East coast trip

It's Thursday night and we got back about 6 from our 4 day tour of part of the East coast. We've been lucky with the weather, mostly fine and sunny. And accommodation has worked out well. Jon and I have found rooms as required and Chris has camped out, but mostly made good use of our showers and kitchen facilities. Which seems like cheating to me, but don't tell him I said so.
We started off by visiting Port Arthur's penal settlement. This was fascinating and very well presented.
All three of us are more interested in natural features than museums and towns so we've taken in some wonderful sights,- blowholes, rock arches, tunnel caves and tessellated pavements











- and passed through and walked in very varied countryside and coast. Chris has swum



but we've opted out, as the water's pretty cold. But the beaches are just beautiful and, being the end of the season, practically deserted.

For me the highlight was a visit to a conservation park for Tasmanian devils. And it wasn't even the devils themselves, though they were interesting to see and learn about. There is a dreadful facial cancer afflicting them in the wild and this park maintains a breeding programme of disease-free devils, with a view to releasing them when there is a vaccine or the disease has been eradicated. Since there are only about 300 altogether, it is unlikely that the population will survive.




It was the Forestier kangaroos we loved. Feeding time meant visitors hand-feeding them. It was lovely to be so close, to have them feeding from our hands and to stroke their softly furry backs. Jon took about 50 photos of Chris and me amongst them and I have only been able to delete the ones with his finger in the way or out of focus. I just can't ditch any of them.







We spent three nights away. The first was in a lovely B&B on a hillside with a telescope on the terrace overlooking Wedge Bay.



The stars were beautiful and the owners pointed out the constellations and the Southern Cross. In the morning when Chris turned up, he was welcomed to the breakfast table and given tea and toast.



We set off from there to the devils, about 20 minutes drive away, and were just going in when we were hailed by the owner bringing Chris' sweater, which had been left behind. I must say we have found the natives very friendly and helpful everywhere!

The second night we struggled to find anywhere and ended up in a real dive which was a shed very poorly converted into a self-catering apartment with a bathroom not only not en-suite, but in a separate outhouse. Not good.

But the last one was again lovely, on a small farm near Deloraine with complimentary freshly baked muffins, and bacon and new-laid eggs for breakfast. Our landlords were utterly confused that Chris chose to bivouac on their lawn instead of taking advantage of one of the beds in the second bedroom. I can understand why.

We drove back today through the lake district and are preparing for a trip to Bruny Island on Saturday/Sunday. We were hoping to see the fairy penguins marching in from the sea for the night but the season is September to February. It looks as though "the season" may mean just the summer period when there are tours and guides on hand and it's warm enough to want to be standing around at night. But we'll see. We've been lucky with everything so far so who knows? We're taking Chris and his mate Dan and their bikes on a combined camp/B&B/driving/cycling trip to the island.

Today is Friday and Chris is rebuilding Betty, the touring bike he took through Indonesia. She's been stripped and repainted and he's now finding out how very worn all the parts are which he needs to put back. So it's a long job.





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Location:Huon Rd,South Hobart,Australia