Tasmania Day 31 - 41 21 February

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Day Thirty One - Gunns Plains - Deloraine 21 February, 2022

We had about a 100 km drive planned for the day, to a free camp on the outskirts of Mole Creek. We decided not to bother visiting any of the caves around Mole Creek because we’d already visited Gunns Plains Caves, and this would just be a stopover night before continuing on to Deloraine and places further north towards Devonport before catching the ferry on the coming Friday.

I had planned a route to Mole Creek that would take us over mostly C roads, with the occasional B road thrown in, and the only stops planned being the odd lookout that we passed, and our usual morning tea and lunch stops.

The drive was absolutely beautiful and I was pleased we’d decided to do the back roads. The drive took us over winding mountain roads, all in very good condition, past lush farmland with beef cattle, dairy cows, goats, some sheep, the occasional crop and even a vineyard, through dense forested areas, and some more open farmland. Because the roads were mainly quite narrow, hilly and winding, we took our time and mostly didn’t travel at more than 60 kmh, always wary of oncoming vehicles on blind corners.

One part of the drive took us past a section of road where many of the locals have unique mailboxes, and you can actually do the Wilmot Novelty Letterbox Drive, that runs from Forth to Moina near Cradle Mountain.

I remarked to Meg that some of the countryside we were driving through looked a little like Vale of Belvoir, where we free-camped before doing Cradle Mountain. Meg had a look at the map and said we were only about 15 km from where we’d been in the Cradle Mountain area.

During the day we decided that seeing we weren’t going to be doing any of the caves around Mole Creek that it would be better for us to carry on to Deloraine and see what it had to offer.

We had a brief stop at Mole Creek to take a pic of the Thylacine on the Mole Creek Hotel, and to take a look at the display on the main street that Mountain Huts Preservation Society had put together that was focused on old trappers’ huts from the region that they’d been restoring.

We’d found what sounded like a good campground in Deloraine that only cost $3 per night, payable at the Deloraine Visitor Information Centre so that’s where we went first. The visitor information centre also houses the Deloraine & Districts Folk Museum, and had a special exhibition “Yarns Artwork in Silk”, which Meg was interested in.

Embroidered Panels, Deloraine & Districts Folk Museum

After paying for the camp we paid to go into the museum and spent the next hour and a half looking through the excellent historical displays, then sitting in on a special presentation on four huge embroidered panels depicting Deloraine that took hundreds of people thousands of hours to complete. No photos could possibly do justice to this work and we were pleased we’d seen them in person.

Last stop for the day was the Deloraine RV Park, a short drive across the river from the museum, where we chose a grassy spot and set up for the night.

Most of our camps in Tasmania had involved some form of wildlife, and this camp was no exception. As soon as we stepped out of Mata we were greeted by a large black chicken who instantly became my best mate (well not instantly - that was more later when I fed it some birdseed we’d been carrying around since Queen Mary Falls in Queensland that we’d used to feed Rosellas and King Parrots.

That was the end of the adventures for another day apart from our dinner of bangers and mash, which I find to always be an adventure!

Day Thirty Two - Deloraine - Railton 22 February, 2022

We managed a sleep-in for a change this morning, which was good because we only had a very short driving day planned, about 30 km to Railton.

Once we’d knocked over the morning routine, and topped up with fresh water and emptied the toilet cassette, we left camp after 10:00 A.M.

Our only planned stop was for brunch at the Ashgrove Cheese Dairy Door, near Elizabeth Town, which was only a short 12 km drive from Deloraine.

Once there we had a good look at all their information on the history of the farm and dairy door operation, how they manage their cows and farmland and all about their cheese-making processes.

Then it was time to stop fooling ourselves and order some food for brunch. We went with their Tasmanian Tasting Platter that included five different cheeses, bread, crackers, grapes, strawberries, a selection of nuts, pickled onions and gherkins and a couple of different chutneys.

With brunch out of the way it was a short drive to Railton, which describes itself as the “Topiary Town”. First stop was to the visitor information centre for some information on the topiary walking tour around town, and anything else we could find to do to fill in the rest of the day.

Loaded up with not very much information we drove around the corner to the free camp for the night, that is just off the main street, changed into shorts as the day was warming up, and set out to do the topiary walking tour.

Unfortunately many of the topiary trees hadn’t been looked after, or were dying off, so the whole experience was a bit underwhelming.

