Travelling MoyJos

Our last day was fairly relaxed.  Our flight from Launceston was not until 10:20am and the hotel was only under 10 minutes away.

We packed the bulk of our bags the night before,  and had a cruisy morning of showers, breakfast and pack up the car.

We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight which was on time.
We had a short flight to Melbourne with a 2 hour stop over, so we thought we might as well have lunch in the Virgin Lounge and sit in comfort 🙂

An uneventful flight home and we arrived on time at 3:00pm
I tried to get some photos of the coast as we flew over, but I think we were a little bit too far east to get good ones  ☹  

Clicking on the images below will open them into a larger size.

The only downside was the door to the plane opened and we were greeted with 27 degrees and around 80% humidity ☹  NOT nice

It did not take long to collect our bags before heading home.  We picked up milk, bread and some eggs and just like that the holiday was over ☹

Where too next?

A bath and a glass of bubbles is how today ended…

Let’s start at the beginning.

We had breakfast in our apartment before heading our and traveling up the western side of the Tamar River.

Our first stop was the Tamar Valley Wine Centre.

The website said…
“The Tamar Valley Wine Centre is run in essence, like a cellar door with food, offering as many of the vineyards in the Tamar Valley as possible. The Centre promotes and sells many other craft beverages from across the region. It is a place of information where interstate and international tourists can learn more about the vineyards and their locations.”

I thought it would be much more of an information centre than it actually is.  Turns out it is a quite small room with an (admittedly impressive) wall of local wines and a cafe selling hot drinks and food.  I am sure the man behind the counter was very knowledgeable, but there were no maps or brochures on show.

The next stop was the Beaconsfield Mine Museum.  We had been in this area before in 2009, shortly after the mine accident in 2006 and it was very busy and felt a bit too soon to enter. 

Now that much more time has passed and the mine has now closed production, the whole site is now a museum of both the mine and the surrounding area.   There was, of course, a large display addressing the accident and the rescue of the two miners that were trapped for two weeks.

All in all we enjoyed our time here.

Lunchtime looming, we made our way to the Rosevears Hotel. We had an excellent meal overlooking the Tamar River.  The hotel has built some very nice looking accommodation units behind the hotel itself which look very nice.

After lunch, the next stop was Grindlewald Swiss Village.  We have been here before too and have heard that it was getting a bit old and tired, and indeed it is 🙁.

As you might notice from the photos, it was uite overcast, but we did not et any rain

We had a look around while enjoying an ice cream before getting back in the car and off to our next stop.

Woolmers  Estate is a UNESCO heritage listed site that represents Australia’s best preserved colonial farm.  I was really looking forward to seeing the many buildings and the National Rose Garden.  Read all about Woolmers here.

You can imagine my disappointment when we arrived at the gates to find they were CLOSED 😢

Back to the Mantra and I remembered that we are supposed to get complimentary drinks that we had not used. I got two little single bottles sparkling wine.

That is how we made it to end the day with “Bubbles and a Bath”

Tomorrow we fly home via Melbourne, leaving Launceston at 10:20am.

After a good nights sleep, we got up, had showers and drove to town to the Grand Chancellor Hotel for their buffet breakfast.

It was very good and we were both pleasantly full when we left.

A short walk to the end of the street is the City Park.  This is a lovely park in the middle of the city.  The park was established in the 1820’s and includes a large duck pond and an impressive conservatory, rotunda and other heritage buildings.

The main reason we came here was the troop of Macaque  Monkeys.

Sadly the monkeys are being phased out over the next 20 years or so.  You can read all about that here.

There are some good photos of the monkeys here.

We watched the monkeys for a while, laughing at the little one’s antics.

From here, we travelled toward the airport and on to the town of Evandale for the Sunday Market.   Evandale is another heritage town, but its claim to fame is Penny Farthing bikes.  Every year they have Penny Farthing races here.  One time when were here before, we were surprise to have a Penny Farthing bike cross the road in front of us.

The market is in the showgrounds and is very large.  With a good mix of local fresh produce, local food products, arts and craft stalls, general bric-a-brac stalls and food trucks, there is something for everybody

M was happy as there was an icecream truck that has the “muncher” machine he hoped for at the Westerway Raspberry Farm.  He was happy to get a huge strawberry ice cream.

Heading back to Launceston we went to a restaurant we had read about in an old hotel.

Turns out the reviews of “Steve’s Grill” at the Centennial Hotel were spot on.   The interior has been very well restored and the dining room is like stepping into the past with its dark timber bar and very comfortable chairs

We had our lunch and decided to find Woolies to buy a hot chook to pick at for dinner and perhaps take a picnic with us tomorrow as we wander up the Tamar Valley

Back at the Mantra we settled in for the night.

Tomorrow is a driving day up and down the Tamar Valley for our last day 🙁

Every Saturday the Launceston Harvest Market is on in the centre of town.

I had planned on getting the bus, but a look at the Metro app told me the busses were an hour apart on the weekend 🙁 so drive it was.

It was not difficult to find a park (metered until 11:30am – $6.80 for the time we were there).  We needed to walk around the corner to the market. It was quite large, so we decided to “do a lap” first to see what was available.

We could see that one stall had a VERY long line and we expected it to be a coffee line, but no…it was harvest fresh vegetables.   had a look at the stall and the prices were quite good, but it was the quality that was obvious.  Everything looked very fresh and lovely. (There was a coffee shop with a long line as well :). )

We decided on a cheese burger for breakfast and we would come back for a good looking soda bread loaf later.

