Tasmania - 12 day tour
The 3rd of March 2020: Some news of the Corona virus epidemic starts to worry everybody. We're already careful but with this extra flight planned we are rubbing alcohol gel everywhere!
We arrived in Brisbane yesterday and it was great to come back to 30°C before plunging into the cold air of Tasmania! A refreshing swim in the luxury of the Pullman Airport hotel was followed by a shocking return to reality in the RV we rented from Cruisin'. We're homesick to LouiseAnna 😇😜
Maybe it's a bit too much at once, but it's a "now or never" opportunity to visit this amazing island south of Australia...
After the pickup of our RV, we stopped at the shopping centre to stock up for 12 days. Geoffrey did all the shopping while I cleaned out the RV on the parking lot. They did redo the cleaning in front of us, but OMG, I don't know, when your cloths stick to the cupboards there's a problem, no? Geoffrey and I just think we are too freaky about cleaning as it was apparently fine for everybody else 😳😏
Anyway, all clean and full of beer, wine and food, we're off to Mount Field. Almost all campgrounds were full!!! But we managed to find a spot where the girls instantly were off playing with two other children. We had a good look at our neighbours and got all the gear out to enjoy our first campground beer 😌😂
04/03: Visit of the Russel Falls with the family from Melbourne we met yesterday. A combination of Russel Falls with the tall tree walk. A very pretty two hour walk.
After a nice lunch in the visitor centre (we ate a Whallaby burger 😳), we're off to Tarraleah. Just a quick stop for fresh berry ice cream. We have never seen so many berry farms as in Tasmania!
Luckily we are plugged in to the electricity so we have a heater. It's sooooooooo cold at night and we want to get rid of the humidity 😱
05/03: Rain, rain and more rain! We venture out to visit a hydro plant. Fog makes it difficult to actually see something at the lookout, but the walk towards the waterfall is beautiful! Too much rain for pictures, but we'll remember the smell! The smell of Eucalyptus trees is amazing!
06/03: We go as far as Lake St Clair for a walk along Platypus Bay. No Platypus unfortunately, but again an incredible walk around Eucalyptus giants ... hmmm yummy smell!
First you need to clean your feet to get into the forest 😏
As we had an early start this morning, we still had time for school. The girls promised to work well and would get a visit of their Tasmanian boat friends as a reward. Off course they didn't even need to promise us anything as Geoffrey and I were also keen on seeing our friends again!
I caught Anna cheating! Urgh, a first for everything right? She was using the "solutions page" at the back of her book 😱😆 We were proud she figured it out and then tried not to laugh, because you know you did the same, no?! Ok school was a bad idea, but hey, they really tried! So we went and saw our friends anyway 😏
It was a 3h drive towards Mount Wellington, where we met Denis, Anita, Luc and Isabelle again. It's been a while since we saw them in Bundaberg, but conversations go on as if it was yesterday! The Ti Punch, with the best french rhum, Denis prepared us might have something to do with that 😊
07/03 A day of playing with real toys, strolling amongst Apalca's, Wallabies, chickens, ducks, drinking water on their belly from the river in the back of the garden, making clay pots, "tree soups" and all the girls ever imagined 😍
Paul and Cristina joined us for lunch with their beautiful girls. So weird to see each other out of the water 😀 We haven't seen them since Tahaa (French Polynesia).
Thanks again for a very much needed 24 hours amongst friends!
Getting out of the driveway was tricky with an RV on used tires. After a few attempts and burned rubber, we made it at the top and decided never to rent from Cruisin' again! Anyway a bit of nervous laughter later we managed to find a camping spot at Saramanca. A late night drive in the dark is also stressful as there is so much wildlife crossing the roads. The road towards Saramanca is gorgeous and actually, besides a Wallaby and a few cows we didn't see anything 😏
08/03 The location was great, plugged into a heater and surrounded by beautiful beach hikes.
09/03 We passed through St-Helens towards the Bay of Fires. The catamaran ROAM, we met in Fiji, was moored here but the owners were on a sailing break to work. They gave us some great tips to visit the area and started with the free camping spot just next to the beach!
Beautiful view, the sound of waves, the girls' joyful giggling as they try to get a toe in the water ... while I'm writing in my diary, packed in long trousers and a big sweater, .... hmmmmmm this is ... Tasmania!
We decided it was too cold to spend the night without a heater and checked in at the Scamander camping ground but not before a quick stop at Shelly Point to see how the surfers ride the smooth waves.
10/03 We took the Great Eastern Drive Road down to Bicheno and while it was pretty, we didn't feel like spending a lot of time here. You can see the penguins at night only and it's not the right time of the year anyway...
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