Wed 1St Feb
We headed into Devonport and had a good stroll through the town and around the
foreshore. We also visited the Don River Railway and Chris and I went for a
nice little drive on the train before we headed back to the park.
Spirit of Tasmania Ferry with Spirit of Devonport Ferry in front of it.
Mr and Mrs Lyons. First Tasmanian Prime Minister of Australia
Don River Railway
A Selfie on the train
Thurs 2nd Feb we visited Turner’s Beach Perry Patch before heading out to Kindred and Sprent to the Australian Caravan Club (ACC) Farm Stay property -- ‘Burrong’. We passed fields of Poppies, carrots, onions, potatoes, Quinoa,, Barley and Pyrethrum on our journey. Tasmania has an increasing Poppy growing agriculture and supply a huge percentage of them for Morphine production.
The owners were not home when we arrived but
we had been told where to park the vans.
As we were going in through the gate, Darryl was worried about the
electric fence on the left when we heard a screech and a scrape. He stopped and when I got out to have a look
he was scraping the right side of the van along the fence post and tore off the
cover for the water heater and ripped off the wheel-arch guard. He managed to stop just as the fence post
rested against the power inlet point.
after Darryl had weatherproofed the hot water service
bumble bees at Burrong
He
reversed back and we managed to get the van over and then through the
gate. I contacted the owner to let her
know what had occurred and then we set to work to ‘bandage’ up the van. Andrew (the owner) came by about an hour
later but Darryl had managed to straighten the metal for the hot-water cover
and was screwing it in place. We had to
weather proof it as we were experiencing squally showers and it blowing a gale. I got out the trusty gaffa tape and managed
to tape up the sharp metal bits that have been exposed from where the
wheel-arch guard was now missing. We
tested the hot-water on gas and it worked a treat. So we WILL have hot-water over the next 4
months that we are in Tassie.
Fri 3rd Feb We went for a drive today Up to Ulverstone and
checked out the Zig-Zag gardens
Zig zag gardens
View from halfway down
fuschia
in West Ulverstone and then in the town and
Shropshire Park (A memorial to the service of the R.A.N.)
Up the street for lunch and out to the
visitor centre before heading out towards Gunn’s Plains. We stopped at Bannon’s Park as there were
about four campers/caravanners there and had a chat to a couple that were
camped. They are into their 5th
month with 13 more to go before they head back to Brisbane. We then travelled up to Preston Falls
Saturday 4th
We went down to Wilmot and then followed the ‘Letterbox drive’ back to
Forth.
some of the 25kms of letterboxes
We stopped at a great little café
called Alchemy (Purple House) for Morning tea
Found a goat sitting on a shed roof
before heading down towards Leven
Canyon and then we did a drive along the dirt roads for 13km to the upper
reaches of the Leven River before turning around and heading back.
Myself and Chris beginning the walk 😂
Cruickshanks lookout
Leven River Canyon
part of the path
Highland cows (yes imported from Scotland) in the Leven Valley farm
Upper reaches of the Leven River
There's trout in there
We stopped
and looked in the river and Darryl was able to spot some Brown Trout. A great day. On our way back we called into Kaydale Gardens at the recommendation of our hosts - Andrew and Kaye. This garden is a family affair and has taken 36 years to get to this point.
This is an arbour of PEAR trees
A Globe Artichoke allowed to go to flower and seed. apparently the bees love it.
Dahlias
Sunday 5th We left ‘Burrong’
Mount Rolland from 'Burrong'
harvesting Pyrethrum across the road
and headed to Penguin to meet up with a cousin from the
Boyton family Branch of the Hamilton/Pendrick tree. What a lovely time I had meeting Ena Jewell
for the very first time.
We met at the Penguin Markets (which were a little disappointing
as many of the stall were bare but great covered place to meet due to the
inclement weather). We spent about 3
hours with Ena as the weather went from rain to sunshine to wind to rain etc……. When we left Ena we went to see if a spot was
available at the Penguin Surf Life Saving Club.
A free camp about 3km’s out of town.
A great spot right on the beach and near the train freight line. There were about 7 trains that came through
each day but they weren’t that noisy. In
fact the first night I did not hear them at all 😊
Our camp at Penguin
here comes the train
A Panaroma of the beach
Urchins in the rocks
Tiny mollusc's
Mucking around with the penguin
Ducks and Sea gulls on the water
Sunset at Penguin
Monday 6th
We were going into town to investigate when I got a call from Ena and we went
to her home for a coffee and chat. What
a beautiful home with all the front windows having a view of Penguin and the
Bass Strait. Ena and Graeme have the
home up for sail as they are moving their business ‘Innovative Renovations’ is
moving to the mainland – possibly Queensland.
They have been doing a lot of the renovations for BENTO Japanese food stores. Darryl and I then went down into town for
lunch and a look around Penguin.
Tuesday 7th
was a complete wipe out. Meniere’s had
struck and the world was spinning in an alarming fashion.
Wednesday 8th
we were able to move on to Burnie even though I had quite a bit of ‘brain fog’
following yesterday. We made our way to
the Makers Workshop (information centre, papermaking, wine tasting, wood
carving, weaving etc). We had the
opportunity to go through the papermaking tour – so we did 😃.
all of these are sculpted using Paper
Then we had a coffee before chatting to the
young lady who was weaving. She was
using the rope etc washed up from the sea – just like my friend Sonja
Carmichael on Stradbroke does. We moved out to Cooee Point (after getting our
permits from the Information Centre), as we entered the area we filled the
water tanks and then tried to find a protected spot as the wind was blowing and
the seas were rough, but we got what we could in the corner. It really amazes me how people flaunt the
rules. We were clearly told NO waste
water on the ground and NO pets [because of the Little Penguins that come in of
a night time], only to find the camper next to us had a hose running under the
van out over the rocks and a shower tent up and four Chihuahua’s running around
off leads. We voiced our concerns about
the water which was met by not very nice language so decided to back off. Some ladies from down near the water tap came
past and told me they were going in to council to report them and three other
campers with dogs. We then made our way
out to the Rhododendron Gardens, unfortunately there were no flowers and the
tea rooms were closed so we headed in to the Hellyer’s Whiskey Distillery. We had lunch here and then went on the
tour. We got to sample the 66% whiskey
and then Darryl distilled his own bottle and wax sealed it also.
distilling his own bottle of 66% Whiskey
Sealing with Wax
a nice spiral in his seal
Henry Hellyer and his dog, crafted from Paper.
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