In one of the earlier blogs I wrote about “not going back”.  Well, despite writing that, we have gone back, back to Melbourne but there is a reason.  We are catching up with friends and family.  In the past we have always stayed out to the west side of Melbourne, however this time we have…

The drive from St Helens to Swansea took us down the main east coast road past some familiar sounding names obviously borrowed from home, like Beaumaris and Falmouth.  We eventually stopped at a small town called Bicheno. We had a good look round and it seemed a bustling, busy sort of place, popular with tourists…

Mention the name St Helens and for me it creates an image of a town in the Northwest of England famous for its Rugby League team and the industrial north of years ago.  As with many areas in Tasmania, British names have been “borrowed” and used by the first settlers to name their new settlements….

After leaving the Woodchopping capital of Australia (see previous blog about Latrobe) it was a short drive to our next stop, Deloraine.  For reasons we can’t remember, we only planned two nights here, which means we have to make the most of our 1.5 days sight seeing.  A brief encounter if you like. Deloraine is…

Having left Strahan in the rain and dallied a little in Queenstown, we were on our way to Penguin, on Tasmania’s north coast and part of what the locals call “Cradle Country”, after the Mountain that dominates the scenery, Cradle Mountain. Our route took us close to the National Park that bears its name, which meant…

We are in Strahan, a small village midway up the west coast of Tasmania.  If you set sail in a boat and turn right out of Macquarie Harbour into the Southern Ocean and head west, the next land mass you are likely to bump into is Argentina, which is a long way away. A while…

We awoke on the morning after our trip to Bruny Island with the heavy smell of smoke outside, although at this point the visibility was still quite good.  The wind was blowing hard from the west and northwest, fanning the bush fires and creating this smoke which was being spread across the peninsula, tainting the…

As I mentioned in my previous blog “Our Tour de Tassie”, we have arrived in Kettering.  I also noted that there was not much here, however one reason for coming here was to visit Bruny Island, a short ferry ride across the D’Entrecasteaux Channel.  We also had in mind visits to Geeveston, the Tahuna Air…