Beginning our Tassie Adventure - The North West Coast

Waiting to go on our cruise ship to the Apple Isle

Early morning Devonport

Me with a giant penguin at Penguin

Love the beautiful little churches

The port city of Burnie - second largest on the North West Coast

Looking out from our free camp spot at Burnie

The Rhododendron garden at Emu Valley

The rotunda in the Rhododendron garden

The Japanese lake and house in the garden

A bee doing his job on one of the rhododendron flowers

One of the beautiful flowers

Charlie trout fishing on Ian's property

BUT I caught the biggest fish!!!

Thanks Ian - you're a legend!!

Alvwyn and Gwenda - such hospitable people

Me and 'im at Alvwyn and Gwenda's place where we went for dinner

Guide Falls - Burnie

The beautiful Sisters Beach

Beautiful white sand at Sisters Beach

Some new best friends who we met and travelled with for a couple of weeks

Charlie filletting the trout - he doesn't look very happy - that's because I caught the biggest one!!

The moon over Sisters Beach

A dismal wet day when we drove into Stanley

Free camping at the base of The Nut in Stanley

Some of the cottages in Stanley

Coloured fishing boats in Stanley

View from the top of The Nut, Stanley

Wonder Woman at the top of The Nut - I can fly, I can fly!!!

A little poteroo hiding in the undergrowth on the top of The Nut

A field of white bells on top of The Nut

The Nut and Stanley underneath

Highfield Historic House

The Big Tree

Dip Falls

Rainforest around Dip Falls

Just loved the colours on some of these trees and bushes

A sunset over Duck River, Smithton where we free camped

Green Point Beach at Marrawah

Me, Mel, Geoff, Anne and Albert having lunch at Dismal Swamp (before the slide ride!!)

Part of the 110 metre slide at Dismal Swamp

Me getting ready for the ride

OMG what have I let myself in for???

Yahoo - I want to go again

One of the swamp creatures

Celery tree ribs

One of the many fungi in the swamp

Huge myrtle trees

I'm looking at you - part of the aboriginal section

Different coloured foliage

I think he took dieting too far!!!

Charlie peeking through the door to the soul of the swamp

Us at the Edge of the World

Edge of the world - the largest expanse of ocean between here and South Africa

Edge of the World - the Roaring Forties roar in here!!!

The cleanest air in the world is reputed to be here

Edge of the World - and the end of our North West Coast adventure

Tassie - a beautiful State from what we've seen so far, full of rainforests, waterfalls, green pastures,very happy cows,  sparkling rivers and lakes, elusive fish, towering mountains but most of all the friendliest people to us tourists we've ever met!!

We boarded the Spirit of Tasmania for our night time crossing to the Apple Isle on 22nd October and had a good crossing and a good sleep in a private cabin.  We arrived in the early hours of the morning in Devonport and it was cold and wet - but then we were told to expect 4 seasons in a day in Tassie so we were well prepared.  Unfortunately neither of us realised that we had not turned the fridge off in the caravan so on the 12 hour journey over it had drained our caravan batteries so when we landed we had no 12 volt at all.  Charlie soon diagnosed the problem so it was off to a caravan park in the lovely little seaside town of Ulverstone for the night so that we could charge up the batteries.

Once we were all charged we then drove through the quaint village of Penguin which, as you've guessed, gets its name from the fairy penguins which inhabit the area although we only saw giant ones but they were friendly and even posed with me for a photo opportunity.  After having a poke around the place we headed to Burnie which is  the second largest city on the North West Coast.  We called into the Visitor Information Centre and the Makers Workshop and got a permit to free camp at Cooee Point for 5 days which is oceanfront and which is where we met some new best friends who we travelled with for the next couple of weeks.  While we were here Charlie got talking to a local who invited us back to his place the next night for dinner and also took us to a friend's place where we did some fly fishing for trout and caught some beauties - but yes I caught the biggest fish!! Such lovely people and made us so welcome.  Thanks Alvwyn, Gwenda and Ian - we had a great time.

