Category Archives: Tasmania

Australia day 5 – Shearwater

Helen is visiting her mother in Ulverstone and Adrian is supervising the hanging of new blinds in the house. It’s a gloriously sunny day without a cloud in the sky; perfect for a walk on the beach and to explore the neighbourhood. Shearwater on the tidal Rubicon River estuary. It is a popular holiday village which is seeing a considerable amount of new development and there are plenty of plots for sale. Colloquially known as ‘shacks’ the properties here are anything but, sitting on their private plots many either on the shoreline or with views of it, there is plenty of money invested in week-enders and holiday properties here. This morning is low tide leaving a huge expanse of beach and on closer inspection there are thousands of small red crabs which curl up into small balls as we walk amongst them.

After lunch we take a walk along the estuary foreshore to the sea. The shoreline is lined with one and two storey houses built to capture the views and there are some lovely sandy beaches and secluded coves along this rocky stretch. We walk on through the nature reserve as far as Carbuncle Island, which can be reached across the sands at low tide, but not this afternoon. This is a great place for wild life probably because there is no road beyond this point; we spot two wallabies, several rabbits, and a snake slithering across the path into the undergrowth.

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Australia day 4 – Hobart

Helen isn’t working today so the three of us drive into Hobart for a morning’s sight-seeing. We start at Salamanca Place, restored row of Georgian sandstone warehouses dating back to the 1830s and now converted into cafes, craft shops, galleries and restaurants. We wander on round the harbour front which is home to a large number of yachts as well as the temporary berth of the Steve Irwin, the whale defending ship previously known as the Sea Shepherd. We have a quick stroll along Elizabeth Street and Macquarie Street and then turn back to Salamanca Square for a coffee. The square is surrounded by cafes none particularly well frequented and with a modern metal edifice which we think might be a dragon, but could be anything really. Adrian takes a break from his ‘hectic’ schedule to join us as we relax and indulge, in my case in a ridiculously cholesterol-laden iced chocolate heaving with whipped cream, mmmm!

We spend the afternoon researching camper vans and airport transfers for Darwin, but make little progress.

In the evening we pick Adrian up from work, and after a delicious fish and chip supper from a very popular chippie on the harbour front before we make the three-hour drive north to Adrian and Helen’s new house in Shearwater on the north coast. They have just bought a new-build, two-storey house overlooking the Rubicon estuary. It has an open planning living area with an enormous picture window and large balcony with stunning views and master bedroom suite on the first floor. We’re on the ground floor where there are a further two bedrooms, bathroom and sitting room with patio doors onto the garden …oh, and the integral garage. All ultra modern and with a similar layout to their previous home in Blackman’s Bay.

We arrive in Shearwater around 10.30 pm and have a convivial evening with a bottle of wine and sit chatting until 1.30 in the morning.

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Australia day 3 – Hobart

Another lazy day, just taking time to slow down and chill after what seems to have been a hectic few weeks chasing round New Zealand. The weather starts with a wonderful sunrise; the sun reflecting on the estuary and filling the kitchen and living room with dazzling light. Helen and Adrian are both working today so we decide to spend some more time planning and researching the next part of our trip.

In the afternoon we catch the local bus into Kingston to do some shopping for dinner and to visit the Online Centre in the local library where they have printing facilities. Adrian’s enthusiasm for the ‘top end’ and the Kimberleys has persuaded us to fly to Darwin and drive across to Broome on the west coast. While we are up in Darwin we’ll also visit Kakadu. We book the flights for the 31st March – a three-legged route via Melbourne and Brisbane taking a whopping 7 hours; there isn’t any direct flights from Hobart. We also sort out some car hire for Tas so that we can spend next week exploring the north coast, Cradle Mountain and the Gordon River.

The wok cookbook which has proved so indispensable as we travelled round New Zealand, comes into it’s own again as I rustle up a prawn pilaff in the electric wok…

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Australian day 2 – Hobart

A very lazy day. The weather is warm but cloudy most of the day although the sun makes an appearance in the late afternoon. Adrian has kindly lent us his car, which seems enormous after the hire car we have been driving round New Zealand for the last 38 days. The quid pro quo is that Andy has to be up and ready by 7.30 am to take Adrian to work in Hobart some 20 km away. Not such a hardship as our body clocks are telling us it’s 9.30am; Australia being two hours behind New Zealand.

