The Last Leg Home...

After giving the car and trailer a MUCH needed clean at a car wash in Port Augusta (we are talking up to 3 inches of mud now set like concrete!) we started our journey towards the Eyre Peninsular, the Nullarbor Plain and home!

Our first quick stopover to break up the driving was Kimba – the town’s claim to fame is being halfway across Australia (that is via the road between Perth and Sydney), the other claim is a giant galah and the mining of black jade.

Our view at Streaky Bay - right on the beach!

Given the really windy weather, we decided to skip Coffin Bay and with it the southern Eyre Peninsula, missing our oyster fix and planned beach side break. We decided to chill out at Streaky Bay for a few days instead, as it was sheltered from the prevailing winds. We had been told by several people that it was paradise, and it turned out they weren’t far wrong! We scored a campsite just 20 metres from the water in a peaceful inlet AND the weather shined for us – hallelujah! Stuart enjoyed sitting on the beach fishing while being close enough to camp that beer, snacks or cups of tea were only a call away. (He deserved the spoiling; he hasn’t had too much good fishing weather!) We had visits from flocks of pelicans, gulls and even a beautiful stingray with brilliant blue strips! We tried fishing off the nearby jetty one night, but spotted more crabs swimming around sideways than any fish. The next day Stuart bought a crab net and took the kayak out to try his luck. When he retrieved the net there was not only no crab in it, but all the bait was gone and something had chewed a big hole in the netting! We figured maybe a seal ate it? Could it have been a stingray? Anyway, we bought some King George Whiting and scallops to eat and had a very relaxing 4 days!

As we were still to satisfy our South Australian oyster fix, we hunted out the ‘Oyster Bar’ in Ceduna; A little shack on the side of the road that only sells oysters and wine and has a roof top dining area with ocean views! We ate half a dozen kilpatrick oysters on the rooftop, and then purchased another dozen shucked natural oysters to have with dinner that night. But as we were about to drive off we went back inside and bought a dozen more unshucked oysters to share with Stuart’s parents we were due to see in a few days! Cholesterol raising feasts! Lucky no one was due for a blood test!


A Koonalda Station classic


Our Nullarbor adventure included multiple side trips to the coast line along the Great Australian Bight. The endless dramatic cliffs are quite impressive! After the first day’s driving, we picked the closest campsite within the Nullarbor Plain National Park and to our surprise it was an old abandoned homestead called Koonalda. The outside walls of the actual homestead building were constructed out of old railway sleepers, as was the surrounding fence and shearers kitchen nearby. In its day, the homestead served as a type of early roadhouse, with a petrol bowser and mechanical repairs. As it turned out, most of the cars never made it any further and there now lies a car graveyard with wrecks of old classics, including just about every model of Holden as well as a little Fiat 500 among others. Either the mechanic was useless, or you just couldn’t get parts out there I suppose! Stuart was in photographer’s heaven and went exploring with his camera at sunrise before the overnight mist cleared. And once again, he captured some magic shots!

Back on the road the next day it was time for the reality of crossing into West Australia! YIKES! It was good having the long straight Nullarbor crossing to talk and think about coming home and how we felt. And I think we were feeling pretty positive and excited. Our first night in WA was to be spent in Esperance meeting up with Stuart’s parents (Rob and Diane), who were on holiday and getting ready to start their month long stint as DEC Campground Hosts at Stokes Inlet. We took a short cut to Esperance via the Balladonia Road. It turned out to be the bumpiest ride, possibly of the ENTIRE trip!! I was silly enough to buy a hot chocolate at the Balladonia Roadhouse, (this also was a trip first!) and it was impossible to drink and I spilt it everywhere! The road was so rough and corrugated that the front forks of Stuart’s mountain bike bounced right out of the clamps holding it onto the camper!! ANOTHER first for the trip!! You would think that this close to home, there would be no more surprises!!

We snuck up on Rob and Diane at the Esperance Caravan Park and it was lovely to see family again that we hadn’t seen for 11 months! We spent the rest of the day and night catching up, spoiling ourselves with nice beer and wine, sharing yet more Ceduna oysters and hearing the latest news from home!

Black bream for dinner!

We followed Rob and Diane a day later to Stokes National Park where we stayed for three nights, easing our way back into reality. It really was the perfect way to end the holiday! In between Rob and Diane’s host duties, we had numerous cups of tea, ate, played cards, and Stuart finally got stuck into some fishing with plenty of bait! The Inlet is extremely salty (twice as salty as the ocean), so the only surviving fish were Black Bream, but they were thriving! Besides catching a decent fish on the first cast, Stuart rigged up with two hooks, and twice caught two fish at once. He also managed to catch one fish that had taken both baits and got hooked on both hooks! After Stuart had sussed out which size hook to use he continued with the single hook and was joined by Diane and me, poor Rob was left behind on campground duties, but we did bring home five size fish that day! Even I fished AND I caught an size fish! Diane caught two and Stuart caught two! Over the three days, we had fish sandwiches for lunch one day, baked fish with lemon and onions for dinner and thai fish cakes for another lunch! YUMMO! Rob loved it but was ready for a big steak by the time we left!

With only a little trepidation we said good-bye and started the very last leg of the journey. Our plan was to head to Wave Rock and stay the night at Hyden, but when we arrived at Hyden it was still early in the day, and it was so hot and DRY! You certainly all have had a different year from us! So we decided to bomb it home to my parent’s house! As we had been so undecided about our own plans, Mum and Bruce only got the call from York! Mum was chatting away, then asked ‘so which day are you going to be home?’....um, how about dinner time Mum? This was at about 4pm in the afternoon mind you! She did well and had the cars moved, dinner ready and had invited my sister over, so our arrival was really lovely and exciting! Well done Mum!

After lying low for a couple of days, we then completed our Round Oz trip by arriving in the driveway of our beautiful new home!!! WHOO HOO!!

