20 Feb 10 – Stanley

By Lou: Sam and I did school this morning and then we headed for a drive to Stanley. It’s a very quaint seaside town in the north-west famous for “The Nut”, a table-topped knoll left over from some ancient volcanic activity. Sam thinks they should have called it “The Table” because it’s flat. Too true.
We thought fish and chips would be great for lunch but we over-ordered (large chips could have fed a football team) over-paid and over-ate so spent the afternoon feeling over-dosed on oil.
I could blame that for the reason we took the chairlift up The Nut instead of walking but on the More Fun Scale the chairlift way trumped an uphill slog and in fact was the highlight of Sam’s day. Beautiful views from there even though the sky was overcast


By Craig: Stanley, quaint & famous for 'The Nut' and on the road in Stanley appears tucked in at the bottom of a mountain nickednamed the nut. I'm not convinced 'The Nut'as a name suits see for yourself (Link). The main street with some original buildings demands a look and the view from 'The Nut' in particular out over the town when returning on the chair lift is spectacular,
certainly captured my attention but at the end of the day the excessive amount of chips I ate with my oil, oh! I mean fish spoilt the overall experience and left me feeling a little sorry for myself.

18 Feb 10 – Wynyard

By Lou: We left Lake Barrington for the general direction of Burnie. We arrived and stocked up on some groceries. We hadn’t showered for 5 days so to avoid making people pass out from the stench we split up in the supermarket. Craig struck up a conversation with the sales assistant at the bottle shop and upon her recommendation we headed a further 10km down the road to a lovely beachfront caravan park at Wynyard. Here our clothes walked themselves to the laundry. We walked ourselves to the showers and reintroduced ourselves upon our return to the camper. Had a pleasant stroll into town, a beer at the pub, and then home for creamy tomato salami pasta from the Thermomix whilst looking out at Bass Strait.

We plan to use a few days here to bring our blog up to date, do our laundry and charge an interminable number of batteries.

One of the tasks set for Sam in his English unit was to make a presentation to an audience about a rhyming narrative including the reading of same.
We had been torturously practicing on and off for 2 weeks and it was time (sanity-wise, not necessarily preparedness-wise) for him to hit the stage. After a casual introduction to a couple 2 vans down I got a whiff of sympathy given they had young grandchildren. So we roped them into coming by at 6:30pm with chairs, refreshments and stamina for Sam’s presentation which had to be video-taped for his teacher. Well, he loves an audience and did very well given it was a lot of reading to do and the audience were very gracious. He was quite surprised at the end when a presentation was made to him by our visitors and delighted that it was sugary and edible. Adrienne and Don were also kind enough to extend an invitation to us to stay at their place on the Great Ocean Road if we head that way. It is instances of kindness like that that can’t be snapped by a camera but put a smile on the dial.

By Craig: Wynyard provided me the opportunity to throw a line in the river, and I enjoyed walking through the township and looking around some old wares shops while Sam and Lou did schooling.
Watched some sailing in the river and enjoyed practicing moving and wildlife shots with our new camera.
Enjoyed chatting to a few of the locals while the washing machine did its cycles.

13 Feb 10 - Sheffield region Tasmania

By Lou: Arrived at Devonport at 8am a little bleary eyed. I had foolishly allowed Samuel a top bunk with only a splinter of a barrier so both Craig and I kept waking up worried he was going to roll out of bed even thought it was not particularly rocky. At one stage in his sleep he was kneeling up on his bunk calling out to Grandma and we thought he would step out as if he was on his stretcher bed at Grandmas. Of course, no such thing eventuated.

Sam thought we were arriving in another country and was amazed that this city didn’t have high rise buildings.

We bought breakfast and then headed to a fresh fruit and veggie market in Devonport and stocked up. At this point we still had no particular game plan for touring Tasmania – 3 or 4 weeks? Go east then west? So based solely on a random conversation with a potato stall holder who said there were easterlies blowing at the moment so good time to head west, we headed west. We got about a dozen kilometres west of Devonport thanks to Karen when I pulled out a map and considered the red lines. Craig pulled over and we consulted a map of Tasmania together for the first time. If we wanted to do Cradle Mountain as well as drive down the west coast, we’d be best to head south first and loop back up to the north west corner. So we reprogrammed Karen and headed south.



