Lake St Clair and Derwent Bridge

It was finally time to leave Macquarie Heads and we made our way up to Queenstown, through the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park and on to Lake St Clair, just near Derwent Bridge. Another beautiful spot to use as a base to explore all the area has to offer. Aside from kayaking on the beautiful lake we did some great bush walks, bike rides and visited The Wall, an amazing sculpture being carved in Huon Pine by local artist Greg Duncan.

Macquarie Heads

When we went to Ocean Beach we found a cheap bush camp right at the heads of Macquarie Harbour so we decided to spend a week there relaxing, fishing and just taking in the beautiful views. The weather was gorgeous and our days drifted by very easily and made even sweeter by the salmon we caught for dinner! We had a few encounters with wildlife here, including a tiger snake too close to our camp, dolphins and a huge whale bone washed up on the beach.

Strahan

We had heard a lot about Stahan and we were really excited about spending some time there. The town itself is very pretty set out along the water and great for riding our bikes around. The much recommended Gordon River Cruise was fantastic and left us all in awe of 2500 year old Huon Pines (and my photos do them no justice either).
We drove out to Ocean Beach, which is another unforgiving piece of coastline, and played in the sand dunes as well as explored the People's Park with its beautiful creek and waterfall.

The drive to Strahan

We left Crayfish Creek and headed to Corrina where we needed to get the punt over the Pieman River. Suitably it was the Fatman Barge so Tim felt right at home (a nickname from way back). The instructions were great, and apparently they have quite a few people looking for the bridge! We would have loved to have camped at Corrina but there are only a few spots and they were taken, so we went to Reece Dam. It was beautiful and we had the place to ourselves. We were greeted with a perfectly glassy lake in the morning, just amazing! We spent two very relaxing nights here before moving on to Strahan. There was a small hiccup when the front wheel started squealing just outside of Strahan, but our very clever on board mechanic sorted it and we were on the road again.

Crayfish Creek

The coast road south to Strahan is closed so we had to go west before heading south so we stayed at a little van park we saw when staying at Stanley, right on Crayfish Creek. It was the first unpack we have had to do in the pouring rain and it wasn't much fun. We spent two nights there trying to dry out and met some lovely play mates Mila and Emmet.
When the sun did come out we visited a beach in Wynyard that had thousands of shell fossils in the rocks and cliff face. Lola found a rock she was pretty happy with, to add to the many already on the floor of the car!

Arthur River

From Stanley we headed into the wild west... and it was wild, wet, windy and cold! I don't think Tassie got the memo about summer this year.
We met some lovely people while we were there including Esme and Ushi, who were an inspiration, in their seventies and touring the country in a little van! They had a sliding door problem and announced they were going to cook us dinner (and then Tim could look at their door). We had a beautiful meal and luckily Tim fixed their door.
We were very excited to go to the End of the World – the mouth of the Arthur River – and wow what an inhospitable place. The wind was lashing and the seas were huge, coming either from Antarctica or Patagonia. Dark tannin coloured water flowing out the mouth of the Arthur River churns with the sea and massive piles of logs are washed up on the rocks and sand after their journey down the river. A truly treacherous piece of coastline. The brochure stated it was the most westerly point of Tasmania (almost!), we wondered if that meant we went to the End of the World (Almost!).
We visited a place called Dismal Swamp and we weren't really sure of what to expect. We had to slide down a huge slippery dip into the rainforest floor, it was very cool! The forest was beautiful and made all the more interesting with sculptures and surprises around every corner, we especially liked the tree fern people.

Stanley, oh & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

We spent New Years near Stanley at a National Park bush camp. It was by the mouth of the Black River and was very beautiful, although a little wet and quite cold. We celebrated the new year with a campfire, some local scallops followed by marshmallows and some sparklers... does it get any better! It was a pretty spot and at low tide we were able to ride along the river bed and out onto the beach for a southerly view of The Nut.
The kids loved the chairlift up to the top of The Nut and we had a very windy walk once up there. Later in the day we had a look through the original house built for the caretaker of the Van Diemans Land Co's settlement.
Tim's great grandfather was buried near Stanley at Wynyard and so after scouring the wrong cemetery for a while, we found the right cemetery and then the gravestone. It was amazing really, his great grandparents and great great grandparents were all there on two tombstones.
On the way back from Wynyard we did a few walks in the Rocky Cape National Park. It was a cold, wet and windy day but we weren't going to let that stop us!

Around Penguin

We spent a full week in Penguin and did day trips from there. We visited a pretty cool cave, did a few bush walks and saw a waterfall, its so beautiful, lush and green. We went berry picking (raspberries, strawberries and blackberries) and had a beautiful picnic next to the river in Burnie with all those berries as well as some local cheese and cherries. We predict we will be eating our way around Tasmania!

Merry Christmas

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone, we hope Santa was good to you all. We had a lovely day, we were staying in Penguin (hence the giant penguin in a santa suit) which was beautiful and reminded us a lot of home, only colder (and minus the giant penguin). The kids decorated the tent and built a christmas tree out of sticks, sea sponge and flowers. We had a lovely day lazing around in the morning and walking on the rocks and spent the afternoon with my aunt and cousins in Devonport. It was really low key and quite nice to drop out of the crazy christmas hype, but we did miss being around friends and family at this time of year!

Tassie, here we come!

We left Jo & Simons at a ridiculous 4.45am for Port Melbourne. It took a few hours to board but finally we were on the ship and eager to go. Melbourne put on a very wet miserable morning and unfortunately the seas were pretty rough, resulting in a not so pleasant trip for poor Rexie. 

Wonderful friends!

It was so wonderful to catch up with great friends just before Christmas.

Thank you Mere, Mark, Sam and Jade for making us so welcome, we all loved being able to spend some time with you and see your gorgeous place again. The kids loved being able to hang out in the pool and Lola is still talking about Bell. Shepparton certainly turned it on for us with 42 degree days and a wonderful storm and thank you Mark for taking Tim & the kids to see koalas.

Thank you Jo & Simon, so grateful for you being able to put us up at such short notice. It made getting on the boat so easy and lending us your car went above and beyond! Was great to spend some time with you all and to meet Andrew, Tam & Tim. Look forward to catching up again when we get back from Tassie.

Sovereign Hill

Well we couldn't go through central Victoria without stopping at Sovereign Hill! The kids loved it... they ate boiled lollies, dipped candles, rode on a horse drawn cart and descended a mine shaft. Ye olde fashioned fun!

The Grampians

Continuing south, we crossed into to Victoria and spent four days in the Grampians. It was very beautiful, did some great walks and because it was pretty cool we were able to have a camp fire again, which meant marshmallows! We were all a little surprised at how many people were about, we had been the only people in a campsite for so long that a full campsite was a bit of a shock.