How are we really feeling now?? I was like an emotional rollercoaster the day we were driving home, going from giddy excitement to tears and back again! But that’s pretty normal for me!! Ha. But since that day we have been pretty good, and taking it all in our stride! The excitement of a new house definitely helps! We can’t wait to catch up with everyone and have you over to the new house for a swim in the pool and a bbq! Yay!

The house seems enormous after living in the camper! And Stuart has said that he had already had the urge to move on the next place! But we will be here for a while yet!

Also a very special thank you to all our lovely friends who had us to stay around the country –

• Emma and Sandor for showing us around the Red Centre (NT),
• Aunty Dot for the welcomed use of your nice dry unit in Merimbula (NSW),
• Caroline, Richard, Elsie and Emily for sharing your house with us in Thornbury (Vic),
• Brenda and Elliot in Diamond Creek (Vic),
• Rob and Sue in Healsville (Vic),
• Paul and Carol in Rosevears (Tas).

You added so much to our experience and we have lots of great memories of sharing your homes and company! (Thanks also to Luke in Brisbane for allowing us to store the bikes and kayaks after Stuart broke his hand!)

Thank you everyone for all the support and contact! Hope you are all well and look forward to SEEING YOU IN PERSON SOON!! 11 months on the road together, and for all you jokers out there.... we are still happy and can’t wait to get married later this year!

Love Michelle and Stuart



South Australia

Hi everyone!
We are in South Australia and have certainly been enjoying ourselves! Not entirely free from wet, cold, windy weather, but enough sunshine to just keep us smiling!

Our week in Adelaide was great! The caravan park was right on the river about 7km from the city centre. Adelaide has such a great bike path network that we enjoyed lots of riding, and found it a city full of cyclists! We were also really impressed with their dedicated bus highway! The buses rush along on a raised concrete platform, almost like a toboggan! They are guided by small wheels that stick out sideways and stop the bus hitting the concrete sides. The buses glide along so quietly at speeds around 80 km per hour!

After getting a feel for the main Rundell Mall shops, buskers and public art – gotta love the Mall’s Balls! We headed out to the Barossa Valley for the day, starting at the wonderful Barossa Valley Farmers Markets. Yes! We are suckers for the local farmers markets! But this is where Maggie Beer shops! We bought Kasundi, green tea, sourdough, an exquisitely decorated cupcake (tribute to you Bec!), and fresh fruit and vegetables including purple carrots! They tasted exactly like normal carrots, but were rich and juicy with the colouring of beetroot; great dose of antioxidants! After the markets we explored a number of wonderful antique shops scattered through the beautiful historic towns. Then it was on to Maggie Beer’s farm for lunch! Everything on display was available for free tastings and although we bought some vino cotto, pheasant pate, a signed cookbook and some gourmet ice cream, we didn’t end up having lunch there. But we still enjoyed the beautiful views around her pheasant farm. So lunch was in another historic town called Tanunda, were we found a beautiful pub and enjoyed the local Cooper’s Beer on tap with a yummy pub meal! And that would be our Barossa experience!....What! you say, no wineries? Now, I don’t deny that we enjoy a nice wine, but it seems like such a waste to sip and spit (Stuart was driving)! And to be honest, we had a great experience without it – the Barossa had so much more to offer than wine, and we could have easily stayed longer.

Our other exciting spoil was tickets to the WOMadelaide world music festival! It was held in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens over 4 days, but we just attended the Sunday night. The festival had such a beautiful friendly crowd. We took advantage of the large secure bicycle park they offered and rode to and from the festival. We saw music such as a Spanish guitar trio, and Inuit throat singer from Canada, heaps of funky beats from African and South America, Calypso Rose from Trinidad – a woman so full of love, life and laughter! And of course the headlining act Afro-Celt Sound System an unusual blend of singing and instruments but so funky I couldn’t stop dancing! It was great to be at a festival with such a variety of people of all ages, and when it ended I loved that hundreds of people rode their bikes home from the city centre near midnight!

I really enjoyed Adelaide. It seemed to have a strong community feel, with regular festivals and celebrations, a busy art scene and plenty of ‘green city’ initiatives in action! With so many parks and gardens throughout the city, it had a spacious and relaxed feel to it! I definitely plan to return for more!
After Adelaide we tried to enjoy the York Peninsula, and although we found a beautiful coastal camp in Innes National Park, walking distance from a beautiful fishing beach complete with a boat wreck, but the wind was howling and quite frankly, we have had our fill of rough weather camping! So we left a day later, heading inland for Mt Remarkable National Park which is in the southern Flinders Ranges. We found a beautiful scenic (and sheltered!) woodland where we enjoyed warm weather, and some bushwalking. We even had a flock of emus walk right into camp!

We next arrived in the Flinders Ranges National Park and the area has easily made it to my short-list of favourite places in Australia! (I think I just love the Outback, no matter which state it belongs to). We are back to red dirt and rocky gorges with steep rugged cliff faces. We first made camp in the northern section of the park and explored the Aroona ruins and other outstations which artist Hans Heyson resided at while painting his many famous images of the Flinders. As we drove through the Branchina Gorge we stopped to see a group of Yellow-Footed Rock Wallabys! These little fella’s are stunning with bands of colour that blend in with their habitat. After a day marvelling at the beauty of the Flinders Ranges we decided to set up camp in the southern section next to the geological wonder, Wilpena Pound. The ‘Pound’ is a huge mountain ridge in a circular shape, similar to a gigantic meteorite crater, but it was shaped by natural movements of the earth’s crust. Our views of the Pound were somewhat delayed as the weather wasn’t good for climbing to any of the lookouts for a few days, but we finally made it to the top of Mount Ohlssen Bagge and were rewarded with a stunning 360 degree view of the Pound and surrounding area!

Unfortunately, the weather was still pretty wet. We had the internet available at the pound campsite, so Stuart checked the weather forcasts and instead of sitting around waiting for some blue sky to reach us (which is a pretty miserable thing to do in the camper, not to mention there was also a mouse plague!! Let’s just say I slept in the car!) we decided to make an overnight trek to the town of Marree on the faint hope of jagging a window of fine weather to take a charter flight over Lake Eyre!! Given all of the wet weather, there were road closures all over the place, but we found a couple of roads through the park back out to the bitumen. Stuart had to really concentrate on driving, as the dirt roads were really muddy and slippery! When we arrived at Marree, it was still overcast and windy!