What saved the day though were a few very good examples of wall art murals along the way.

With that done, we couldn’t find anything else to do in Railton without driving so we went back to the camp and set up for the night, although it was only about 1:30 P.M. by this time.

That gave us plenty of time to catch up on our blogging, socials and languages and to relax for the rest of the day.

After our large pig-out brunch we weren’t very hungry and had a light tuna salad for dinner.

We’d run out of Outlander episodes to watch on Netflix so we reverted to analog entertainment for the evening and did a crossword puzzle together before calling it a night.

Day Thirty Three - Railton - Latrobe 23 February, 2022

Today, our penultimate day in Tasmania, was going to be another light driving day, with a total of around 70 km. We tried for a sleep-in but didn’t make it and were up around 7:00 A.M.

After having morning cuppas and a fryup for brekky we emptied the toilet cassette then drove towards Sheffield, one of the few stops we had planned for the day, leaving the campsite about 8:30 A.M.

Sheffield’s claim to fame is dozens of murals on buildings all around the town, and in Mural Park where there are another 40 or so murals depicting everything from historical events to visions of the future. Mural Park is the venue for the International Mural Fest each year. For the rest of the year the park houses the nine finalists from the previous year’s Mural fest competition, plus the International Wall of Fame that presents the winning murals of past years.

As usual our first stop was the visitor information centre to grab some information on a mural walking tour, and to check out Mural Park which is adjacent to the visitor centre.

Next up we did a walking tour around some of the central streets of Sheffield to look at the murals that document the history of Sheffield and the people who made it a town. We thought this was a great way to showcase the town’s history as all the murals had accompanying information on the people and events depicted.

During the walk I popped into a small fresh fruit shop to buy some of the local fresh fruit, apples and nectarines, that I’d been lacking for the past couple of weeks.

All up there are around 140 murals around the town and we probably only saw about a quarter of them.

We had booked lunch at a winery in Northdown for 12:45 P.M. and by the time we drove out of Sheffield it was only about 10:00A.M. so we had a bit of time to kill. We also planned to visit the Spreyton Cider Co for some cider tasting, but they didn’t open until 11:00 A.M.

The only other attraction we’d found in the area was the Tasmanian Arboretum, which was about 6 km past the cider company, so we drove there and walked around for an hour or so, and were lucky enough to spot a couple of Platypus in a lake there.

With time suitably killed we headed back to the cidery which, it turned out, had actually opened at 10:00 A.M! We didn’t mind that though because 10:00 A.M. is probably a little early for cider tasting.

The cidery had a $15 tasting experience that provided a taste of 6 different ciders, starting with a traditional cider that wasn’t very sweet, then moving through ever-sweeter ciders until the final cider, which was my favourite, the Hard Ginger Beer. The tasting price included a bottle of your favourite cider each so I got the ginger beer and Meg got the pear cider.

After the tasting we had a walk around the apple orchard closest to the restaurant marvelling at the quantity and different varieties of apples, until the rain forced us back into the motorhome.

It was still too early to go to the winery for lunch so we drove past it and onto Port Sorrel to see what it had to offer, which turned out to be not too much on an overcast, slightly rainy day. Regardless, we drove around for a while until it was nearer our lunch reservation time, then drove the couple of kilometres back to Ghost Rock Vineyard.

Ghost Rock was one of those dining experiences that stay in the memory for a very long time. The wine was excellent and the food was scrumptious. Meg had the Persian spiced chicken thigh, blistered corn, muhammara, cucumber, labneh, and I had Blue Grenadier fish with mashed peas, Sicilian caponata, bottarga butter and a side of Fried potatoes, garlic & rosemary salt. The flavours were amazing and we both loved our meals and the view looking out over the vineyard.

With that wonderful experience done we drove the few short kilometres to our $10 per night campsite behind Latrobe’s main street and set up for our second-last night in Tassie. The campsite was a large grassy area that included a dump point and fresh water, and only had a couple of other campers there when we arrived, so we had the pick of the place.

By that time it was still only 1:30 P.M. so we had plenty of time once again to relax, enjoy a nice hot shower in Mata’s shower, and catch up with our usual activities.

We were still full from our wonderful winery lunch so decided to skip dinner and just watched a bit of ABC TV before calling it a day.

Day Thirty Four -Latrobe - Devonport 24 February, 2022

Today’s driving was going to be the lightest day yet of our tour of Tasmania, as Devonport was only about 5 km away, where we would stay the night in a campground close to the ferry for the next day’s boarding early in the morning.

