P & J Tasmania 2021

  Feb 7th - Hobart An early morning walk to Wrest Point (the casino) and back. On the way we passed The Royal Hobart Yacht Club and it’s hundreds of boats.  After brekky we decided to go for another walk to Hobart’s Botanical Gardens.  Although not quite as nice as Melbourne’s it was still very pleasant once we’d got there.  One very nice sighting however was seeing a bandicoot, one of about 20 species of small to medium-sized nocturnal marsupials.  This evening we’d walked down to the harbour to watch a planned fireworks display.  Unfortunately though, due to Covid restrictions, the display had been canned and so we spent the evening in and around the harbour. 

  Feb 6th - Flowery Gully / Hobart A relatively early start and we were off to Hobart.  It was a pleasant 2 1/2 hour drive through the ‘midlands’ countryside, which actually looked very dry, unlike what we’d seen ‘oop north’! We had to get here by 12.00 as we had a lunchtime appointment with some friends of ours, Mick & Dettes, from Melbourne, who were on their last day of a 2-week Tassie trip.  After lunch and then a few beers at Salamanca Place, an area of sandstone buildings that had been warehouses for the port of Hobart Town, since been converted into restaurants and bars, we went for a bit of a walk around the harbour. 

  Feb 5th - Flowery Gully Wow what a day (and night) weatherwise!  We’ve had about 50ml of rain today and apparently it’s been the heaviest downfall in over five years, it certainly put paid to anymore fishing! So, instead of catching trout we decided to visit a couple of local (ish) attractions.  The first outing was to the Beaconsfield mine and heritage museum.  Lots of interesting exhibits with some beautiful old working steam tools and engines.  One of the old mine buildings was even used as the local telephone exchange and the remnants still remain.  The museum is also the scene of the 2006 gold mine collapse, where a number of miners were trapped over a kilometre underground.  Very interesting to read about how the successful rescue was implemented.   Next trip was to a ‘monotreme museum’ (I.e. Platypus house!),   at Beauty Point, where we got to see both platypuses (apparently it’s a Greek word and not Latin) AND Echidnas. Although w...

  Feb 4th - Devonport/ Flowery Gully After a very easy and smooth nights sail we woke up to the announcement that everyone’s travel permits into Tasmania had been cancelled and we all had to re-apply for new ones. Apparently there had been a new case of Covid in Melbourne, with someone working for the Australian open Tennis comp, and we had to advise health officials if we’d been in the ‘hot’ zones before leaving home.  A pleasant hours drive from Devonport and we arrived at Flowery Gully.  This is where a mate of mine, Frank, from my scouting days, lives (although he is trying to sell it).  What a place, 65 acres, a house on the hill overlooking a fantastic trout lake, and surrounded by trees.  It’s just beautiful!  My photos are not going to do the place justice so HERE is the link to the advertising blurb that Franks using with some great aerial shots.  Out fishing (spinning) with Frank before lunch and I caught a very nice half dozen brown trout,...

  Feb 3rd - Port Melbourne / Spirit of Tasmania Officially our first day of the trip even though we’re not sailing until tonight.  Got to Port Melbourne mid afternoon to see if we could catch up for a drink with Chris Morrow before sailing.  Chris is, for some strange reason, staying in his bosses apartment just minutes from the ferry terminal and on the beach road facing the sea (a bit of a ‘mini-break’ methinks).  It was fantastic weather, all sun and no wind (which seemed to me like perfect conditions for sailing!) and we had a couple of beers in one of the bars on the pier.  All very nice! On-board the Spirit of Tasmania, and settled in our little cupboard of a cabin, there are some lovely views of the city from the boat (ship?) and we could actually see Chris waving from his apartment balcony. 

Feb 2nd (Australia time! - Not as Google says February 01!)  Welcome to the start of our ‘Trip to Tassie” blog.  We’re only away for a couple of weeks but we thought we’d use this to enable you to follow our tracks.  The original plan was to try a get a decent trip away to celebrate JEM’s HUUUUGE birthday on the 16th Feb ☺.  Unfortunately though, due to the horrible ‘C’ virus and numerous border closings, we’ve had to plan something a little less grand and a little bit closer to home (for the time being anyway). As we’ve already been to Tassie before, we spent 5 weeks travelling around some years ago, we didn’t feel the need to try and re-see everything again and so our general plan is to spend a few nights in just a few spots, Flowery Gully, Hobart, Coles Bay, and Launceston, see below. However, and due to Covid, before we can even think about crossing any state borders into Tassie we’ve had to get personal ‘Health visas’ (as yet I haven’t checked what we need to ge...