Sunrise in Marree - all aboard!

Thankfully, we woke to a beautiful sunrise and blue skies as we climbed into our little plane! Our pilot Katrina, was only 21 but had flying since she was 14 and had previously worked in Tasmania flying tourists over Wineglass Bay. Our flight headed east following the Birdsville Track to Cooper Creek, a source of freshwater that runs into Lake Eyre. Here we saw huge flocks of Pelicans and other birds that had flown in to enjoy the high water levels. Cooper Creek last flowed into Lake Eyre in 1990 and it only happens about 8 out of 100 years! It was now also supporting a good stock of fish too! After this we flew across the rather green sand dunes of the Tirari Desert spotting cattle on the stations below before reaching our first glimpse of Lake Eyre! The bay that we first flew over was just a small fraction of the lake’s size and already the water stretched further than the horizon. The depth of water in this bay was only 30cm deep and was a brilliant pink colour which reflected off the clouds and the bottom of the plane! I was totally in awe and never expected it to be so beautiful! The pink colouring is said to be from an algae which thrives in the water which is 10 times saltier than the ocean. Out in the middle of the lake there is a fuselage of a plane that crashed when the pilots tried to fly lower than sea level! Lake Eyre is just below sea level, but not low enough to allow a plane to fly, hence the crash!

Our next leg was over the deeper Jackboot Bay and a deep blue colour. We then flew over Lake Eyre South and could see the wind blowing the water around on the shallow banks. We were told that the wind can shift the water on the shallow margins of the lake by up to 5kms. The sights back to Marree were full of dense green bands of vegetation on the banks of the water courses. The flight was yet another highlight of our holiday!

The road trip between Marree and Wilpena Pound was also a great one. We stopped at the Praire Hotel in Parachilna for lunch. A renowned outback hotel with great food, art, style and their own brewed beer - Farger Larger! It has apparently hosted a number of Hollywood celebrities during the filming of movies in the area.

Other side trips included exploring the ruins of the abandoned town of Farina, stopping for a delicious sweet quandong pie and viewing the spectacular Ochre cliffs exposing an array of colours which local aboriginal tribes have traded with distant tribes for stone tools and other necessities.

We have since checked the weather maps (surprise, surprise) and the coastal areas all along the Eyre Peninsula are blowing a gale! So we have hit the road heading west, where hopefully we will get some calmer conditions at Streaky Bay on the western end of the peninsular before we hit the Nullabour.

So it’s not too long now!

Take care everyone,

Mish and Stu



Heading West...

ONLY 5 WEEKS TO GO!!!!!!

Making tutu's!

We were warmly welcomed back to Caroline and Richard’s house in Melbourne and had arrived in time to celebrate Stuart’s god-daughter’s third birthday! Happy Birthday Elsie!! The whole week was pretty much spent playing with the girls - Elsie (3) & Emily (1). We went to Elsie’s kiddie party at the Community Garden CERES, watched her Fairy Dancing concert, had a surprise party at the local park for Uncle Stuart and a second family birthday party for Elsie at a miniature train park. Did I mention I also spent nearly 12 hours straight sewing pink and red ‘sticky out’ tutu’s for the girls on my last day in Melbourne! I miss my sewing machine and loved every minute of it! The girls loved them and danced around the kitchen wearing them non-stop until we left! Since leaving Melbourne, Caroline has sent us photographs of the girls going shopping – both wearing their tutu’s!

Behind the scenes Stuart was busy getting the car it’s 100,000km service and having the zipper repaired on the camper as we had actually worn out the zipper slider! Stuart had to argue a little to get it fixed under warranty, as CUB said the zips don’t wear out and it must have been abused! But CUB settled to fix it anyway out of good faith. Whatever! Its fixed now, so we are happy!

I also caught up with my wonderful friends Brenda, Amanda, Elise and Kirsty, along with a little retail therapy! When in Melbourne...


At the 12 Apostles...

Our exit route of Victoria was via the Great Ocean Road, but unfortunately our planned side trip to the Grampians was cancelled as the majority of the park was still closed due to previous flood damage. The Great Ocean Road was pretty wet and FREEZING cold as well, but we did our best to grit our teeth and get out of the car and explore anyway! The 12 Apostles were definitely worth it but we passed on the Otway Lighthouse, which claimed to be ‘the most significant lighthouse in Australia’ and was charging $17.50 per person to even get close enough to look at it! Fair enough to do a guided tour, but we just wanted to see the coastline where it stands! Still, the drive out there was worth it though, as we met some very cute koalas on the roadside! We also had some interesting walks along the beaches of the Shipwreck Coast, locating some of the anchors from ships that have been wrecked on this notorious stretch of coast.

On one of our walks, Stuart found a juvenile little Blue Penguin, who had crawled out of the pounding surf alive but exhausted and shivering in the freezing wind. Given it was low tide, he would have ended up back in the water soon after, so Stuart picked the little one up and relocated him just up the beach behind a dry rock just above the high tide mark. He seemed to pick up just being out of the wind, and thanked Stuart with a snap at his fingers! We left hoping that he survived the night and got back to the ocean for a feed.

For a while our plans have included some kayaking on the Glenelg River on the border of Vic and SA. We headed to the border in some pretty cold weather, unsure if we would end up on the water, but we set up camp anyway. We ended the day rugged up with multiple blankets on the bed and woke up to sun, lots and lots of glorious sun! And a beautiful 33 degree day! I think we were so relieved that we just laid about all day reading and soaking up the warmth. It wasn’t until after dinner and the sun was setting that I finally got into my kayak and went for a beautiful warm sunset paddle. In a singlet and shorts! Stuart was happy enough playing with his camera on the jetty!

