Today was what one might refer to as a ‘rest day’. Mum, Tess and I started the day scowling through the shelves of Harvey Norman, searching for a new kettle after our old kettle decided to stop working! For lunch, we went to the Cole River Farm Cafe, which was rather scrumptious! In the afternoon, Tess and Dad went to the Maritime Museum, and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Just as an added interesting note: Today we met a man who is staying in a cabin at our caravan park. This man is from the remote and somewhat isolated town of Whitehorse, Canada. He comes over to Tasmania in our summer (Canadian winter) to work as a fire bomber, that is, flying a fixed wing plane and dropping water on fires!

  
A little bandicoot that came to visit us near our caravan in Hobart (Cambridge).

Tara

We started the day early hoping to get breakfast on the way to the car ferry to go over to Bruny Island. We failed over and over again getting breakfast. First we thought there must be a maccas as on the way, no. Then we thought there must be a cafe on the ferry dock, yes there was and it had a big flag out the front saying breakfast so we walked over but it was closed! We then went to the island and went to three different cafes all closed! We then gave up and went to catch a tour boat! Turns out there was a cafe there at the office but the ONLY thing on the menu was blueberry muffins so we had that! We then caught the boat it was very fun. We saw lots of caves in the cliffs and a big blow hole! Later we saw a big number of seals! It was amazing but the seals had a very bad smell. We then had a look around the island before only JUST making it onto the ferry. We had to park on a very strange angle to fit in. We then went back and had a light dinner.

  
On the boat.

 
A blowhole from a cliff on Bruny Island.

 Four Shags on a rock!

  The granite cliffs of Bruny Island. 

  Lots of Australian Fur Seals.

  Soooo cute!

  We saw lots of caves.

  A view from the lookout on the neck of Bruny Island.

  Two happy campers.

  Two very happy parents!  
Tess

Today, we visited Port Arthur. We were lucky enough to go on three different tours.

1. Isle Of The Dead tour: we boarded a boat that took us across some water to a very small island. This island is where they buried everyone, convicts and free settlers included. But, whilst the fact that they buried one and all on the same small island may appear to indicate a rather even, fair and unbiased society, this was not the case. They still found a way to seperate the different ‘classes’ of people. The good, important people were on the higher side of the island (perhaps just that little bit closer to heaven?), and the bad convicts on the lower (perhaps a little closer to hell?). We all found the tour to be extremely fascinating and eye-opening! Our tour guide was actually a descendant of one of the men buried on the island!
2. Introductory Tour: this tour took us around the main part of the settlement. We learnt about the main buildings and was has happened to them thus far. It is, really, just because of the tourists that the buildings are so well looked after these days.
3. Point Puer: Point Puer was where all the convict boys, aged between 9 and 17 went. There were up to 700 hundred boys in an area of 2.5 acres. The idea was to keep the younger ones away from the influence of older convicts. However, in the end, a lot of the teachers and people in charge on Point Puer were ex-convicts. Boys were deemed useless and girls useful, hence why the girls were sent to the female factory to become servants, and the boys just left on Point Puer.

On the way home, we stopped at the naturally Tessellated pavement, Doo Town (where most of the house have names like Doo Drop Inn, Doo you?,  Doo I?, Doodle Doo, Gunna Doo, Can Doo, Toucan Doo, and many more!). At Doo Town we also had Fish ‘n’ Chips for dinner at the blowhole!

 On the way to Port Arthur, we had to stop when they opened up the road to let a boat through!

 This is the main building of the Port Arthur settlement. This building was actually built to be a wheat mill, however it proved to be a rather unsuccessful venture, and closed within a year of opening. Then it became storage for supplies needed in the settlement. Interestingly enough, the bars on the windows were not installed when it later became a convict gaol, but they were put in while it was a place of storage to keep the supplies in and the thieves out! When it finally became a gaol, they had solitary confinement sells down on the ground floors. Basically, the way it worked was that they had the worst prisoners down on the bottom floors, and the ‘best’ prisoners on the top. The top floor had many more privileges. Towards the end of the convict settlement era, the grounds became somewhat of an Old People’s Home because all the convicts that had spent the most part of their life there had no where else to go.

 The convicts were not supposed to have headstones, so most of the headstones and memory stones or head stones of more important people.

 Pacific Gulls – juvenile

 Pacific Gulls

 A White Faced Herron having a bad hair day
 White Faced Herron having a good hair day.

  The beach at Puer Island looking over to The Isle of the Dead.

 Point Puer

 Tasman Arch

 Some more magnificent coastline!

 A crayfish boat

  Fish and chips from the “Doolicious” food Van at Doo Town.

 Don’t pat the puppy!

 Look who’s in the dog house now!

 Hodded Plovers on the beach at Eaglehawk Neck

 Tessellated Pavement at Eaglehawk Neck.

Tara

First we went to MONA the museum of old and new art. From Tara, Mum and my point of view it was very …”different”. Dad liked most of it even though he said he couldn’t really understand the meaning of some parts. Tara, Mum and I skimmed through a couple of rooms before heading to the café! Later we went to the wharf and had some very nice fish and chips for lunch before going to the Female Factory. The Female Factory was a convict prison for women. Other than one, all of the buildings are no longer there although the big stone walls separating each yard are still there. Each yard had a purpose. One section was for solitary confinement, this was also broken up into 2 sections one was the completely dark no noise one which was for a more severe punishment and the other part was cells that had a little light, but while in them, the convicts had to pull apart big pieces of rope with their hands. Their hands would eventually become raw, blisterd and infected.

