December 25 Tasmania MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas everyone and greetings from Tasmania.

Well, we haven't made it too far away from Devonport yet, we moved from the farm last Tuesday to a nice little camp spot at Pioneer Park, Riana. $7 a night with access to power and hot showers ($1 for 5 minutes). It's a little bit cooler here but nice and quiet and out of the way for the Christmas holiday onslaught.

We have grouped up with our friends Sid and Bing and new friends from the farm, Len and Helen, as well as a Canadian couple and one of the Park caretakers, Jo, for a Christmas feast. We are all bringing a plate for mains - Geoff and I are doing our usual Chang's Chicken Salad as well as making brandy butter and brandy custard (shops were sold out). We've got desserts laid on, Helen has made a rum fruitcake, Sally (from the farm we were at) gave us a pavlova before we left, I've made caramel brownies and Jo has made a pineapple fruit cake. Now, where are my elastic banded pants……..

We've done a few touristy things like going to Sheffield for the murals, Railton for the topiaries, Don for the markets and railway and we've seen the big Penguin dressed in his Santa suit at Penguin.

The weather here is incredible, for me it's thermals one day and t-shirt for half the next day before the wind picks up and drops the temperature again. We've had our fair share of rain too, minor flooding in Devonport caused a bit of damage to some shops including Woolworths and the library. On the up-side everything is flourishing and green here. The pyrethrum and poppy fields are in flower and there are so many cottage gardens and rose bushes everywhere.

Erin had a nice birthday, we got take out pizzas and sat on a brick wall in Devonport and watched the Christmas parade go past. Sid, Bing, Helen and Len joined us. After the parade we watched the police chase a couple of older teens through Macdonalds where we had stopped for ice cream afterwards, who needs telly? Erin did well with birthday money and bought herself a new DS as her old one was so well used the buttons barely respond anymore. The remainder is burning a hole in her pocket, combined with her Christmas money, and she has been browsing through catalogues on-line.

We've just had a surprise from Len and Helen, they had Christmas stockings for each of us with little pressies representing wishes – Peace, Joy, Love, Laughter and Wealth. I hope everyone has had as wonderful a morning as we have.

Best Wishes and Merry Christmas to all. We hope everyone has a happy and prosperous new year.

December 11 Day 596 Devonport, Tasmania

We've had a pretty good run down the coast and been really lucky with the weather. I'm very glad we didn't come down the middle of NSW as we'd probably be still trying to get through.

We managed to visit Wilson's Promontory on the way and had a surprise visit from a wombat during the night. Erin was so stoked she that she almost kissed it. It was great that she finally got to see a live wombat as we'd seen two dead on the road on the way in and our visit to Squeaky Beach was marred by the countless dead birds on the shore and a dead seal. Poor thing was in tears (Erin, not the seal).

We caught the ferry last night from Port Melbourne and arrived at 5 past 5 to board the boat nice and early, gates opened at 5pm, yeah, nice try. As we are a little on the large size now, it was 6.40pm before we actually drove on board, one of the last. All the motor homes and vans are packed in like sardines on the garage deck and you have to breathe in and duck under mirrors to make your way to the elevators. The trip over was a bit rough and the boat rocked a bit but it wasn't so much the rocking that was bad, it was so noisy. The boat would shudder violently every so often and the engines were very loud. We consequently got very broken sleep. I don't know if it was just because we were in the recliners or if the cabins are just as noisy. We each got provided with a little pillow and a lovely warm blanket and front row seats looking straight out the rear windows, great views of Melbourne as we left. At 5am we got a wake up call and all the lights were turned back on. Our long wait to get on the ship was not repeated during disembarkation and we were about the fourth off the boat at 6.40am. Breakfast in a nearby carpark at 7am, our grocery shopping was done by 8am, great finding parking at that time of the morning, and then to a quiet location by the beach to catch some more zzzz's.

We are currently camped on a farm east of Devonport due to receiving a phone call from a friend of a friend who is also expecting said friend to arrive here on Wednesday. Erin is having a ball, there are pet parrots here, a dog and a cat and lots of cows. A great place to sit for a while and do day trips from for surrounding areas. I think tomorrow we'll head down to Railton and Sheffield for a look around. Today is just a rest day, we are all feeling a little jet-lagged.

I also found a nifty program for plotting our route that's a lot easier to use than Google Maps, if anyone is interested it's at http://www.routeconverter.de/downloads/en and I've uploaded our latest trip map in the photo album as well as other photos.

 

December 1, Day 586 Yellow Pinch Dam

Yes, we're back on the road and well on our way to Melbourne and The Spirit of Tasmania.  Our stint at home saw us pull out one of the front beds and build a storage area for the washing machine, laundry hamper, battery box, buckets etc as our floor area was almost non-existent when travelling from W.A. We also took out a lot of deadweight that we'd accumulated over the past 18mths as well as the 50kg fridge that had become a cupboard due to lack of 240 volt access and lack of desire to stay at caravan parks to power the thing.

We were hoping to have fixed all our leaks alas, as any caravan owner knows, you just can't get them all. The front window is still a big problem and is showing a bit of rot around the inside frame. That's going to have to come out to be repaired – next time we stop for an extended period of time. Yay.

We left home last Thursday 25^th and have been gradually making our way down the east coast. Having done the westernmost point of mainland Australia last year, we couldn't go past Byron Bay without doing the easternmost point too. The weather was fantastic and it took us two hours to do the circuit walk past the point and the light house. It might have taken us less time but they don't let caravans past a certain point and don't allow for parking anywhere near it so we had to walk up. Well worth the effort though, even with a whiney teen on our tail. Sorry, Erin joyfully strolling along with us. J

I'm already sick of toll roads, Brisbane got us on the Gateway and Sydney got us on the M2 and the M7, I think I've worked out Melbourne so it can't get us too. I wouldn't mind so much if it was just pay at a booth and keep going but now you have to set up accounts and pay set up fees just for using a couple of roads, once.

I can't fault the coastal countryside in NSW, we've had some stunning, albeit wet, views. Everything is beautiful and green, the rivers are flowing and there are flowers everywhere. Geoff decided he'd like to set up shop in Moss Vale, near Mittagong, until I reminded him how cold it gets there.

We enjoyed the Bega Cheese factory this morning, they had lots of cheeses to try and we bought, yep you guessed it, cheese! Ok, it wasn't just cheese, it was Smokey BBQ, which was quite nice.

We've had a mixed bag of free camps on the way here, a couple we've had to ourselves, a couple of very popular and full ones and one where we went to bed on our own and woke up surrounded! Last night's campsite at Waldron's Swamp lived up to its name as I managed to get a rather large leach on my leg, ugh. Our current spot is about a kilometre away from the road and is full already, I'm glad we got here early in the day, it wouldn't be easy to turn around once it filled right up.

Photos have been updated too.

Until next time....