Our newfound sun and warmth stayed with us as we crossed the border and headed to the World Heritage Area of the Naracoorte Fossil Caves in South Australia. We were really impressed with the underground bed of fossils found in the limestone caves. The story was that during the time of the megafauna animals would fall down a long narrow hole in the ground called a solution pipe, formed by water pooling and dissolving the limestone below. The animals became trapped in the cave and died. The excavated fossil bed we saw on our tour was about a 10m x 5m area, but the remaining unexcavated area was huge, around 60m x 20m, and down to a depth of 4m according to our guide. Who know’s what they’ll find in future excavations, as they have already identified over 100 different species from what they have dug! It has revealed two entire skeletons of extinct megafauna, one a giant relative of the wombat and the other a giant leaf eating kangaroo. They have also discovered another 42 species of kangaroo which do not exist today. Apart from the fossils the limestone formations within the cave were also very beautiful. As we left our cave tour we were delighted to find the weather still warm and sunny! (It’s a novelty to us! Not like you Perth-ians).

However...we woke up this morning to grey clouds and as we left the caves area it started raining, and if you have seen the weather report, it hasn’t stopped since! We had been planning a three day stopover in the Coorong National Park, but we drove through the park to find all the campsites wet, muddy, windy and swarming with mosquitoes! Some of the tracks were pretty slippery, with the car and trailer sliding around sideways! Yes I was freaking, and yes Stuart was grinning!! The Coorong is a significant pelican breeding site and was the filming location for the movie ‘Storm Boy’. We still saw lots of pelicans looking majestic as they soared in formation over the inland lagoon, and fishing in the shallows, but disappointingly we decided a change of plan was in order.

So after an extra long day driving in the increasingly heavy rain, we are holed up in a cabin right on the bank of a very swollen Murray River. And we are sitting here shaking our heads in disbelief because the news just reported widespread flash flooding in Adelaide and surrounding areas!

C’est la vie

Last days in Tassie...

Stui here!

Well, we have braved the ferry without chucking up (it was quite a bit rougher than the trip over!) and now back to the mainland after almost 2 months in Tassie! We’ve had some fantastic experiences, even with the somewhat wet weather we have encountered!

After our couple of days at Lake St Clair, including our freezing paddle, we spent a very wet day driving through to the west coast at Strahan. On the way we took in the stark hills around Queenstown which have been pretty much completely denuded as a result of all of the trees being cut down to feed the copper mine smelters last century, whilst the pollution from the smelters poisoned any regrowth! With a lack of vegetation, the rain pretty much washed away the topsoil. We later found out that the current mine operators are spending millions on rehabilitating the hillsides.

Once in Strahan we booked ourselves into a cabin for a couple of nights of luxury, along with booking ourselves on the Wilderness Railway and a Gordon River cruise. The historic railway ran from Queenstown through to Strahan and was built to transport the copper from the mines to the port. Given the mountainous terrain, the railway uses the APT system, which is a third toothed rail fitted between the two standard rails which the engine engages via some additional cogs fitted underneath it. The extra rails allow the trail to climb gradients of 1:16, compared to a standard railway’s maximum gradient of 1:40. It was a great little trip, travelling alongside the King River which is now biologically dead – the pH of the river is between 3-4 which is acidic. This is another environmental disaster resulting from the Queenstown’s mining history!


The calm waters of Macquarie Harbour

 The next day the weather cleared, which was brilliant for us as we headed off on our Gordon River cruise. We motored out through the Devils Gates, which is the very narrow entrance to Macquarie Harbour, only about 80m wide and usually pretty rough! Thankfully it wasn’t too bad! From the entrance, we headed down to the actual Gordon River, cruising up the river to have a look at the spectacular reflections on the still water! Absolutely spectacular, with the reflections almost perfect! On the return leg to Strahan, we stopped at Sarah Island, another convict penal settlement. At the time of the settlement, the island was completely cleared, but most of the vegetation has now grown back with a few ruins spread over the island.

From Strahan, we headed up into the Tarkine region, staying a couple of nights at the Corinna wilderness settlement. To get there we had another ferry crossing, on the “Fatman” barge over the Pieman River. It’s actually a big pontoon on cables, and really wallows around quite a bit as you drive on and off!

Given the reflections on the river as we crossed on the barge, it wasn’t long before we dropped the kayaks in the water and went for a paddle down the river. We turned up the Savage River and paddled up to a shipwreck we had been told about. The wreck is of an old steamer that used to haul huon pine logs from the Pieman and surrounding rivers. It went down in suspicious circumstances, with some people suggesting it was scuttled for the insurance money!

I spent the next day out paddling the Pieman and Whyte Rivers, lucklessly trying to catch a trout while Michelle spent the day relaxing in the camper (it was another pretty wet day!).

Leaving Corrina, we took the back roads through the Arthur Pieman Conservation Reserve, which is a huge spectacular wilderness. We originally were planning to stop at Arthur River, but arriving there we found it is a popular spot for off road vehicles, with almost every shack having a few quad bikes parked out the front! Preferring slightly more peaceful surrounds, we decided to head through to the north coast for a couple of nights. The countryside is really beautiful, as are the little towns and coastline. We climbed the Nut in Stanley, which is the remains of a volcanic plug that towers above the town.

A forecast for a couple of days of sunny weather, we decided to head inland to Cradle Mountain National Park a couple of days early to see if we could jag fine weather to climb Cradle Mountain.

On the first day, we walked around Dove Lake in the afternoon. The walk had beautiful views of Cradle Mountain and the lake. We later drove back into the park to watch the sun set over the peaks, and see if we could spot some animals on the way back out. We didn’t see any Tassie devils, but we saw a couple of wombats. We stopped on the side of the road to watch one, who couldn’t have cared less about us – he wandered up to the car, using the mudflap as a back scratcher as he wandered under the ute! The engine was even still running!

Although we woke up in mist, the next day was even more beautiful, and we spent 8 hours hiking up to the top of the mountain and back down. The views were absolutely amazing in every direction. We had our lunch up on top of the mountain taking in the views, whilst it also gave us a breather, as the climb up was pretty full on, scrabbling up and over boulders. Not really a hike, as you needed to hang on tightly in several spots. I ended up having to help two older ladies back down, as they were really struggling to get down and getting more than a little bit worried. We all got back down, but they each took a tumble on the way down! We certainly jagged a couple of beautiful days!

