation before it returns to Melbourne for fitting out.

Margaret unwittingly demonstrated the changes in telecommunications in our lifetime.

It is Margaret’s birthday today, so feel free to call or text her with appropriate blessings. 😀

Dinner tonight is room service from the swanky hotel restaurant. Should be good!

A beautiful start to the morning at Coles Bay today. Sky and sea are blue, no wind and not too cold.

The forecast was for deteriorating weather during the afternoon, so we decided to check out the Tourville Lighthouse.

The lighthouse is in the Freycinet National Park, just 15 km away.

We came across a group of people at one lookout. They were excitedly looking at a rocky island a little way off the coast.

If you look closely at the top of the rock on the left, you may see a dark spot, which it turns out is a fur seal. Zooming in on my original I actually found half a dozen scattered around the rock. Here is a cropped version that might help you see them.

This is our last night here. Just two more nights in Hobart before we fly home. It has been a very relaxing and refreshing time.

Day 7! That means only 4 days left!

This morning the weather was terrible- very wet in Launceston. We were going to visit the famous Launceston Gorge, but the weather was not inviting. Instead we travelled to our next stop, St Helens.

The East Coast is more like your normal coastal towns on the mainland. The West Coast is far more rugged and towns are isolated from each other and from the main population centres.

Our room wasn’t ready so we had lunch and headed for the Bay of Fires. By now the rain was coming down and the wind was getting close to 100 km/hr. I quickly jumped out of the car, threw my coat on and snapped a few photos before we got blown into the ocean.

We then headed back to the Panorama Hotel, where our room was ready to enter. We have a magnificent view from our upstairs room, and the balcony is on the sheltered side of the building so it isn’t too bad out there.

We only have one night here so tomorrow we move on to Coles Bay, thence on to Hobart.

Today was cold, wet and windy in Northern Tasmania, so activities were limited to food related options.

Our first stop was The Tea Equation just outside of Launceston. The very friendly lady told us it was started by her mother and step-father as a hobby, but has grown faster than they expected. They take genuine Tasmania-grown tea from the Huon Valley and make up various blends. At our hotel, there is a daily compliment of two English Breakfast and two Earl Gray tea bags. I am not a fan of Earl Gray, but the English Breakfast is very nice.

We decided then to go for a drive to Devonport, a bit over 100 km from Launceston. What else is there to do on a day like this? Devonport is the Tasmania terminus of the Spirit of Australia ferry that links Tasmania to the mainland.

Not far from Devonport is Anvers Chocolate Factory. This was started by an immigrant from Belgium in the 19th Century. The picture shows the various types of cacao bean that are used in various stylers of chocolate making, as well as some moulds.

It was lunch time, so we sat down at the cafe there and had a completely chocolate free lunch. I had a toasted turkey and cranberry sandwich, while Margaret had a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. That alone was worth the admission price as they say (admission is free, but you get the idea). Lunch was choc free, but we did buy some merchandise to make sure it was up to required quality standards.

I notice that today is Day 6, and that means we are over half way through our holiday. Tomorrow we move on to St Helens for one night.

Today we managed to buy some scissors. When we went through security at Tamworth Airport, they found not one pair but two pairs of kindy scissors in Margaret’s carry on bag. The security operators thought is was a farce that they had to confiscate them- what would we do with kindy scissors, do some violent decoupage? You would’t believe how many times we have said in the last week, “Scissors would be handy for that.”

Beauty Point is a point on the Tamar River, 45 km from Launceston, and is located a few km from the ocean. It is a few km from the mining town of Beaconsfield, which many people will remember from the accident that left several miners trapped underground almost 20 years ago.

Beauty Point has a long history of fishing, but it is also home to Seahorse World, the biggest breeder of seahorses in Australia, mainly for pets and research. On the same property is a Creation Museum, which is only open Thursday to Saturday in the off-season, so we missed that one.

We went on a 45 minutes guided tour of the various display tanks and the breeding tanks. They have display tanks of various species of sea horse, some of which are native to Tasmania, but others from far away places, including the Great Barrier Reef.

The facility also breeds a few species of handfish which are all under threat. These fish are native to Tasmania. Rather than swimming, they propel themselves along the bottom using protuberances that look very much like human hands. They are a form of angler fish- you can see the “lure” poking out from his head. Other fish are attracted by the lure and when they come close to get a good look at it the hand fish catches them.

This rock lobster is over 30 years old, despite thousands of visitors thinking it might make a good lunch.

This fish is called the Old Wife. It has venomous spines in its dorsal fins that deliver a nasty sting. I won’t make any comparisons with other elderly spouses.