We spend some time looking round the local shopping centre in Kingston, a few minutes drive from the house in Blackman’s Bay. We’re looking for internet access and a hairdressers – I haven’t had a hair cut since we left the UK last August – but there are no internet cafes in Kingston and none of the hairdressers appeal. Helen mentioned yesterday that the local MacDonalds has started to offer free wifi, so in the afternoon we steel ourselves and make our way to MacDonalds. For the price of a cup of coffee and a tea (and against a backdrop of children’s tea parties) we can research the next leg of our trip and pick up our emails. We plan to hire a car and see some of the north and west of Tasmania as Helen and Adrian have generously offered us the use of their new house in Shearwater for a few days. We will then spend a few days making our way back to Hobart via the west coast. We’re then going to make our way to northern Australia and do some touring in the Kimberleys – the ‘real’ Australia. We end up making two trips to MacDonalds as Andy’s laptop runs out of power almost as soon as we arrive, and MacDonalds, probably deliberately, don’t provide any sockets for recharging.

A misunderstanding about arrangements for picking up Adrian from work compounded because, unbeknown to us, my mobile sim isn’t working so Adrian can’t make contact. By the time we get back around 6pm Helen already made the trip into Hobart to collect Adrian much to our embarrassment and contrition.

Both Helen and Adrian are in fine form and we have an entertaining evening over a delicious fish curry supper.

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Australia day 1 – Auckland to Hobart

We leave for the airport on the 4.30am shuttle bus to the airport to catch a flight to Melbourne on the first leg of our flight. There are no delays and the four-hour flight is uneventful. We then face a long process to clear immigration, collect baggage and clear customs. The latter involves sniffer dogs searching passengers for prohibited animal or vegetable products. As we have already declared on our entry card that we have been in fresh water recently we have to unpack all the footwear and clothing we used for our canoe trip on the Whanganui for inspection. Our shoes are taken away to be washed to prevent any possibility of bringing didymo spores into the country. Didymo is a highly invasive brown fungus that chokes fresh waterways and is near impossible to irradicate. It hasn’t reached Australia yet and that’s the way they want it to stay. As we wait for our shoes to be returned we are amazed by the amount of food some passengers have in their luggage particularly in the way of food and spices – bags full! One customs officer is examining a holdall full of bags of powder that have been slashed open spreading powder everywhere. We are also entertained by a film crew filming for a regular TV programme called ‘Border Control’. By the time and have grabbed some lunch, the check-in for our flight to Hobart at 1pm is open. It’s only a short hour’s hop from Melbourne to Hobart and with no further entry formalities we are straight into the arrivals hall where Adrian – looking much the same as ever – is waiting to meet us.

Helen and Adrian are house-sitting a property right on the shore of Blackman’s Bay and the views from kitchen and living room picture windows stretch across the wide expanse of the Derwent Estuary to the suburbs on the other side. The house itself is lovely; full of light and wood floors. Adrian has to return to the office so we take a walk along the beach and up along the cliff walk which runs up from the beach and along the front gardens of the properties that are perched on the hillside. There are some good views of the rocky coastline below as well as the back of one rather modern, industrial-looking house. Mostly he hillside is built up with single and two-storey homes of brick or weatherboard. As we go furthe along the cliff public footpath runs through the front gardens of several houses which is rather disconcerting and as rain threatens we turn back to retrace our steps.

The main reason Helen and Adrian are sitting the house is to look after a rather ancient and rather decrepit Burmese cat with a rather penetrating meow and a sneezing problem. At first we didn’t fully understand Helen and Adrian’s antipathy to this poor creature who seemed only to crave attention. Until, that it is, it sneezed snot over our duvet; the cat is now barred from our bedroom in addition to the living room and has been dubbed the ‘snot machine’ by Andy!. .

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