Atop Cradle Mountain

As we left Cradle Mountain, we stopped in at the Chateaux to have a look at a wilderness photograph exhibition, and a special exhibition on the Tassie Tiger, including a rug that was made out of 8 pelts. It was really interesting and there are still a lot of people who believe they might still be surviving in the wilderness somewhere!

We spent my birthday visiting another cheese factory just out of Deloraine. Tasted quite a few different cheeses, including a Wasabi cheese! Given some of the stinking hot wasabi we have been eating with our sushi recently, it wasn’t hot at all, but still retained all of the flavour! So we bought a bit of that, along with some blue cheese! Following the cheese was a salmon farm, where we also stocked up on a small whole smoked salmon!

Given we hadn’t seen a Tassie Devil in the wild, we decided to visit one of the wildlife parks to have a look (although we did heard one from our camped up at Cradle Mountain one night!) Michelle reckons they are pretty cute – until they start growling and snarling at each other, or start chomping down on dinner! Their dinning is all very social and we were told they the snapping and snarling is just establishing the pecking order!

Unfortunately, it is the contact at dinnertime that is passing on the facial cancer through the population. We were told that they suspect that up to 85% of the wild populations have been wiped out by the cancer. The poor little devils (pardon the pun!) are really vulnerable and could be extinct if the research doesn’t come up with something soon!

The wildlife park also had several wombats - the Mack truck of Australia wildlife! As one of the wombats was reared from a really young age and used to humans, we were able to have a hold of a solid 10kg of wombat! They are really solid little things!

Our last couple of days were spent staying with our friends Paul and Carol at their house on the Tamar River just north of Launceston. We missed out on seeing the penny farthing races at Evandale as the rain was bucketing down and the races were cancelled. The cyclists we still riding around the streets, but as one of the riders said to us, barrelling down the road as fast as you can and then trying to take a 90 degree bend on a penny farthing is not a comfortable situation!!!

Anyway, we are now back in Melbourne , with the car booked in for it’s 100,00km service and the camper back with Cub getting a new door zip stitched in (we’ve worn the other one out! Thankfully it’s still under warranty!)

Hope everyone is cruising along! Catch you later!

Stuart & Michelle



Kayaking at Lake St Clair

Checklist -

• Rain - Yep!
• Wind - Yep!
• Near 0 degrees temperature - Yep!
• Snowfall on the mountain tops overnight - Yep!
• Hail! - Yep!
• Our marbles - Temporarily misplaced...

• Are we still having fun?! – YOU BET!





Hobart and surrounds...

Since our last update so long ago, we have continued heading down the east coast of Tassie planning our stops so that we would arrive in Hobart on the 22nd to meet up with my parents who had flown over for a week’s holiday!

As soon as we heard about Maria Island (pronounced Mariah) we were keen to get there – it has no roads or shops and a network of mountain bike and walking trails! Sounds great! We stored the camper in a caravan park and packed our tent, sleeping bags and other gear into our ruck-sacks and then rode our bikes to the ferry terminal!! Much to Stuart’s amusement my pack was so full of stuff I almost fell over trying to get my leg over the bike, let alone raise my head enough to see and peddle in a straight line!! I don’t think Stuart found it all that easy either! Travel note: We need bike panniers!

Cycling on Maria Island

The island’s natural features were quite beautiful with a ‘Fossil cliff’ of world significance, and ‘Painted cliffs’ that revealed stunning patterns on the eroded sandstone. The island has two main sections, connected by a narrow isthmus which we rode out to – stubbornly, as we were advised against this due to the track being a bit sandy! But given the wet sand and a little bit of air out of our tyres, we were able to peddle our way through, giving our leg muscles a good work-out in the process! It was well worth it, as the beaches were beautiful and barely had a footprint on them!

Culturally, the island had a mixed past originally being used as a penal settlement before Port Arthur opened. It has also seen times as a cement works (they mined the wonderful fossil cliffs to produce the cement! Good hey!), followed by agriculture, fishing and as a pleasure island for tourists in the 1920’s. Today, it is an isolated nature reserve, with the Parks Authority using this to their advantage by quarantining and breeding threatened animals there. There were plenty of Cape Barren Geese, the rarest geese in the world apparently. There are about 30 odd different native species that have been introduced to the island, including Tassie Devils. They were trying to breed an isolated population of Devils on the island, one that could be free of the deadly facial tumours that are currently killing them, but the disease unfortunately appeared amongst the population and they haven’t been seen since. We’re hoping that we might see one in the wild somewhere on our trip, as they are now critically endangered!

Back to the main land with one night to spare before we were due in Hobart, we headed to the camp ground at Lime Bay to explore ruins of another harsh penal colony built to mine coal in the area. The remote cliff top and island locations of the penitentiaries, chosen for their natural barriers to prevent prisoners escaping, certainly provide some breathtaking scenery today. Not that this would have had any mental benefits to convicts as much of their life was spent working or being detained underground. Can you imagine being locked up in solitary confinement, underground, in a mine!

On to HOBART! We had been looking forward to Hobart with my parents were flying over for a week’s holiday and a catch up! We had booked a waterfront cabin for them with an adjacent site for our camper trailer. It was great to see family from home and get into some city site-seeing.

Jan & Michelle at the Salamanca Markets

Our first little indulgence was a morning at the Salamanca Markets, followed by the Tasmanian Farm Gate Farmers Market the next morning. We looked forward to relaxing back at camp each evening with beautiful views and a banquet of local beer, wine and artisan foods to sample, including – Bruny Island ODO (one-day-old) cheese, chilli smoked sardines, sourdoughs, chutneys, lemon spread, cherries almost the size of plums, and even homemade baked beans purchased from Matthew Evans of the Gourmet Farmer TV Series.... and the list goes on! Having Mum along for some shopping fun at the Salamanca markets was great!

