Foddrick

The routine almost a ritual now, we arose, had breakfast and packed the car. We headed out of Kentish Hills Retreat towards Mole Creek. We came across Marakoopa Cave and decided to investigate. The entry fee was reasonable, so we went on the 10am tour to the Cathedral. The tour was about an hour long and featured many different cave formations. The highlight were the resident glow worms. When the lights were off, they lit up the ceiling like stars.

After the cave, we pushed on and stopped in Chudleigh at a honey stop. They had many, many varieties of honey to sample and had a glass hive on display. We bought a few honeys to eat at our leisure.

We woke up, had breakfast, did a spot of washing and cleaning up and finally headed out to Tasmazia.

Tasmazia was great! It is a complex of 4 major mazes with a couple of little ones thrown in. It has a minature village too. Poor Campbell was the star of the day for all the wrong reasons. Firstly he had a bit of an “incident” in Lower Crackpot, he fell over in the balance maze and split his lip. (Thanks to the woman who just couldn't move). And to top it all off, despite his fathers behest, he wandered off in one of the mazes and then it was a major operation first to find him, then to guide him and the rescue crew out of the maze. Mum was holding up a branch so that Christine, who had already reached the center of the maze gave directions. Thankfully they were all reunited after not too long. Dad made an attempt to steal Campbell's show by banging his head in cubby-land. But he couldn't top Campbell's antics. He did however have a very sore neck to show for his attempted entry.

We arose, had a light breakfast, packed the car and headed off to ascend “The Nut”. Harrison and Christine opted for the chairlift, while Mark, Campbell, Mum and Dad walked the path. It is a reasonably steep climb, but not that difficult unless you have a petulant 5 year old with you who thinks resting just slows you down.

We embarked on a walk around the top, which is quite hilly despite how flat it looks from afar. It didn't help that two young children did not want to walk all that way and had to be carried. Although the view was good, we were mostly focused on getting to the end and relieving ourselves of our load of children.

We packed up and left Castaway fairly early as we had a long drive ahead of us. We stopped at Henti sand dunes located about 12 km out of Strahan. At this point, Dad realised we hadn't returned the room key, so he headed back to do that while the rest of us climbed the sand dunes. They were about 30m tall and it took quiet an effort to climb them. By the time we'd climbed them, had a quick look around and gone down again, Dad had returned.

We then continued north, and stopped in ZeeHAN!! There was a museum there but we felt it was overpriced, so we continued north. We, for some reason, took the long way to Tullah and a little further up the road, stopped near Waratah to celebrate Jimmy and Snowy's birthday. (You might remember that these were Harrion's and Campbell's monkeys that we bought at ZooDoo.) We had cakes, a few lollies and a rousing rendition of happy birthday.

The morning was spent fairly easily. After breakfast, there was a little washing, drawing and playing cards.

At around 2pm we set off for our cruise up the Gordon River.

After leaving Strahan, we went out through Hell's Gates and had a brief float in the Southern Ocean. We headed up towards the top of the harbour, stopping briefly at a fish farm and getting out for a walk at Heritage Landing. After that we had dinner, which unfortunately catered poorly for children and then stopped at Sarah Island. It was a convict settlement that pre-dated Port Arthur. Unfortunately, there were little ruins left from the settlement.

Tasmania Holiday Day 8
25th November 2006

We awoke this morning at Bronte Park and without much aplomb we ate breakfast, packed and set off on our way to Strahan.

On the way we stopped at the “The Wall” which is historical events depicted in a wall of carvings. However at $7.50 per adult we felt it just wasn't worth it. Had the artist set his admission price a little lower he might have made some sales.

We pressed on and stopped at Lake St Clair – A national park not far from Bronte Park and was in fact one of the contenders for last nights accommodation. It had a good visitor centre and Harrison was impressed to see a “real-life dead echidna”. We also learnt of the overland track which is a track from Cradle Mountain National Park to Lake St Claire National Park. It is about 80km long and takes 6-8 days. We have resolved to come back and attempt this at some stage. It looks quite easy with humble shelter along the way – hopefully alleviating the need to carry a tent, though it may be still prudent to take one. We also spoke with some gentlemen who had just completed the track and they recommended it. We had a bite to eat as well, and although the food tasted great, the service left a lot to be desired.

It was hustle and bustle at Regent Park as everyone was preparing to leave this morning.
Somehow, we managed to get the tarago loaded with all of our luggage and still leave room for the human cargo.

Before leaving Hobart, we stopped in to check out the botanical gardens. They were full of colour and beautiful flowers.

Then we set off for tonight's destination of Bronte Park.

On the way we stopped in New Norfolk for lunch. The kids had a good time playing in the three playgrounds that were in the park that we found.

Further along, we stopped at a lookout over some of the hydro-electric power stations.

As our last full day in Hobart during stay #1, we had always planned to take it easy. We went for a walk downtown, checked out a few shops and had pizza for lunch. When we returned home, we watched the cricket, had a rest and a general bludge.

In the afternoon we came across the coolest park that was humbly named the Parliament St Playground. It had an awesome slide, probably 15 metres long down a fairly steep hill. We all had a few rides, with Mark and the boys being the most frequent flyers. We all wished we'd discovered this park sooner and we will visit again during Hobart stay #2.

After an unfulfilling day previously, we were out to make amends.
Christine had organised an additional hire car, just for the day, so that later on we could split into two parties. (Ahhh the serenity... so much serenity... a car ride without the kids for once!)

Both vehicles headed out to Zoo Doo Wildlife Park at Richmond. Zoo Doo was home to an Animal Nursery (very cool – with the kids being able to touch baby goats, pick up the cutest little bunny rabbits ever, and refresh their memories of what their guinea pigs look like back home), plus check out a mummy duck with her ducklings, a ferret and her babies suckling, piglets, rats, mice, baby chicks, parrots and other birds, and the most amazing coloured bantam hens ever! They were multicoloured and had been dyed with food colouring (PERFECTLY safe for the animal activists out there!) in time for the local show.

It was the first bright sunny morning in Hobart. Mt Wellington had descended from the clouds and the phallic object on top was in plain view. Not contented with the finer weather we headed north in search of some more mist. Not really, we headed off to Frecynet National Park – Home of the 600 Steps which we'd heard so much about.

Along the way we stopped for sunglasses and nasal spray in Sorrell and then a little later came across the Spiky Bridge. It was a convict built bridge over a small gully with spikes protruding out of the top of the sides of the bridge. Apparently the spikes were likely just a whim of the overseer of construction. We saw a lot of sheep on the way, and stopped at a few towns and took a few photographs of older buildings.