We headed to Sheffield in rainy weather and admired the mural-studded town (By Craig: Bowen eat your heart out) mainly from the car. We decided to camp for free 14km out of town at Lake Barrington. Although the first day or 2 were wet, we found it was a good base for day drives and a lovely spot to return to for an evening fire. Craig and Sam tried for salmon in the lake with lures and apart from Sam reeling in something within 4 feet of himself it got away. We didn’t have internet connection at the lake so a couple of times that week we drove into town so Sam could join in on his audio lessons.


In our time there we visited Deloraine (did some school in the car; observed an artist making a clay bust; picked up a coat for Sam at the op shop;) toured a salmon and ginseng farm(caught a big salmon),



visited Trowunna Wildlife Park
(held wombats, fed kangaroos, patted Tasmanian devils),










climbed Marion’s Lookout near Cradle Mountain (6km in 2½ hours), gorged on samples of cheese (look out for Ashgrove’s wasabi cheese…delicious), overloaded on honey samples at Chudleigh and generally enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Many a time it has reminded me of England – narrow and winding roads, speeding locals, hedge-lined roads on approach to towns and everywhere only a stone’s throw away. In our travels through the west of Queensland and NSW I had a good 3 hours or so to read up about the next town before we got there. Here, I haven’t even read aloud the first paragraph and we’ve arrived. But it does always feel like a lovely Sunday afternoon drive (but in Autumn cos a Tasmanian summer aint very hot).



By Craig: Camp fires are the best, best in cooler spots & best taken with a Red and some damper, 20 mins and damper with a little butter is hard to beat, I just love it!
Lake Barrington gave us an opportunity to get back into real camping, Ok so it was a little too cold to shower naked on a river bank but the camp fire was the best way to stay warm and look up at the stars each evening.
I must say our warm nights were compliments of a nearby farmer who after chatting with us one morning whilst collecting the campside rubbish thankfully returned in our absence with a load of old (dry) timber, a note left for us simply said 'demolishing a shed thought you could use the timber' and signed 'The rubbish man' although we did exchange names in conversation, regrettably the gentleman's name escapes me, we are however thankful for his generosity.

One little piece of excitement broke my ever increasing laid back mood. The roads around Cradle Mountain are windy and unfortunately Toyota Landcruiser brakes once hot are not the best for down hill bends, so after many Kms of bends and lots of braking we proceeded to descend from Mount Roland down to Chudleigh. After finding my foot felt like it was pressing a sponge I said to Louise in a rather serious tone (slightly higher than normal pitch as my $%^£ was tighter than a pinhead), 'We have no brakes'. Of course Lou thought I was playing one of my usual tricks however with one hand on the handbrake and able to knock the auto down a gear the vehicle started to slow using some of the engine compression (Diesel's are good for this) we slowed to about 40k's and made our way down to the plateau. Parting comment 'It would never have happened in the old LandRover'

12 Feb 10 - Spirit of Tasmania II

By Lou: We were advised early that the departure of the Spirit of Tasmania II was delayed by an hour which was good news to us as it gave us more time to pack up and get ready. (Although we’d only been at mum’s a few days we were quick to spread ourselves out.) I had been advised by the booking officer that we couldn’t take any fresh fruit or vegies into Tassie, and we would have to check in our gas bottles before departure. To rule out any other possible snags I checked out the Tasmanian quarantine website and decided to leave our small stash of firewood at mum’s. Well they never inspected for fruit, and they gave the thumbs up to keeping the gas bottles attached…but then told us to empty the near-full 20L gerry can of unleaded petrol (for the generator and boat motor). And not just that. But to then fill it with water. Sacrilege to Craig! Would you serve mint sauce with beef? No. Mix fuel and water? NO!


Although we waited with car engines off in a long queue after the checkpoint, we were loaded and departed spot-on 10pm as planned. We found our way to our cabin at the bow of the ship, dumped our bags and headed to the top level to watch our departure. We then wandered around the ship (huge), had a few drinks in a lounge tapping our toes to the tunes of a live singer, purchased a National Parks pass at the Tourist Info booth and then Sam and I went to bed. Craig stayed up till midnight to watch the ferry pass through the heads of Port Phillip Bay at which point the ferry started getting a little bit of a roll to it but not rough at all.


By Craig: My father spent 12 years sailing the seas on the HMAS Sydney (Aircraft Carrier)in the 50's & I'm starting to understand his love for the sea. I've always appreciated time on the water whether it be in a tinny or sailing on a 30foot vessel. I've spent a little time on the water, as a young teen and then sailing in the Whitsundays (Thanks Mr Benson) and it has never failed to put a smile on my face. Passing through the Heads of Port Phillip Bay and feeling the surge of a great ocean swell was an experience not to be missed. I'm not saying I'm up for the Sydney to Hobart but I'm certainly sure that sailing and oceans will play some part in my future.