Another day was spent at the Cascade Brewery Tour and a drive to the top of Mt Wellington for a chilly view down over Hobart. The tour obviously came with tastings – there are actually quite a few Cascade brews that we hadn’t seen before! Stuart especially liked their ‘First Harvest’ which is brewed from the first harvest of fresh Tasmanian hops each year! And we learnt that historically, the brewery workers were provided with an open bar at work throughout the day! After about 40 years, the bosses finally noticed that the staff were a little bit inebriated, so they restricted the open bar times to only four 10 minute sessions per day – morning smoko, lunch, afternoon smoko and knock-off. Apparently at these sessions, talking was not condoned by the workers, as everyone guzzled and refilled their glass as fast as they could, often managing to down today’s equivalent of 18 pints a day!! At Work!! And this continued until the mid 1980’s, when the federal OHS rules kicked in! Bloody Health and Safety regulations – ruined everyone’s fun! Nowadays, the employee’s get to take home a free carton of their choice once a fortnight.

Couldn’t pass up going out to Bruny Island for a day either, so we booked ourselves on a boat trip with Bruny Island Adventures. We drove down to Kettering, just south of Hobart and jumped on a bus which took us to the ferry and down to Adventure Bay on the Island. Here we were kitted out with our full length smocks and loaded aboard our speedboat for the trip down the eastern side of the island. Thankfully, it was relatively calm and we cruised down the spectacular coastline to a seal colony on one of the islands. The colony is a ‘boys only’ colony, as the females reside somewhere further north. The boys swim up to the girls once a year, but otherwise keep to themselves!

Thank you to Mum and Bruce for the great company and fun, we hope you enjoyed hanging out in our camp for a week!

Port Arthur convict settlement ruins

Right then, we are back to the bush! We back tracked a little to fully explore the rest of the Tasman Peninsula. We camped in Fortesque Bay in the Tasman National Park, enjoying a day hike out to Cape Hauy, which ended atop a dramatic cliff of rock columns. The rest of our time was taken up exploring the ruins of the Port Arthur penal settlement. We found Port Arthur very beautiful and historic, but were a little disappointed in the interpretation and information given both by the guides or signage. From what we have read, and from what Stuart remembered from when he visited as a child, it was reputed to be a brutally harsh settlement for the convicts transported from England. Any brief mention of ill treatment or fear was quickly countered with stories of how a man could keep his head down and get through with an education and an early release. The more recent history of the massacre in 1996 wasn’t even acknowledged, although we found the memorial garden. We even heard one lady claim that the convicts food rations didn’t look too bad! Our guide stated and we read that many Tasmanians were opposed to even restoring Port Arthur for tourism as they were keen to forget the horrible events that had occurred on their island. Between the convict days and current tourism, the locals had used the grounds for parties, theatre, sporting events and even a YHA backpackers! We still enjoyed our day, but felt there was so much more to learn about the place which was not being conveyed.

Our next leg was to get past the towns and crowds and out into the wilderness! We spent a day driving south into the South Coast National Park, via the Devils Kitchen, Tasman Arch, Tessalated Pavement and the 'Dog Line'. The 'Dog Line' was the narrow 80 metre isthmus on the Tasman Penisular where in convict times, as row of savage dogs was chained to thwart any escape attempts by the convicts back onto mainland Tasmania. They were chained just far enough apart so that they couldn't reach each other, but barked fiercely at anything that came near them!

We have now actually driven as far south as anyone can in Australia, as “The End of the Road” the sign claimed. To get any further south, you had to hit the trail and hike the hardcore South Coast Trail. At this point, we were actually closer to Antarctica than we were to Cairns, which we thought was pretty cool! The temperature at night reinforced this fact!

We found a perfect little campsite at Cockle Creek, actually just out of the National Park as you can’t have a fire in the park, but you could just outside and it was bloody cold!!! We welcomed the warmth, and it had also been raining heavily, non-stop since we had left Tasman National Park that morning. The next day fined up though, and I took a day out to sprawl out on my picnic blanket, while Stuart went paddling with his fishing gear for about 5 hours. He came back with tales of having caught about a dozen flathead, unfortunately all undersize, much to his disappointment! We heard from some of the other campers/fishermen were having the same problem, some on boats throwing back up to 30 undersized flathead in a day! Steak for dinner again! On our last day we explored the bay and a little way into the South Coast Track (which we will have to do on a separate trip). The area had been charted by the Explorer Bruni D’Entrecasteaux on the same voyage that chartered the South West WA coast. It was this same trip where he named Esperance in WA. We both loved this place and could have stayed here longer, however we needed to move on if we were to going to be able to cover the island before our ferry trip back to the main land.

We were now heading towards the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, but again, there is just too much to see and do! We decided to stay in the Historic town of New Norfolk (we had heaps of clothes to wash!) and explore Mt Fields National Park and Lake Pedder in a day trip, given the weather wasn’t that special. We drove in on one of the only roads into the south west wilderness and I was truly not prepared for how breathtaking and rugged the scenery would be! The looming mountains were truly beautiful! I have recently quite moved by reading the book ‘Whatever Happened to Brenda Hean’ about the controversial flooding of Lake Pedder in the 1970’s for a hydroelectricity dam – Brenda was petitioning to stop the dam but disappeared in mysterious circumstances. So as we got our first glimpse of the Lake it was beautiful but so sad at the same time to know that the beauty of the original Lake Pedder lay deep beneath what we see today.

Looking out over Lake Pedder

However, we are now curious about these hydroelectric dams! So onto the Lake Gordon dam wall! The wall itself is an engineer marvel as it’s curves allow it to be thinner, using less concrete to hold back the enormous amount of water- this fact was a little unsettling as we walked out onto the 140 metre high dam wall! So in short the water in Lake Gordon is gravity fed from a great height, into a pipe with forces turbines to turn, turning generators creating electricity! Lake Pedder was dammed for extra water to be used in the Lake Gordon hydro plant. The top 1.8metres of Lake Pedder is used this way. The Gordon Dam supplies 13% of all Tasmania’s electricity. It raises quite a question about which is better - having so much clean green ‘coal free’ energy or saving all that forest from flooding, much of which was World Heritage listed! We don’t know?! What we do know is that it will all be for nothing if the clean power is not used and Tasmania starts buying their power from Queensland because it’s cheaper! Yes – it’s in the newspapers this week!

