Well we've done some km's this last week, nothing like what we'd do on the mainland though. We travelled through the central plateau and couldn't believe how dry it is, compared to the coast and how small Tassie is, it's remarkable how little rain the centre gets.
We spent a few nights at Hamilton and caught up on essentials, like real showers and laundry. Unfortunately not a free camp but at $5 a night plus $1 showers who's complaining, and a power point in the bbq area to charge the laptop and camera batteries, bonus.
We also spent a couple of nights hidden behind the community hall at Maydena and arrived just in time for their Australia Day celebrations and sausage sizzle, another bonus day. From there we did a day trip out to Gordon Dam and saw the 2000 yr old Huon Pine log at Strathgordon, unfortunately some dirty bugger had set up camp around it and had stored his booze in the hollow as well as other rubbish in and around it. There was a fishing tournament nearby so we assume he was with that. Sid cleared the hollow so we could take pickies and wonder in awe at what it represented. The rings are labelled with what took place at some of the tree's life stages, for example "Romans leave Britain 411", "Battle of Hastings 1066", "Joan of Arc burnt at stake 1431" up until the tree was felled in 1975. I think it also had "Birth of Christ" on it but someone stole it.
We've just camped the last three nights at Hobart Showgrounds ($12 a night plus $1 showers) and went by bus into Salamanca Markets on Saturday. That place is huge, it just went on and on, but much of the same thing over and over again – wood stall, hat stall, fruit stall, lolly stall, another wood stall, jewellery stall, etc. We bought ourselves some lollies and a bit of lunch but everything else was really expensive, we still enjoyed the day though.
The Hobart Showgrounds hosts a Sunday market so that was an easy walk from camp – one side of the showgrounds to the other. A good size market but a bit of a garage sale really, lots and lots of junk, probably treasure to some though. Erin bought herself another necklace and I got a small shoulder bag that's ideal for holding my water bottle when we're hiking. We had to laugh, Sid bought an exercise bike for $20 and spent the afternoon disassembling it so he could fit it in his motor home.
School started back for us last week, Tasmania is on school holidays until 16th Feb as they only have three terms down here so it's a bit hard to get motivated. We are gradually getting back into routine but we have only heard from two of Erin's teachers and it's week two already, I feel for the school as they were surrounded by flood waters so things are a little hectic as they get back on deck.