11 Feb 10 - Karen, the new woman in our life

By Craig: Well I entered the store & there she was, beautiful, slim & vibrant looking, she would be able to tell me things I never knew, she spoke many languages and was able to be mounted on the dash or even the windscreen. Well I was beside myself so I threw a credit card at some guy managing the exit and back to camp we went. I read all I could about her and when asked I called her Karen then I played with her a little attempting to find the right button, when I got it right Karen responded, in an Aussie voice she spoke to me, Arrr! I had a new woman in my life & I spent many hours taking direction from her and loving being told the right way to go about getting there. Then as time drew on I began to realise that Karen was very bossy, and now I just tell her where to go!

By Lou: For many months we had ummed and ahhed about what sort of GPS mapping system we should purchase. We finally decided on some topographical maps download onto our laptop with a portable GPS device plugged in for use in the bush, and a cheap dash-mounted GPS unit for around cities. For the latter we had a choice of voices to give verbal instructions and Craig selected the Australian, Karen. And so now we defer to Karen to get us to the nearest information centre/campground/petrol station. I admire her patience when instead of turning left Craig turns “the other left”, she calmly instructs him to perform a U-turn when possible. No yelling. No turning the map upside down.

8 Feb 10 – Melbourne

By Lou: We headed to Melbourne via Yarrawonga to visit a family friend and had a nice catch up. We were only about 2 hours north of Wallan when we thought to ourselves we were a bit disorganised as we hadn’t allowed any time to catch up with old neighbours or Craig’s work colleagues. This whole ‘wing it’ approach to travel can have its downsides. And we felt that again when we finally got around to booking the ferry to Tasmania and discovered our time in Melbourne would have to be cut short as we needed to grab the last trailer allocation for the week or cut short our time in Tassie. Caught up with sister Nicki and family and a couple of friends which is always a sure way to fill my cup. For those we didn’t get to see I’m sorry! Hopefully next time. I tagged along with mum to a performance by Williamstown Little Theatre called RolePlay which was very funny and well performed. If Craig had known he was going to miss out on some table top dancing I’m sure he wouldn’t have stayed home.

By Sam: One day grandma took me to the Museum to see all the different things and we saw lots and lots of cool things and it was really fun and I liked the dinosaur fossils the best. And I liked how there was a screen and you pressed buttons and all these different pictures of animals came up. And I liked the bugs and all sorts of different things. We caught the bus, train and tram to get there and that was very fun.

By Craig: Well, no time for table top dancers, I was in the front end of my car up to my armpits. What I thought was a small grease leak ended up a complete re-fit of a front wheel drive shaft. Thankfully Tom from ProTorque in Moorabbin could squeeze us in as was able to fix the vehicle prior to our deadline for the ferry.

6 Feb 10 – Howlong

By Craig: After our time at Mildura we headed south-east, following the Murray River visiting places such as Swan Hill an Echuca and decided to spend a couple of days in the Gunbower State Forest. Nice place in the dry. Good spot to spend some time fishing but tricky getting back out in the wet but the Landcruiser did well. We then headed off for a rendezvous with friends at the Kismet Riverside Lodge , just out of Howlong, for some well deserved R & R.

We arrived at the lodge at 6:40pm, and not knowing that this was the designated dinner time for the owners, upon knocking I was ushered to the kitchen with the invitation ‘would you like to stay for dinner?’ Of course this had something to do with the fact that I know one of the co-owners, Mark, from fishing competition trips, and was introduced to his wife Rhonda, and parents-in-law Mary and Harold. So after introductions all round we found ourselves seated at the dinner table eating fish and chips and having a good laugh, usually at Mark’s expense.

The following day we were joined by friends (Deb, Steve and their daughter Amber), Steve being the third member of the fishing competition trio which since our meeting at Howlong, and of course after a few drinks, are now known as the Three Wise Monkeys.



Whilst at the lodge the 3 men and a boat on the Murray were joined by young Sam who, on his first outing, was successful with catching a fish.

We had a lovely stay at the lodge and we extend our appreciation to Mark and Rhonda, Mary and Harold, for their hospitality. If passing by, and need some relaxation by the Murray River, we recommend you take time and stay for a while. Recommended equipment: tinny.

PS. Ask Mark for tips about his favourite fishing spots. If he tells you, then tell me.