To put aside all these dilemmas we headed back out to the forests of Styx Big Tree Reserve and Mt Field National Park. Actually I slept through the drive and Styx Big Tree Reserve – but Stuart tells me that Styx was amazing, and judging from the massive Swamp Gums he photographed on his walk, it is pretty impressive!

Mt Field NP was a relatively quick stopover with a short walk to the multi tiered Russell Falls, followed by a windy drive up to the alpine Lake Dobson. The area around Lake Dobson is a ski field in winter. The stunted alpine bushland was quite beautiful, but it was bitterly cold. Around the edge of the lake are rare Pencil Pines that only grow in Tasmania above 800 metres and live for up to 1300 years. Given their climate and location, they don’t grow very big and are really stunted!

Our next destination is to be Lake St Clair! But we will leave that for next time!

We hope you are all keeping safe and well during this devastating year of La Nina weather. Despite the loss and sadness there are many stories of the human spirit and selflessness emerging. Community is so important, look after yourselves and look after each other!
Whose idea was it to tour Australia this year?!!!



Weather Watchers...

Well if nothing else, Stuart’s skill in reading and interpreting weather maps has improved on this holiday! We spend quite a bit of our internet allowance checking the weather, trying to work out our options. And the wind and rain certainly seems to be following us down the coast! We have had two campsites in the last week that have turned into mud puddles!

Thankfully we narrowly missed flooding and road washouts in St Helens on the east coast – the flooding there happened two days after we left! We have been doing lots of moving around to avoid getting caught out (this is where the weather watching comes in handy!).

We’re happy to admit that dealing with the wet and wild weather this year does sometimes get us down. Especially after days of rain when the canvas is saturated, whilst the bedding, towels and clothes are all damp. The windy conditions also belt the camper around quite a bit! We try and keep ourselves amused, reading and playing games, however we recently widened our scope, with Michelle engaging in ear candling, whilst watching and discussing the actions of a local kangaroo that was acting really weird – we eventually decided it was either about to give birth or suffering some strange, psychotic illness. As you can probably imagine, we’ve been getting a little down and really annoyed at missing out on things to see and do due to rotten crappy weather! That being said, we’re still in a better position than many others!

But when we get little breaks in the weather, we try and do as much as we can. We managed to jag a break in the weather for our Fairy Penguin tour in Bicheno. It was so cute to see them waddling up the beach in little groups. The guide knew an enormous amount about the penguins and was able to show us nesting couples with young at various ages. Unfortunately, cameras aren’t allowed on the tour, but the next day when we took a drive out to the town’s blowhole, we managed to find a baby chick waiting for his parents to return. So I snapped a photo of him!

A little bit of water diversion required!

Determined to spend as much time as possible in the Tassie wilderness, we headed out to Friendlies Beaches campsite in the Freycinet National Park. The beaches along this coastline have long stretches of pure white sand, with turquoise water and plenty of the bright orange fungi growing on the rocks. We had a couple of windy walks along the beach between showers, saw one CRAZY naked hippy swimming in the ocean, and lots of other soggy campers! Thankfully, our campsite was quite sheltered from the wind so we decided to stay put for a couple of nights, but the rain certainly tested us! Although our campsite was reasonably flat, we must have been just that little bit lower than the road, as the pools of water along the road, they eventually flowed into our campsite. Stuart spent a lot of time playing engineers, digging drainage holes and building small levys to try and direct the water away from us, but we still ended up wading around in a huge puddle!

After a couple of wet days, we decided a hot shower was in order, so we packed up in the rain and headed down to the main section of the national park on Coles Bay. We had planned to do an overnight paddle – YEAH RIGHT – it was still raining and the wind was pretty strong! As this park includes the Tassie icon, Wineglass Bay, camping here is extremely popular and sites are designated via a billet system each summer. We were lucky as a campsite was available for one night so we jumped at the chance despite the fact that we really just moved our camp from one mud puddle to a new mud puddle! More digging Stuart!

It was from here that we were at a loss as to what next! The northeast of the state was flooded, rivers were swollen, there were gale warnings and we heard the Police Commissioner asking people to stay off the roads if possible! Given we had to pack and move somewhere, we got on the internet and found a historic town called Ross, an hour inland and away from the wind. And even better, you could rent a historic stone cabin for $60 a night. Sold!! The town was quite beautiful, with plenty of local craft galleries and convict era stone bridge. The main road junction in the centre of town was called ‘The Crossroads’ with the four corners described as temptation (the pub), salvation (the church), recreation (the town hall) and damnation (the old jail). Funny enough, Damnation was up for sale as a private residence! We decided on temptation and went to the pub for dinner!

As we bunkered down in our cosy cabin for the night, the ‘weather watching’ kicked in and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, a flood warning was issue for the river running through the town (thankfully it was for the lower section a bit further downstream!). We woke the next morning to howling winds, with the gusts just under 100km/hr, however, the sky was clear – no rain! We headed back to the coast (which ironically only had gentle wind!) to a caravan park in Coles Bay and have been enjoying the last two days of beautiful, stunning, lovely SUNSHINE!

In no time at all the camper was drying out, as was the washing and we were on our way, hiking up Mt Amos to see the best views of Wineglass Bay! The hike turned out to be pretty challenging, especially since hanging out inside a camper for days on end doesn’t do much for your fitness levels! The steep rock faces had us using every muscle we didn’t know we had, and a crash course in scrambling techniques! But we kept going when other holiday makers were turning back and were rewarded with a perfect, stunning view of Wineglass Bay! Well worth the climb!



Atop Mt Amos with Wineglass Bay in the background!

