Travelling MoyJos

The plan for today was to check out early and head back to Hobart to try and get to the Penitentiary – again.

Rather than attempting to park the car in the city, I decided it would be best to drive over to the Shoreline Hotel where we will be staying for the evening and get the bus from there .

It is only around 40 minutes or so from Franklin to Shoreline, so I knew we had plenty of time to catch a 9:15 bus to get us into the city in plenty of time for the penitentiary tour at 10 o’clock.

I am happy to say that that plan worked perfectly!!

The day started a little overcast, and we did get a little spit of rain on the Kingston side of the mountains, but once we cross the range and came back into the Hobart side, the rain stopped, and the weather started clearing.

We parked the car at the front of the hotel, which is a few steps away from the bus stop.

I could see on the penitentiary website that there were available spots for the 10 o’clock tour so I was fairly confident that it was going to be open, but I was still hesitant to book it online.

At 9:30 the doors opened and yes, they were open. Yay.  We paid our admission fee for the 10 o’clock tour, and were told we were free to look around the artifacts and rooms while we waited.

At 10 o’clock our guide, Matthew gathered us together and began the tour.

The building that we toured was actually the old chapel with most of the penitentiary being destroyed in the 1960s the only reason this building was saved was the fact that it, at that time ,housed both the Magistrates and Supreme Courts of Tasmania.

The tour itself is around 90 minutes and very informative. We would both highly recommend it any time you may be in Hobart.

I found this YouTube video of the tour.

By the time we had finished at the penitentiary, it was getting towards lunchtime.  We thought we would walk down Campbell Street to Constitution dock and make a decision on what we were going to eat.  As we came closer to the waterfront, we decided we would have lunch at the Grand Chancellor Hotel.

I looked up their website as I did not think the restaurant was open for lunch and indeed it was not. However, the Atrium Bar was open for lunch and the menu looked suitable.

We had a lovely lunch of a burger and a pasta dish and a glass of wine each before catching the bus back to Shoreline.

By this time it was just before 2 o’clock, but our room was not quite ready so we waited in the lounge bar until 2:30 when we could check in.

We unloaded our bags into the room and then drove the car to the service station on the other side of the car. Park to fill up with fuel ready for the morning and get some milk for tea and coffee.

We ordered a pizza from the hotel café, delivered to our room and had a quiet night watching TV ready for a very early 4 o’clock wake up alarm in readiness for our 6:20 flight.

Today was our last day in the Huon Valley, and we thought we would venture a little further south to the town of Geeveson, and onto the Tahune Air Walk.

We came to the air walk when we were first here in 2005 what we didn’t know in the 20 years since was there have been a number of floods ( in 2007, 2009 and 2016 )and a major bushfire in January   2019.  The fire destroyed nearly 64,000 hectares of the forest and the air walk itself was lucky to survive.  Another report from the ABC here

It took arborists and engineers over 12 months to make sure everything was safe and usable again.

The air walk loop takes about an hour and has over 100 steps to get to the metal walk itself.  M is not worried about heights much at all anymore.  I was going OK until the very end at the cantilever section.  I did go out but not for long.  THEN. I noticed the cable 😱 Can you see the cable on the right wobbling about?

It was a good walk though with fantastic views above the forest and Huon River

Needless to say when we got back to the visitor center, we were ready for lunch😀😀.

We had seen a really nice café just about across the road from the unit we’re staying in so we made our way back there and had delicious Turkish Borek pastries.  We bought one with zucchini and halloumi and one with spinach and feta cut them in half and shared both.

They were topped with yoghurt and then warm paprika butter.

We had seen a really nice café just about across the road from the unit we’re staying in so we made our way back there and had delicious Turkish Borek pastries.  We bought one with zucchini and halloumi and one with spinach and feta cut them in half and shared both.

They were topped with yoghurt and then warm paprika butter.

The flavour combination was so good. We are definitely going to be making that at home we decided it would be so nice on lamb chops.

The sky started clouding over in the afternoon, so we just spent it in the unit getting packed up ready to go back to Hobart tomorrow.

We had a good sleep in this morning.  We had a look around Huonville and Franklin.

It has been awhile since we’ve been down this way, but not much changes in this part of the state .

We stopped in at the wooden boat center and had a look around and learn some of the history of the boat boat building of the area.

We also had a look through the old Palais Theatre, and it has been renovated beautifully.  It is still used as a working Theatre and they have movie nights once a month and bands visit quite regularly. We saw a poster on the noticeboard saying that the Black Sorrows are playing soon.

Lunch was at the Lady Franklin hotel next-door we have had meals here a number of times and no, it is always a great feed and today was no exception.

After lunch, it was back to the unit with not much needed for dinner.

Our Maria Island Cruise was due to depart at 9:00 and we needed to be in Triabunna around 8:00 – 8:30am.

The drive from Bicheno is approximately 90mins, so the alarm was set for 5:15am 🤨 (aren’t we on holidays)

Shower, breakfast, final packing and on the road.

Luckily there was not much traffic at all.  On the way, I noticed the turnoff to the “Spiky Bridge”

The bridge was built by convicts in the 1840’s and is a quirky reminder of the past.

We got to the cafe and cruise check-in in plenty of time.  There is car parking at the cafe and it is a very short   Walk down to the marina to board the boat.

The Maria Island cruise often manages to circumnavigate the island, but today the same wind the battered Sydney to Hobart yachts was against us and Michael, our skipper said we were not able to go all the way around.

We made our way out of Spring Bay and across to Maria Island.

With Michael, expertly navigating the boat, we made our way up the north side of the island and around the northern tip.  Michael did warn us that heading down. The southside may get a bit bumpy.

It certainly was bumpy, but nobody on board got sick😀

The commentary on the tour was excellent and we learned about many different topics, from marine life to geology to history.

Michael and the crew bought the boat to anchor twice through the day for meal breaks.  We had a lovely morning tea of little pieces of cake and either hot drink drinks or alcoholic beverages. (we had tea and coffee.😀)

Lunch was chicken salad served with a small quiche. This time, I had a wine while M had a Coke.

After lunch, Michael stayed at the boat around to the old township of Darlington. Today there is a jetty that allows both the ferry and cruise boats to dock.

We disembarked the boat and had two hours on the Island.  We chose to do a guided walk.

Our guide, Ruby was very knowledgeable about the history of the island and also the wildlife.

We did manage to see two wombats. One of them did not care at all that 10 or so of us were there, I just merrily wounded along as we followed, taking photos🤣🤣

Back on the boat and it was again a slightly bumpy trip back to the marina at Triabunna.

Walking back to the car, we decided we were not very hungry and bought a small “Lean Cuisine” style frozen dinner from the IGA.

We checked into our park cabin at the Triabunna Caravan Park.

We had showers to wash of the salt of the day and laid down for an hour.

After a nap, we thought a cuppa might be nice.  We found the kettle easily,  but cups???
None  in the cupboard under the bench or under the sink. Where could they be?  Finally I noticed a cupboard door at the end of the bench behind a stool.  Success!!

A bit of TV and it was an early night.