We woke to overcast skies but warmer temperatures than we’d been experiencing in the last few days. We took our time with the morning routine because we only had one stop planned at a chocolate factory.

With nothing else better to do to kill some time we walked up to the main street of Latrobe and walked along one side then back down the other, stopping to buy a couple of bits and pieces at the IGA. I thought Latrobe didn’t quite have the same nice feel that we’d experienced walking around Sheffield, but there were still many old buildings to admire.

Latrobe had nothing more to offer on a dull day so we drove slowly to our only experience for the day, Anvers Chocolate Factory, which was only a slow 15-minute drive away.

The factory has been situated in a fine old historic house, that was built in the early 1900s, for 20 years. There was plenty of information to read inside the entrance about the house itself, where cacao comes from, the history of the chocolate-making process, the chocolatier owners, and hundreds of chocolate moulds, some dating back to the 1800s.

After absorbing all that information we thought we deserved a chocolate treat and went into the cafe for a hot chocolate each, Meg’s a white vanilla and mine a cinnamon drink. Needless to say they were decadent and delicious. We made a couple of purchases from the shop on the way out after checking out all the yummy chocolate and truffle products.

With nothing else to do for the day we drove to Devonport and drove around a bit to kill time until nearer lunch time, for which Meg had found a seafood option that sold platters and hampers.

We drove around the west side of the Mersey River to the Bluff Headland where there is a lighthouse and some viewing platforms looking out onto Bass Strait. After taking some pics we drove over the Mersey River to West Devonport, to the place that was supplying our lunch, Petuna Seafoods and Gourmet Pantry, and discovered that you have to pre-book hampers. Second choice was to buy some ready-prepared seafood and find somewhere nice around the waterfront to eat it.

Petuna Seafoods & Gourmet Pantry Lunch, Devonport

We bought some smoked salmon wraps, sushi and a couple of salads, then drove to a carpark with a view out across Bass Strait.

The food was delicious, washed down with our favourite Tasmanian cider, Willie Smith’s Organic Apple Cider, from the Huon Valley.

While we were parked up and having lunch a weird sea fog started rolling in to the coast and completely obscured the view of the sea by the time we had finished lunch.

It was still only about midday by this time, and we thought too early to check into the campground we’d booked for the night, The Abel Tasman Caravan Park, so we went driving around aimlessly for a while until 1:00 P.M. when the office opened.

While we were waiting for the campground office to open the fog lifted and the sun came out for the first time that day, giving us a beautiful sunny mid-20s afternoon.

We had booked an unpowered site, which usually don’t come with fresh water, but there were a number of fresh water taps around the unpowered camp area, so we parked up beside one, filled up with water and plugged the water into the motorhome to conserve our tank water.

After finishing setting up for the night, and having showers and doing a load of laundry, it was time to relax for the rest of the afternoon.

Dinner was nice and easy leftover salads from lunch.

Day Thirty Five -Devonport - Bagshot (Bendigo) 25 February, 2022

We had an early start to the day today to get to the port to line up to board the Spirit of Tasmania for the journey back to Melbourne, by 6:00 A.M.

We were having a cuppa after getting up at 5:00 A.M. and the incoming ferry from Melbourne, that we would be boarding a little later, sailed up the Mersey River past our campsite.

After packing up for the journey across Bass Strait we drove to the ferry terminal, checked in, joined a huge queue of other vehicles and sat in Matariki for over two hours before we got the nod to board the ferry. VERY BORING!!!

Once parked up for the day’s journey we headed up to our cabin on level 8, up the stairs to get some exercise, dumped our bag, then went back down to the level 7 cafe for a breakfast of croissants, hash browns and juice.

The rest of the day pretty much passed in a blur of cabin time, lunch time, public area time, outside time etc., with only one experience to break the monotony, a visit to the cinema after lunch to see The Kingsman. The crossing across Bass Strait wasn’t as calm as on the way over to Tasmania and although we managed to keep our lunch down, we didn’t feel 100% either. Once we entered Port Phillip Bay the swell reduced enough for us to have a wine on deck 10 while waiting for the final part of the journey into port.

