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
Read more here 🙁
More than 100k fish killed at Salmon Ponds after ‘filthy substance’ spotted in Plenty River near trout hatchery
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.
