Our Australia trip

If there’s no kiting to be had then we’ll better move on. Kidding, the location is nice but quite exposed to wind, sun, the railroad track and the road. Also we want to explore more and after the coast it’s time to try a little inland. To do that we backtrack a few kilometers and go South.

We drive up and down a few times to locate the dump point in Penguin but then we finally say goodbye.

One of the nice parts of Tasmania is that it’s small (only 1.6 times The Netherlands with about 2.5% of the population) everything is close by, so in no time our scenery changes from beaches and coast line to winding roads and mountains.

We drive past a nice scenery of Dutch looking cows and many fields of poppy seeds.

They say that Tasmania is the largest exporter of poppy seeds for medicinal purposes (codeine and morphine) and I believe that, we have not seen too many drug heads here.

We see that we were not the only ones who kept a horse as a pet, however we never used it to guard our property.

Then we reach our first destination and Marjo is a bit disappointed with the size (aren’t we spoiled).

When we drove on Nos refused to lie between the front seats as he normally does and instead jumped on our bed and stared out of the back window. He must have been moody because he started this morning already anxiously when we drove off.

We then proceeded further south to look at Leven canyon. The name aroused our interest as “Leven” is the Dutch word for “Life” so there must be some Dutch connection. There’s not much written about this, the closest we could find is the following:
Prior to 1840, unlike much of Northern Tasmania, the central north coast was not regarded by Europeans as being fit for habitation and agricultural purposes.
The region where the town of Ulverstone is situated was originally called Badger Plains & Cotton but assumed the names Leven & River Leven after the river which was probably named in the 1820’s by explorers/surveyors from the Van Diemens Land Company.

When we arrived, Marjo, Nossi and I decided to leave Dotti to guard the bus and take a short walk down hill to the lookout.

There are two paths there and I blame the poor signage where Marjo thinks I need new glasses or look more carefully. The first stop was nice with a beautiful walk.

And a very nice view.

(Panorama view).

Then I knew a short cut up some stairs to the other view which saved us walking all the way back uphill to the car park. Nos was eager to go.

The first rest stop confirmed that it was not far. But the fact there was a rest stop should have been enough warning.

And hey, who thought that the weird scribble in front of the 80 was a 5? Ok, the 191 to the next seat was a giveaway, but now you’re talking too much detail.

Well, three rest stops later, we finally reached the other view.

I still say it was worth it.

Marjo says she agrees but that walking the other way around would have been the sensible thing to do.

We were all glad to see Dotti again.

And really enjoyed our lunch and had a Kodak moment.

The road from the Leven canyon back to the coast was very nice and we stopped for photo opportunities and some free snack from the side of the road.

Then we reached the nice Pioneer campground, nicely maintained by volunteers and found a great spot.

Nossi checked out the playground and Marjo checked out the surrounding nature.

A fabulous day.

Posted from Black River, Tasmania, Australia.

At 5.45 am we got woken up to get ready for disembarkation at 6.30 am sharp. We showered, left the cabin and got the dogs back into the bus. They had behaved very well but were both quite tired the whole day. Not sure if they slept much.

We arrived at a sunny Devonport and decided to have breakfast right after getting off the ferry. The quarantine stop was quick and in case it took longer they had entertainment options sorted out with 88.9 FM.

It was nice and relaxing to have breakfast so early.

Then we said goodbye to the ferry.

And rolled straight into the Saturday markets.

We bought some nice colourful clothes for Marjo and fresh fruit (strawberries and blueberries).

Our final stop was Woolworths as we can’t live on berries alone.

Then we took the road West; on the ferry we had decided to first go west and then south, or something. We’ll see. We had some nice things identified and wanted first to go towards Penguin as it has a nice campground on the beach.

We travel along the coast and make a few stops.

The north west coast is mainly rugged with rocks and intermittent a sandy beach.

While enjoying the view a local man stops behind us and asks if we are looking for a place to stay. Then he points out the free camp site in Penguin that we had in mind and tells us how to get there. A very friendly guy.
We arrive at the campground and set up.

Suddenly with a lot of noise a train comes right past. Lucky for us this only happens twice a day and not at night.

With the wind quite strong I do an attempt to kiteboard.

Unfortunately the wind has different ideas and decides to turn direction and strength a couple of times and I give up (for today). Then we decide to have a drink and read a magazine and watch the sunset.

A fabulous first day!

Posted from Black River, Tasmania, Australia.

Today is the day of the big sail to Tasmania. Why they call it to “sail” to Tasmania I don’t know as the ship is a massive blob of steel pushed through the water with a big engine and a couple of underwater propellers. No sail involved. At all.
Before we’re so far though there’s a whole day of things to do before we depart at 7.30 pm.

First we pack up, get our bond back for good dog behaviour and for returning the shower key and then we drive towards Melbourne, about 65 km from here.

We pass someone training in his back yard.

Then our first stop is at BCF (Boating Camping Fishing) where we buy something for our Tasmania trip.

What it is we’ll keep for you to guess, until we start using it.

Next we stop at a Dutch shop. It is a bit of a weird one, run by a Chinese woman who can speak as much Dutch as I can speak Chinese and every question we asked for missing products was answered with a dismissive wave and the words “in two weeks”. We didn’t buy much.

Then we arrived at Pierre and family. Pierre and I worked together at Lawson and he kindly offered to look after our trailer while we are visiting Tasmania. We were warmly welcomed and very much appreciated the coffee and marble cake and then said goodbye to our trailer.

Then we had about an hour to get to Port Melbourne which ordinarily shouldn’t be a problem. Turning the corner from Pierre’s house though we ran in a diversion after the road had been blocked due to an accident.

From there we had smooth sailing with traffic congestion going the other way.

And we reached the ferry terminal in no time.

From there it was a very slow process to finally get parked and we were able to put the dogs in kennels.

The dogs didn’t seem to care too much.

And we didn’t either after we checked into our cabin, got a beer at the bar and went outside.

In the background you can see kiters on the bay; perhaps I can join them when we come back from Tasmania!
After a nice sunset over sea we went to our cabin. The journey was a bit rough but otherwise uneventful and we got gently rocked to sleep by the rolling ship.

Posted from Black River, Tasmania, Australia.