Because of our late departure from Devonport, we arrived at Port Melbourne about one hour later than expected, and we didn’t drive off the boat until close to 7:00 P.M., with a close to two-hour drive to Bern and Helen’s at Bagshot in front of us. Unfortunately, we didn’t complete the drive before dark and for the last 45 minutes or so we had to reduce speed in case there were Kangaroos around, but finally arrived around 9:00 P.M safe and sound.

The next couple of hours was spent communing with Meg’s family, having a snack and drinking a few wines whilst swapping war stories of travel in Tasmania and other places.

And that was the official end of our Tasmanian adventure.

Day Thirty Six - Bagshot (Bendigo) 26 February, 2022

Parked up in Bern and Helen’s driveway we slept quite well until our usual wake-up time about 7:00 A.M.

We had a leisurely start to the day with cuppas, breakfast and more communing with Bern and Helen, before we set out to a dump point in the Bendigo showgrounds. With that business done we drove a little further into Bendigo to pick up a birthday cake for Andrew from the Cheesecake Shop.

Moanin' Meg, Da Vinci Exhibition, Bendigo

Back at Bagshot we chilled for a bit until everyone was ready for an adventure, then two carloads of us drove into Bendigo to see the current Da Vinci exhibition at Bendigo’s Discovery & Science Centre. A lot of the exhibition seemed to be more focused on children, but we thoroughly enjoyed checking out both children’s and adult’s exhibits centred around the amazing achievements of Da Vinci.

By the time we were done with that it was half past lunchtime and Helen took us to a wonderful little cafe for lunch that served beautiful food.

Suitably fed and watered we headed back to the ranch to get over our food comas before the next adventure.

Everybody was happy doing their own thing, which in my case was catching up on the latest blog and photos.

Later in the day we all piled into cars again and went to the Bendigo Twilight Markets where we perused the wares available in the small number of stalls, and grabbed some street food for dinner, before heading back to base for the night.

Day Thirty Seven - Bagshot (Bendigo) 27 February, 2022

Today was pretty much another down day, focused on family time.

We had another easy start to the day and relaxed and chatted for the morning.

The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo

Late in the morning it was into the cars again for another outing, this time to The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, which is a Buddhist monument where you can explore the gardens, spin the prayer wheels and marvel at Buddhist art and holy items. The Stupa was very interesting and provided a lot of information not just about Buddhism, but also about the lives of Tibetan people and their culture and customs. One of the things I thought strange about the Stupa was that it is located in the bush in the middle of nowhere, but it was spread over a large area and wouldn’t have been practical in an urban area perhaps. Apart from the impressive Stupa building that almost doubled as a museum of sorts, there were a lot of other exhibits, for want of a better word, outside, which entailed walking around the peaceful gardens to view, and read the meanings of all things related to Buddhism, and also of other religions.

After we’d ticked off all the items on the explanatory brochure we’d received on entry it was lunchtime, and we decided to eat at the Stupa cafe that had an Asian influence in a lot of its food.

Yabby Fishing, Bern & Helen's Dam, Bagshot

Back at Bagshot we relaxed for a bit before getting into the next adventure, yabby fishing in Bern & Helen’s dam. This was a new experience for Meg & I that we thoroughly enjoyed. To catch yabbies you get a stick and tie a length of string, about a metre, to one end of the stick, and tie a piece of meat on the other end. You then put the meat into the water not too far from the edge and wait for the yabby to start nibbling on the meat. Once the yabby has a serious hold on the meat you drag the string in towards the bank then jerk the string, and hopefully the yabby, up onto the bank.

The yabby goes into a bucket of dam water and the meat goes back into the water to catch another one. I had mixed success until I got the hang of pulling the string in at the right time and speed, and learning when the best time is to do the final jerk to land the yabby. We had some nets too, which made the catching easier for the bigger more wily yabbies that were smarter and harder to land. We ended up with about 40-50 yabbies, which was more than enough for a feed for the eight of us.

Back home we learnt that the yabbies have to be rinsed with fresh water to remove all the mud from the dam, several times, then when clean they’re salted in the fresh water which apparently stupefies them somewhat, before putting them still alive in boiling water to cook.

With all that done, and with some thousand island dressing made to accompany them, we sat outside and ate the yabbies as an entree before dinner. That was another learning experience learning how to remove them from their shell to get at the flesh, but we soon got the hang of it and polished them all off. On the farm nothing goes to waste and, when we were finished, the shells were thrown out in a paddock for the magpies to eat.

Dinner was a beautiful barbecue and salads, followed by fresh fruit and ice cream drizzled with the honey mead we’d bought Bern and Helen from Tasmania.