 This was a trampoline at MONA that for some reason gave us two bodies in the photos.

A big sculpture at MONA. 

 This was a wall of water at MONA it squirted out words!!

The Cascade factory.

Female Factory.

Tess

Today, we started the day off with a fantastic 5km run or walk – the Cadbury Marathon (well, we did the 5k, but…). The run started out the front of the Cadbury Factory, weaved its way through the nearby golf course, and came to an end at the back of the factory.  Perhaps a little ironically, in each finishers pack, there was a block of chocolate. This was arguably the best part of the run! However, we all thoroughly enjoyed the run itself! After the run, we made our way to Richmond, a lovely old town on the outskirts of Hobart. There, we strolled the streets, browsed the shops, sipped on Nutella Milkshakes, and stuffed our faces at the pub for lunch. We visited the beautiful old bridge, built in 1823 by convict labour and the miniature old Hobart town. At a scale of 1:16, the miniature model depicted Hobart Town in the 1820’s. It took three years to build, and was mostly based off actual town plans and maps of that time, really quite amazing!

Tara 

The start.

  
The track – we did the 5 km one.

  
We did it!!

  
The things you do for chocolate!

  
The Richmond Bridge. Oldest bridge still in use in Australia.

After a quick breaky we went to see The Wall In The Wilderness at Derwent Bridge. It is a big wooden wall carved with many animals and people etc. It is 100 metres long made by one person, it has been going for ten years and is due to finish in 15 months. Sorry there are not photos we weren’t allowed to take any of the wall. We arrived in Hobart and went to see the Salamanca market before going back to the caravan for chicken satay.

Tess

After a quick breakfast on the beach near our caravan, we headed off to Strahan to catch the cruise boat! The trip was very exiting we learnt  a lot about the history of the bay and Gordon river which is in a World Heritage area. We had  2 stops on the way one was for a half an hour rainforest walk which was very beautiful and the other was on Sarah island an which they sent convicts to in the olden days. There was still old wrecks of buildings such as the individual isolation rooms, well they weren’t really rooms they were the same dimensions as coffins!

We had a yummy lunch then headed back to land! After a longish drive we arrived at lake St Clair and had Kelly pasta for dinner!

  
Breakfast with friends on the beach at Strahan.

A lighthouse near Hells Gates.

An 80 year old Huon Pine in front of a 500 year old Huon Pine. A Whitey Wood tree on the left.

It was a very drizzly day but the scenery was still lovely. It rains 300 days per annum on average here.

On the boat.

 A photo taken from Sarah Island.

One of the relics on Sarah Island.

 Skimming stones on Lake StClair. We are now at the other end of the national park, you can just see Cradle Mountain peeping up the back.

 Lake StClair

 Gerard and Tess  contemplating life.

 Tess’ artistic photos from Sarah Island.

Tess

The fog still hung heavy and low around Cradle Mountain National Park as we hitched up the van and drove out in the wee hours of the morning. We stopped in Rosebury, a quaint but in many ways deserted town, for a quick breakfast. It had not yet passed midday when we arrived at Strahan, our final destination for the day. We were lucky enough to find apon our arrival that the previous occupants of our site had already departed. We had a lunch that really was nothing to write home about, therefore I will not go into any detail. In the afternoon, we found our selves walking through an area that somewhat resembled the Sahara Desert with two tabogans trailing along behind us. However, it was not the Sahara Desert, funnily enough, it was the Henty Sand Dunes! Situated just 10 kilometres north of Strahan, the Henty Sand Dunes provide a thrilling natural playground! At first, we struggled to find a dune that we were able to slide down, but eventually, on the advice of our next door neighbours from the caravan park who we happened to bump into at the dunes, we came across a very steep sand dune. The prospect of sliding (or rather, plummeting) down it was rather daunting at first, but after our first go, we found that we didn’t slide as fast as we were expecting, but it was lots and lots of fun! We finished the day off with seafood at a local cafe and then a game of Cluedo back at the van!

Tara

  
Tara was first to brave the sand dune. She is the spec down the bottom.

  
It was so hard to climb back up, we could only do it a couple of times.

  
This is Tara walking down after she pushed Mum off the edge in her tabaggon.

Today we started off with yummy bacon and eggs for breakfast then walked to the visitor information centre to get a bus pass into the mountains. While in the line for the bus we ran into a family from Elphinstone! When we reached Dove Lake in the mountains and we went for a very long walk which was rather hard. We then came back and had a BBQ for dinner.

  
Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake

  
There were some very steep ascents and descents on our long walk.

  
The scenery was spectacular. This photo is of Twisted Lakes.

  
We walked all around Dove Lake and we were very high up.

  
Three happy walkers with Mum lagging behind!

  
A beautiful place to walk around.

Tess

First up today, we packed up the caravan and headed off for breakfast at House Of Anvers in Latrobe. From there we went on to a cherry farm where we tasted and purchased some absolutely divine cherries!! We arrived at Cradle Mountain in time for lunch and then a drive around. Along the way, we picked up a few brochures and what not that would help us plan our day for tomorrow. After a lovely dinner of pesto pasta at the caravan, we went down the road to the Tasmanian Devil Park where we went on a night feeding tour. We all found it extremely interesting and exciting to see the Devils up so close.
   
   
We started the day with a “light” Belgian breakfast at the House of Anvers Chocolate Factory.

  
A pademelon came to see us at our caravan site in Cradle Mountain.

  
A wombat we saw on the side of the road.

A Tassie Devil at the sanctuary.

Tara