Linda & Pete's Travels Jan to April 2018 - Tasmania

Monday morning, the 16 th , we woke to a reasonable morning and the first thing I noticed was the temperature was a good three or four degrees warmer than we had been having for several weeks before. But it was not the temperature that was the main thing. It was not raining and blowing a gale. Did not think I would be praising Victorian weather. We left Donnybrook which is a semi-rural area just north of Melbourne. Oh how good it was to be on roads that were not tight windy bends and huge climbs. I realise this was the Hume Hwy and that when you go some back roads there will be more bends etc, but those windy and hilly roads are just not near as concentrated on the mainland. We had a good run all the way and stopped at Holbrook for lunch. We could tell there was a lot of history there but we did not have time to see it. We had decided to stay at Gundagai which would give us time to see the town there but if we took to long at Holbrook we would not have time. The camp at Gu...

And then it was Sunday the 15 th April. This is the day we leave Tazzie. We got word that the Spirit of Tasmania was delaying the boarding for a late leaving. Whereas the normal departure time was 9.30am it was now going to be 10.30am. The reason was that the weather was so bad on the Saturday that everything was delayed. I assume the night sail had also been delayed and there would be a lot of knock on effect. So we left our van park about 8am to queue up for ticketing and boarding. That side of it went very smoothly but an ominous sign was that after most of us had got through that process there was still no boat there for us to board. I spoke to one of the marshalling staff who said that the swell in Bass Strait was 6 metres. The boat finally arrived and started unloading. It seemed to take ages after the unloading for them to start loading us on board. I am not criticizing the staff or the process as cleaning up all the vomit on the boat would have taken an age, let alon...

On the morning of Friday the 13 th April we left Smithton to stay at Penguin which was where we began our trip in Tazzie. There are three free camps near Penguin. This time we stayed at the Surf Club. We were not there to sight see this time. Our trip was nearly over as we were sailing back to the mainland on the Sunday. We had now seen all there was worth seeing in Tazzie. Smithton and the Tarkine Forest where we had just come from had been the last area we had not covered. We chose Penguin as it was near Devonport and we were going there for our last night on the Saturday. When we had been to Penguin previously the free camps were packed but we have found so many of the camps and van parks have been emptying out over the last week or two. That night we had a fire as we still had a bit of wood left on board. We had got talking to our neighbours soon after arriving. The two couples were from Woollongong and very nice people. So they joined us around the campfire and...