Seahorse World is a wonderful facility. Nearby there is another shed dedicated to the platypus and echidna. They have guided tours there, too, but I think we were overdone with nature, and we decided to go and have our sandwiches at the Beaconsfield Mining and Cultural Centre. There is a very nice park there. Much of Tasmania has daffodils blooming in parks, gardens, and even along fences. That is something you don’t see in Narrabri 😀

This afternoon, I made a huge technological leap forward. I have this wonderful new laptop, the only downfall of which is it only has USB-C slots, that’s the version you get on phones. The trouble is that my camera has a lead with the older style USB-A plug. Until now, I have had to get my photos off my camera by sending them to my phone, then uploading them to Google Photos, then downloading them from there to my laptop. We found JB HiFi this afternoon and I bought an adaptor that lets me plug the camera to the laptop.

We have another full day in Launceston tomorrow, so we have to work out which places to visit.

Today we are in Strahan on the West Coast of Tasmania. We spent most of the day cruising the mighty Gordon River.

The boat is a kind of hybrid with both diesel and electric motors. This means that you can cruise up the river almost silently to absorb the ambiance of the wilderness.

Margaret was very happy to be onboard, and I was trying to smile and press the right button on the phone camera at the same time.

The cruise is very pleasant with excellent presentations on history, cultural and environmental issues. We stopped off for a couple of easy guided walks.

We had an hour on Sarah Island which was, in its time, the most brutal convict colony in Australia.

It was also a place of amazing ingenuity, especially when it came to escaping. One convict who escaped and was picked up in Hobart, was set free to assist in surveying the highlands which he had just traversed and had unique knowledge.

Over time Sarah Island established a boat building industry because of Huon Pine which was regarded as an amazing timber for all kinds of construction. When the order came to close down the penal settlement, they left 10 convicts along with the master ship builder to finish the remaining ships that were partly built. When they came to completing the final one, the 10 convicts stole it and sailed it to Chile. They were eventually recaptured by the British and brought back to Australia where they were charged with piracy and stealing a boat. They argued that since the ship was never registered it was nothing more than a collection of materials, and since the offences took place in the Harbour, it was not “on the high seas.” The magistrate agreed, and they were convicted of stealing rather than the much graver offences.

Tomorrow we head off to Launceston (pronounced Lonceston not Lawnceston). Will we go via Cradle Mountain?

Today was all about driving. Hobart to Strahan is about 300 km by road, but it actually takes well over 3 hours. The speed limit is 100 km/hr, but much of it is winding mountain roads so you are travelling at less than 60 km/hr around the curves.

After a very nice buffet breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant (it would want to be nice at $25 each!), we hit the road for our first tourist attraction.

We stopped at Woolies to buy the groceries for the days where our meals aren’t covered.

After this stop, the road took us to the very rugged and isolated West Coast of Tasmania. The extensive Hydro Electric scheme has facilities and power stations at many places through the highlands and along the West Coast.

We stopped for a quick bite at Nives River, where a friendly raven entertains passing humans by eating food scraps they throw him.

Further north the mountains become very bare due to the top soil having washed away, leaving bare rock where plants can’t gain a foothold. I was surprised when we got out at Horsetail Falls that there was no sound of life at all- no bird calls even. The falls themselves don’t look that spectacular as the water just flows along a channel worn into the rock. But the roar of the water tells you that there is a hufe quantity falling over the rock and into the valley below.

We arrived at Strahan late in the afternoon. We are booked into a facility known simply as Strahan Village. It seems to be owned by NRMA, which you normally associate with NSW, but they must operate in Tasmania as well. The village contains several building on the one site, with varying levels of accommodation. We have a good sized unit at the top of the hill. Here is the view from the back door.

Our room comes with $75 of meal credits at the local Bistro and Pub. We chose the Pub, where we ordered a $26 burger each and orange juice. We came close to using the full $75 in one go. If we had gone to the Bistro we would have been over the allowance. It was good tucker.

Tomorrow we will spend the day cruising the Gordon River

Day 1 of our holiday was dominated by travel. It’s a long way from Narrabri to Hobart! (1400 km as the crow flies). We set out at 6.30 am to drive to Tamworth Airport. From there we flew to Sydney with a 2 hour stop over before flying to Hobart.

Weather at home was damp, and we were worried about not being able to make it to Tamworth due to flooding. But God is good, and the flood peaks at Carroll (between Gunnedah and Tamworth) were not expected until tonight. From the air, we could see that there is a lot of water on the ground around Tamworth, so there is a flood of some size heading down to Narrabri over the next week or so.

After rain at home and rain in Sydney, it was funny to get to Hobart where it was warmer and sunny, contrary to all expectations.

Now we are at the Ibis Styles Hotel in the centre of Hobart. We have great views from the room, which by itself is tiny.

The Mr Good Guys Asian Restaurant, located in the hotel, is quite nice. We shared Malaysian Satay Chicken Skewers (described as a small plate, but it was enough for two of us) with a side of jasmine rice. It was really nice after a long day.

Tomorrow we head up to Strachan, about 200 km away, but a 5 hour drive. It describes itself as a village, so it will be nice to get away from the “big city” (Hobart’s population is 191,000) and into the country.