After our burger, we went for a walk to the Brisbane St Mall.

On the way, we passed the Grand Chancellor Hotel.  It is a beautiful building, and we went in to have a look.

We could see the restaraunt and we asked for a lunch/dinner menu.  We found out that the buffet breakfast is open to the public and were allowed to have a look around.  The Mantra currently does not have a buffet. It has a cafe for breakfast.   We have planned to come back to the Grand Chancellor for breakfast tomorrow 🙂

Walking on to the Brisbane St Mall , we first came across “The Quandrant”  We were surprised that there were not many people around at all in either mall.

One shop we came across was “The Old Umbrella Shop”

This cute shop has been in this location since the 1920’s

The shop is now listed by the National Trust. 

Who would have thought there was such a need to have your umbrella repaired 🙂 when now-a-days it is a case of “throw it out and buy anew one from KMart.

A sign of the times and our disposable society.

A quick look through Myer (and use their restrooms) and we looked for something for lunch.

I did not want a big lunch, which ruled out the suggestion of the Grand Chancellor.  We found a little cafe with a lot of people (always a good sign) called Mojo.

We chose a table and I had just a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and M had spaghetti carbonara.  It was HUGE!!  It did look very good with LOTS of bacon through it.  He said it was good.

We walked back to the market and the soda bread was mostly sold out with only a fig, date and walnut loaf left.  They did, however, have good looking pumpkin scones.  We bought four of them to warm up in the microwave in the room and have with butter.

Back to the Mantra, I put on a load of washing and M filled up the spa.

The spa in our room is in the bedroom and is lovely and big with good jets all around.  On the side of the spa was a box of “Restorative Bath Soak”

Spa filled and M had a while to “lie back in blissful relaxation”

Washing done and it was my turn for “blissful relaxation” 🙂

Nicely relaxed we enjoyed a quiet night with our scones and cups of tea.

Tomorrow we are planning on a buffet breakfast then a look around the City Park.

Today we head back to Launceston.  The trip up the main highway is only about 200kms but I planned to wind our way in off the highway and look at some of the small historic towns we have not seen before and revisit some we have.

The first stop was Riversdale Estate.  I have been following them on Facebook for a while and it looks as nice in real life as it does in the pictures. We were too early for the cellar door to be open, but we were able to drive around with no traffic 🙂

Riversdale also have accomodation and it looks REALLY nice.  We have decided we will stay here at some point on a return trip.

Driving toward Riversdale, we were surprised to see a large dish.  Turned out it is the Grote Reber radio telescope. 

Our next stop was Coaldale Walnuts. Sadly they were closed :(.  I had seen on the website that their tours were not running, but I thought the shop might be open.

Back toward the main highway we passed through Richmond, but did not stop, as we have been here many times. Even M decided to skip the bakery as it was a bit early.

The next stop was Oatlands and the Callington Mill.  Again we have been here a number of time, but it changes all the time as the restorations have been done.

We had not been since the new distillery had been added, and all the buildings mostly restored.

We passed through Ross, again not stopping choosing instead to stop a Campbell Town. Somewhere we have not been.

We had lunch in a lovely bakery cafe and looked around the town.   There are bricks embedded into the footpath that tell the story of the convicts that were located in the area.

From Campbell Town we drove to our hotel in Launceston

We are at the Mantra on Charles for the next 4 nights to explore Launceston and the surrounds.

We unpacked and found Coles for a loaf of bread and a lovely pub for dinner.

Tomorrow is the Harvest Market in the city.

Today we drove a little west to revisit places we had been before.

Sadly, things change and sometimes not for the best 🙁

Our first stop was the Salmon Ponds.  We have been here a few times and it is always great fun feeding the trout and salmon.  At times the ponds just about “boil” with the ferocity of the fish feeding the pellets you throw into the pond.

I had read there was an issue at the ponds a while ago and unfortunately they have not recovered at all.  There were very few fish in the ponds

This is the video I took in 2005 when we were here.

BUT… we did see a platypus!!  He was quite happily swimming around in one of the ponds.  We had moved over to another pond and, from the corner of my eye, I saw something.  It was the platypus scurrying across the ground between the ponds.

We spoke to a groundsman and he said they have up to FIVE platypus in the ponds.

Next stop was an accommodation venue I wanted to see at Mt Field near Russell Falls.   It was nice, but the cabins were a bit too close to each other and we were not overly impressed.

We drove a few hundred meters up the road to the Mt Field Visitor Centre which is new since we were there last.  We decided not to do the walk to the falls today as I heard someone say the track was a bit wet and slippery, and we did not bring hiking boots.

We were then looking forward to the Westerway Raspberry Farm for ice cream.  They used to have big “muncher” machine where they world put ice cream and fresh berries in a hopper at the top and it munched it all together and made the BEST ice cream.   It is not there anymore 🙁

Back to New Norfolk for lunch at the pub… This was a good as ever.  Big country style meals.  I had lamb shank and M had grilled chicken and we both had veges.  So good 🙂

After lunch we drove over to Tranmere to meet our property manager in person (and drop her a box of chocolates). We drove past the house and had a look at the land we sold.  There still has not been anything done on any of the blocks.

We are both comfortable with our decision to sell the land and really think we have done the right thing.

We had a drive around looking at the houses and general area before driving back to our unit.

After our big lunch, we again did not have much for dinner.

Tomorrow we are ambling slowly back to Launceston.