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