At home in Bicheno

One of the great things about Bicheno is that it is centrally located in the North east and allows us to explore all the regions attractions. There were lots of good things to see from Darwin, but often one had to drive hundreds of kilometres to see them. Here is Tassie, the distances are very much smaller. So in the past few weeks we have visited the Mathinna falls, the Saint Columba falls, Launceston airport, Evercreech forest reserve, Storeys creek falls, the Launceston airport, the Meetus falls, Lake Leake, Launceston airport, the Lost falls, the Hardings falls and we have climbed Ben Lomond, making it to the cairn on the top of Tasmanias highest mountain whilst on the way to the Launceston airport. One of the highlights was viewing the "White Knights" a stand of white eucalypts at the Evercreech Forest reserve, each one of which is in excess on 90 metres. Tassies climate has allowed us to return to our bush walking regimen, in the NT walking 10 metres left us both drenched in sweat, but today we walked 6-7 kilometres, much of it in 13 degrees at the top of Ben Lomond. Cecile has been snapping away as usual (do digital cameras snap ?) and even managed to catch some shots of me climbing out of a creek into which I had just fallen. Tassie continues to delight, with glorious mountain scenery and wonderful Georgian architecture at every turn, however it must be said that there is the occasional little town or settlement which presents a less attractive picture. We came upon a group of towns to the north west of Hobart which are certainly the poorest that I have ever seen in Australia. Whole villages without a single property which did'nt need a coat of paint, or repair, ( or demolishing) in which the most popular recreation appeared to be a competition to determine who could get the largest collection of broken down cars into their front yard. The East Coast Holiday Camp where we work is, like most hospitality in Tassie extremely seasonal, flat out Christmas to Easter, with about 250 people on site each night, but then dead quiet for the rest of the year - where to next I wonder ?

Bicheno

The observant blog followers amongst you may have noticed a question mark in the title of our last blog : "Home in Hobart?". Indeed, we were trying, not very sucessfully, to find work in Hobart, and home was a motel room in the suburbs. Last week, we were told that the motel was booked up on Saturday and we had to vacate for the night. We decided to spend the week-end in Launceston, visiting a couple of beautiful old villages along the way. We bough the Launceston newspaper and spotted an ad for cleaners in a Tourist Park in Bicheno, on the East Coast. We met the managers on the Sunday, got the gig, and straigt away settled in one of the on-site vans in the park where we started work the next day. We clean 4/5 mornings a week, which gives us plenty of time to enjoy our suroundings (Freycinet Peninsular is just down the road) and the amazingly changing coastal weather.

At home in Hobart ?

Hobart is perched on the edge of the beautiful Derwent River, with Mt Wellington brooding some 1200 m above it. We do see the point of owning a boat here, with the Derwent and the Huon Rivers offering so many beautiful sheltered harbours. We could see ourselves messing about in a little wooden boat. Hobart is a lovely city in its own right, but it also is close to many natural attractions. Freysinet,Hartz and Mt Field National Parks are all an easy day trip from the city, and we have enjoyed many walks in the gloriously cool Tasmanian summer.

Fact Blogette

According to the channel 9 news, the parts of Queensland and NSW currently under water are greater in area than the state of Victoria. Where we were in the mountains yesterday, the average maximum temperature for February, the hottest month is 12.5 degrees, but the hottest maximum ever recorded was 36 degrees, and the coldest maximum was 1.5 degrees. My hybrid car has travelled 25580 kilometres since we set out, at the disappointing average of 7.1 litres/100 kms. The echidna and the platypus, the worlds only monotremes, are the only mammals which lay eggs, and whose limb orientation is midway between the horizontal of the reptiles, and the vertical of all other mammals - why did god do that ? The hydro corporation of tasmania, who built the Gordon dam (containing 154,000 m3 of concrete) proudly exhibit there a Huon pine which was 2500 years old when they chopped it down - it was a sizable tree when Nero was emperor. Alistair Cook has scored more runs in the series than any previous Englishman, save Wally Hammond. Cecile is auditioning for the role as President of the Tasmanian Legislative Council. The oldest golf course in australia was built by Scottish settlers at Rathko - it still exists, visitors welcome. There are 198 steps down to the wall of the Gordon dam, but at least 300 back to the top.

Blizzard

I think it was Peter Allen, or perhaps his slightly less feminine writing partner Carole Bayer-Sager who penned the immortal line "....Don't wish too hard for what you might want, because then you might get it..." in one of their unforgetable hits of the 80's, the rest of which fortunately I have forgotten. Well, we left Darwin because it was too hot, and Hobart seemed like a good idea for some relief from the heat and humidity. We wandered down the Heritage Way, pausing to inspect the occassional gorgeous historical village, before arriving in Hobart for a spot of lunch at the wharf. "What about a trip up Mount Wellington ?" I said, "Remember when we were here last time, the clouds were so thick (it was February) that there was no view at all." So we laboured up the hill to the summit to be greeted by a blizzard. When we left Hobart, the temperature was 14 degrees, and the wind was calm. At the summit (1270 metres), the temperature was 0 degrees, and the wind gale force. No view further than 20 metres, and a long and very, very slow descent driving back down in the snow. Perhaps something between Hobart and Darwin weatherwise would be nice !