We visited a few of the tourist places while in Burnie including the beautiful Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden where there are hundreds of varieties of rhododendrons from all over the world.  They were certainly worth seeing but I think Charlie is all "flowered" out now!!  Did a few other things as well like visiting the Hellyer Road Distillery where we had coffee, a private tour arranged by Alvwyn and a few tasting nips.

We then made our way to Stanley via Sisters Beach which is a sleepy little seaside village with a beautiful white sandy beach but again no luck with the fishing.  Stayed here for 2 nights in the free camp and then headed off to Stanley which is a totally restored Bass Strait fishing village with brightly painted cottages neatly terraced on the lower slopes of an extinct volcano known as The Nut.  The Nut is 152 metres high and is a solidified lava lake of a long extinct volcano.  It really looks very imposing as the backdrop to one of the prettiest coastal villages around.  We met lovely locals again and were given some fish by one of the local fishermen (I think he felt sorry for Charlie sitting there shivering in the cold).  We climbed The Nut one of the days and went into the little shop to buy tickets for the chairlift to the top and I read it as $25 return each person which I thought no way $50 that's a few bottles of wine, we'll walk!!  It was bloody steep, sectioned off into 3 parts and when we were half way up we met a couple coming down who told us it was only $12 return on the chair lift - I must have lost 2 kgs on that walk!!

The view from the top is spectacular and there is a 2 km walk around the top so I got my exercise that day.  We started talking to a lovely couple up there from Launceston - he owns a butchers shop there and got an invitation for Christmas Dinner if we happen to be in Launceston.  May just take them up on that.  We had a drink with them afterwards at the Stanley Hotel.  Thanks for your company Kirk and Gina.

From Stanley we went the huge distance of 18 kms to Smithton where we wanted to stock up on some groceries.  Free camped by the side of the Duck River and met yet another friendly local who had just come back from catching whitebait - tiny little things, not like on the mainland.  Got talking to him and the next thing he invited all 6 of us back to his place and cooked us whitebait pancakes.  I must admit I wasn't too keen at the thought of all the little black eyes looking at me, but I shut mine and devoured it - it was absolutely delicious!!  Had 2 great $10 lunches in the Smithton pub - brought back memories of when pub meals were good and cheap, not like now where they charge restaurant prices.

We then left Smithton and made our way down to Marrawah where we camped at Green Point.  Green Point is famous for surfing and in March of each year they have a surfing carnival - the sea would have to be a lot warmer to tempt me into it.  We then went into the Tarkine Forest which is located at one of Australia's largest and most unusual sinkholes - its the only sinkhole in which a blackwood forest grows called Dismal Swamp.  There are two ways you can get to the bottom  of the sinkhole - you can walk or you can slide down the 110 metre slide to the bottom in less than 15 seconds.  Well throw me a challenge and I'll take it so I became a Tassie devil and donned a hair net(??), crash helmet, climbed inside a sleeping bag and went for it not once but twice - great fun!!  At the bottom of the sinkhole, there are boardwalks winding along the floor of the dense blackwood forest which took us on a journey that merges design with nature as there was a sculpture trail featuring installations by Tasmanian artists which reflect the world at the bottom of the sinkhole.

We headed for a drive down to the village of Arthur River which gets its name from the Arthur River which is completely wild, never logged, never dammed and free from bushfires for 650 years.  We went and stood at the Edge of the World which is where the Roaring Forties trade winds come roaring in and boom against the rocks - awesome!!  We were also breathing in some of the world's cleanest air - apparently its travelled thousands of kilometres across Antartica and the great Southern Ocean before making landfall in western Tasmania.  It was certainly bracing there.

Well we just loved, loved, loved the ruggedness of the North West Coast, the friendliness and hospitality of the people, the clean fresh air and after standing on The Edge of the World we wonder what can beat that but I'm sure we are about to find out on our next adventure in this beautiful State.  So for now its Adieu from The Wandering 2s.