The rest of the evening was spent quaffing wine, spinning yarns, discussing religion and politics and catching up on lost family time, until around 11:00 P.M., which is very late for us.

Day Thirty Eight - Bagshot - Wyalong 28 February, 2022

We were up reasonably early this morning, despite our late night, to see off Lilli and Andrew, who were driving back to Sydney and leaving around 7:30 A.M.

With that done we carried on with our morning routine, and pack up routine, said our goodbyes and were on the road to Wyalong for a one-night free camp to break up the journey to our next stop, Gunnedah, to see Meg’s mum.

We’d read about a couple of interesting points along the way to take a break at, the first of which was some impressive silo art at Rochester.

There was a bakery beside the silos so we popped in there to buy a sticky bun each to eat while walking around the silos.

The silo art, which had only been recently completed by a world-renowned artist, had extremely incredible detail and left us wondering how it was possible to do that at such a scale.

The next major town we passed through was Echuca on the Murray River, and we stopped there only briefly to take a pic of the famous riverboats.

The next town with a claim to fame was Deniliquin, which markets itself as “the ute capital of Australia”.

They have the annual Deni Ute Muster that attracts thousands of people who own Australian utes.

After a brief lunch stop at the Kelly Hotel in Jerilderie we carried on to Wyalong where we parked up in a free camp and set up for the night.

It was a beautiful afternoon with a temperature of 32 degrees so we sat outside catching up with our usual blogging and socials, and relaxing until dinner time.

Our physical activity level hadn’t been the greatest so far for the day, so we went for a walk to check out the historical mining displays dotted around the park we were camped in, and we also did the wetlands walk across the road from where we were camped.

Dinner was chicken Kiev with spuds and carrots, and the evening’s entertainment was a bit of ABC TV.

And there endeth another day of adventures.

Day Thirty Nine - Wyalong - Gunnedah 01 March, 2022

Day two of our return drive to home was from Wyalong to Gunnedah to spend a couple of nights with Meg’s mum before heading back to Scarborough.

We initially didn’t have much planned for the trip apart from a couple of silo art stops and a lunch stop.

Once we were under way, however, with Meg driving, I found a car museum that sounded interesting, so we stopped at McFeeters Motor Museum, in Forbes.

There were some interesting examples of vintage, veteran, classic and modern cars in the museum, many accompanied by mannequins in period dress.

One of the more interesting cars was this 1964 XM Falcon named “Barbie” that included a wild paint job and $5,000 worth of gold-plated parts.

Another example of a different car was this Japanese funeral car (below). It only travels around public streets in the middle of the day so it doesn’t cast a shadow over anybody in the street because this would cause the person to die.

As well as cars there was also a solid collection of motorbikes and even a collection of kiddy cars.

Back on the road, as we passed through Yeoval on the way to Wellington for a lunch stop, we noticed some roadside sculptures and pulled over to take a closer look. Yeoval is apparently where Banjo Patterson was born and one of the sculptures was of his hat.

The other sculpture was of Henry Moore’s face, and is possibly the biggest sculpture in Australia.

Then it was on to Wellington for lunch, where we found a nice meal and cider at the Cow and Calf Hotel. I had a Chicken Caesar Salad and Meg had Arancini Balls.

Back on the road for the last leg of our journey to Gunnedah we only had one more stop planned, at Dunedoo for some silo art pics of the famous racehorse, Winx.

After a long day of driving we arrived in Gunnedah about 4:30 P.M.

The remainder of the day was spent catching up with Helen, having a light dinner and watching a bit of TV before turning in for the night.

Day Forty Gunnedah 02 March, 2022

Today was a complete chill day, spending time with Helen and relaxing before the drive home the next day.

We spent a bit of time cleaning Mata in the morning and, apart from me going out for a walk after lunch, the rest of the day was spent relaxing.

Day Forty One - Gunnedah - Scarborough 03 March, 2022

After 40 days on the road it was time to face reality and head home.

After hot drinks, brekky and saying our goodbyes we were on the road home by 8:45 A.M.

The only scheduled stop we had planned was a lunch stop, which we did at our usual location, the Willow Tree Cafe in Tenterfield.

The rest of the drive was uneventful and we arrived back in Scarborough about 4:30 P.M.

There endeth another adventure.

Tasmania Day 31 - 41 21 February - 03 March, 2022