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| Out on the boat with Don and Miffy cruising around Bruny Island |
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| Miffy "The Oyster Lady", yum yum - fresh shucked for lunch |
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| One of the pretty little bays of Bruny Island |
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| View from land from Bruny Island |
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| Part of the Tessellated Pavement at Eaglehawk Neck |
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| Bronze statue of one of the vicious dogs which guarded part of the Tasman Peninsula coastline |
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| Tasman Arch |
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| Part of the Tasman Peninsula coastline |
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| Blowhole |
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| Dunalley after the devestating bush fires January 2013 |
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At least the ducks survived!!
After we finished our discovery of the beautiful East Coast of Tassie, we headed back down to Snug to stay with our Tassie friends Don and Miffy for a few more days. Gotta love these Tassie people, they make you so welcome!!! We went out on a beautiful day on their boat and cruised around Bruny Island which is a lot bigger than I thought it was. There are so many pretty little bays dotted around the place and the water is a beautiful greeny blue colour and very clear. Oysters grow so well in these pristine waters and are there for the taking by the very brave (the sea isn't quite as warm as the Coral Sea) and there was only one person brave enough!!! It was worth it for us anyway as we had some large plump freshly shucked oysters with our lunch plus champagne - what more do we want from life??
From Don and Miffy's place we headed off down the Tasman Peninusla and stayed at Dunalley behind the pub (what better place???). We then headed off for a day trip. What a stunning piece of coastline. This is an area which conjures up images full of history, of convict era brutality, of remoteness which I suppose is the very reason that Port Arthur and the chain of penal settlements were put there all those years ago.
We started with the ancient tessellated pavement which we spent some time exploring - the sign says "where ancient cracks create a modern phenomenon" and I must say it was very intriguing and interesting. We left here and headed further down and came across the Officers Quarters at Eagle Hawk Neck - another convict penal colony where the coastline was surrounded by the infamous Dog Line. Not many convicts ever escaped from here!!!!
The amazing Tasman Arch and the blowhole were our next stops. Magnificent rock formations, blowholes, boiling water crashing against red cliffs - the whole experience was amazing. We didn't go to Port Arthur as we had already been before so unfortunately have no photos of this.
Set back from all this splendour was the small settlement of Doo Town. Every single building (including the food van) has a name which incorporates the word Doo. We found this very humorous.
On our way back to the caravan we passed once again through the devestated township of Dunalley. I only took a couple of photos because I didn't want to be a "disaster tourist". It was heartbreaking and horrifying. In the midst of strewn tin roof sections and lone chimney hearths still standing upright in the burnt rubble of the house they once kept warm, were houses that had escaped unscathed. It was quite eerie. There were kilometres and kilometres of burnt forests. However the locals of Dunalley and the staff of the Dunalley Pub were very upbeat about everything and positive the area would be recover. We had heard on the radio that the area was really suffering because tourists were bypassing it so we did our bit and stayed at the pub for a couple of nights and had a few drinks and a lovely meal.
On our way back up north to catch the Spirit back to the mainland we visited MONA - the Museum of Old and New Art. This is not a gallery where pretty pictures are displayed. The museum's controversial artwork has been collected by its owner David Walsh, who is described in the brochures as an "eccentric, professional gambler and philanthropist". The exhibit simultaneously stimulatess and shock the senses - some of them are quite confronting. Its a place you either love or hate but I don't think anyone could say they were bored by it. Its all about interpretation of the art work and exhibits and Charlie and I interpreted different things from the same piece. One of the exhibits was the "Death Chamber" and only 2 people are allowed in at a time as its dark. You walk along this pathway surrounded by dark water which represents the River Styx and then come across a Mummy in a coffin and an image of a hangman's noose displayed on the wall. I found it quite disturbing but Charlie thought it was rubbish!!!! He thought alot of the exhibits were "Monty Pythonish" but he enjoyed it all the same. MONA is alongside the Derwent River and the building is quite unique. Its somewhere any visitor to Hobart should go.
Until the next time its Adieu from The Wandering 2s.
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