The following morning we woke to another clear and sunny day! Hooray! Time to unload the kayaks and we headed off on a lengthy paddle around Coles Bay, with stunning views up at the mountain we climbed the previous day (from the water it looked even steeper than what we encountered on our climb!) As we reached parts of the coastline beyond the main tourist areas, we discovered an old quarry site where they used to mine the pink granite, including the old timber windlass used to load it on the boats. We were just loving being able to get out and do something physical again – in the beautiful warm sun!

To end the day, I even joined Stuart in some fishing from the rocks! Whoa! AND I even had fun, catching two fish (not edible ones though). But my patience did run out in the end, and as he was trying hard to persuade me to hang in for a few more cast on a different rig, I declared ‘IVE HAD ENOUGH’ and promptly walked home on my own (Yes it sound’s bad, but not really, as the camper was only about 200 metres away!) Personally, what was better than the fishing, was the HUGE stingray that came gliding over the rocks in front of me and stopped just three feet from where I was standing! It was easily over a metre in diameter! With the most beautiful large eyes and a white underbelly that showed when it curled the edge of it’s wings, they have to be one of my favourite creatures on the planet! So graceful.

So with two days of sunshine and a few activities under our belt, our spirits were renewed, clearly seen by one happy man standing at the bbq with a beer in his hand as the sun sets!

Mish and Stu



Across the seas...

WE ARE IN TASMANIA!!!!

Our fears of a seasick journey across the Bass Strait were in vain as our trip was relatively smooth with a short period of three metre swells as we exited the harbour. It was pretty quick getting the car and trailer through security checks and onto the ship. Any periods of waiting were entertained by a mural van carrying six foreign backpackers, who decided to dispose of their illegal substances before boarding by smoking it all in the car park! Their van then broke down during the security check – all six backpackers piled out and push started the van into the docking area. The van then breaks down again as they are driving it onto the ship, so the attendant helps them push start it AGAIN, and they are ushered to the front of the queue, just in front of us – great! It was pretty funny though and kept us amused!

The boat trip was smooth sailing, for nine hours we took Quells, had naps and munched on ginger nut biscuits the whole way, keeping ourselves busy by playing ‘BananaGrams’- thanks Tina, great chrissy present!

Looking out on the Tamar River

We were warmly welcomed to Tassie by our new friends and generous hosts Paul and Carol, who we were introduced to over Christmas being my friend Brenda’s in-laws! When we arrived at Paul and Carols we were awed by the AMAZING view from their house which sits high up on the banks of the Tamar River. We were once again totally spoilt and thoroughly enjoyed their company as well as use of the guest unit, the spa with a view, great meals and bottomless cups of tea on the verandah watching the yachts and kayakers paddle past. While I slept off a bad cold, Stuart even spotted a seal swimming up the river! On the last day, I was starting to feel better, so we all took a drive to the quaint town of Evandale, browsed the Sunday antique markets and had lunch in a beautiful old pub with a walled beer garden.

Thanks to Paul and Carol, we will see you again in six weeks time!

We are now happy to report.... We are BACK living in our Cubby Camper! It feels like ages with the break in Melbourne over Christmas and New Year. We stocked up again on food and fuel and headed in a north-east direction to start circling Tassie in a clockwise direction over the next two months! Our first overnight stop was Waterhouse Conservation Reserve, which was a beautiful introduction to the remote and rugged Tasmanian coastline. We explored the waters edge at low tide and marvelled at the three very different and beautiful rock types that made up the beach. They seemed so ancient and fragile, but will probably be there for millions more years!

The next night we moved further east to a sandy beach camp in Mount William National Park. White sand and turquoise water so inviting you wanted to dive in.... except it was absolutely freezing! Only a mad man like Stuart would go for a dip at dusk to get clean! I, on the other hand, showered from a WARM bucket of water! Stuart also took the opportunity to do some fishing... no luck though!

This orange algae is on all of the coastal rocks

From Mt William NP we were into the Bay of Fires’ coastline. More stark white sand, turquoise waters and brilliant orange algae covering the large boulders scattered along the beaches. Stunning! We explored Eddystone Point which has an old lighthouse built in 1898 and then headed to Policemans Point which was full of campers, reminding us that it was school summer holidays. We took our time, further exploring the cluster of free beach camps around the centre of the Bay of Fires only to find ourselves struggling to find a campsite as late as 6pm (thanks to daylight saving it doesn’t get dark until 9pm!) Just as we were contemplating wedging ourselves in amongst the throngs we stumbled upon an isolated bush camp right on the bank of Big Lagoon! We had our own little swimming beach in the sheltered lagoon, whilst being able to listen to the pounding surf of Bay of Fires coastline in the background. We spent two nights here and a whole day of doing nothing without seeing another soul! Bliss!

After our day of rest, I felt thoroughly refreshed as we headed into the nearby town of St Helens to spend a couple of nights catching up on washing etc... And here we are! Tummies full of fresh local seafood – oysters and fish and chips (the fish was flathead for all the fishermen)!

"Which cheese should we buy?"

We spent today enjoying a bit more Tassie foodie goodness, with a trip to the nearby Pyengana Cheese Factory! We tasted all their variety of cheddar cheeses and were amazed at how the same type of cheese can be so different at the various ages – from six weeks to two years. Their Devils Cheese (with lots of spice and chilli) had my eyes watering and me in a coughing fit! - much to everyone's amusement! From there we headed up to St Columba Falls, which are the highest in Tasmania, finishing off the day with a beer at the 'Pub in a Paddock'?! Yes, it is just a pub in the middle of a paddock. It has been there since the late 1800’s when the owner's sons became more interested in beer than farming, so they just licensed the homestead! And why not!

We hope everyone is well in the New Year! Tassie weather is being very kind to us with predominately blue skies and only one brief shower of rain so far. Sounds like Perth is the other good place to be right now in this country. We certainly have seen some rain on our supposed ‘endless summer’ holiday, but counting ourselves very lucky to have avoided the flooding disasters happening to people in Queensland and Carnarvon!

Mish and Stu