Travelling MoyJos

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.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We got up this morning after a very comfortable nights sleep.

A light breakfast was in order today, as today is our visit to the “Taste” festival.

We caught the bus to town, had a coffee/tea at a cafe, used some free wifi (thanks SanChurro 😀) to post the last two days of blog posts.

We bought our tickets and did not have too long to wait to enter.

We did a walk around to see what was on offer before deciding on where to start.

We had a great day eating and looking around the wharf area at the yachts still moored.

Most of the super maxi yachts don’t stay in Hobart very long, as many of them have other races to prepare for and head back to Sydney or Melbourne pretty much as soon as they can.

Feeling very full of food, we got the bus back to the unit at around 3:30pm.

No dinner tonight 😀. Even a cup of tea was a stretch for a while.

Tomorrow is a sight seeing day further afield.

After a relaxing night in our Wilderness Cabin, we got up and ready early for a 7:00am breakfast.

We decided to go for a walk around the lodge park and have a look at Lake St Clair.  I could see from the map we had, that there was a jetty not far from our cabin.

It was a lovely walk along the forest paths to reach the lake, before reaching the main lodge building where our buffet breakfast was waiting.

The ferry moored at the jetty is used to ferry walkers from the Overland Track.

The Overland Track is a 5-7 day walk that begins at Cradle Mountain and finishes here at Lake St Clair. ..Madness 😄

The breakfast had the usual buffet fare, and we enjoyed our breakfast before returning to the cabin, packing the car and traveling a short 10 minutes to “The Wall in the Wildrness”

We visited The Wall when we were here 20 years ago and have seen in a few times since on various travel shows.  The artist is certainly talented and we enjoyed our time here. (No photos allowed)

The next stop was Tarraleah.  This town was built for the construction of the Hydroelectric station.  The village is a collection of original 1940’s bungalows and a stately lodge, that was originally built to house visiting dignitaries, engineers and management.

In the late 1990’s Hydro Tasmania sold the entire village and it is now run as luxury accommodation.

Read about Tarraleahs history here

Sadly, I could not get any decent photos as the sun was in my eyes the whole time 🙁

From Tarraleah we had a 130 odd km trip to Hobart.

Around 11 o’clock we came across the little town of Ouse. The pub looked like a good place to stop for a break and perhaps morning tea/lunch.

Tea/Coffee and scones, jam and cream were enjoyed before stopping off in New Norfolk. We did a little shop and made our way to our Hobart accommodation for the next 3 nights.

We have stayed her a number of times before and we like it for its convenience.The bus stop is one house down from us and goes directly to the Bus Hub in the city.

We put on a load of washing and settled in for a quiet night.

Tomorrow we will take the bus to town and eat!  The Taste festival opens at midday.

We had breakfast and packed up the car ready to leave for the Wilderness Railway.

Before we left, I made sure to suitably clean the unit so as not to get a $50 charge 😀

We arrived at Regatta Point station in plenty of time to check in and get our boarding pass for the train.

We chose to go on the “Wilderness” carriage which included a glass of sparkling wine or juice and canapes.  Our canapes were cucumber rounds with an avocado cream and salmon topped with a piece of dill.  I said they were very nice, but apparently I lied 🙂. So I got 3 canapes 😃

A little further along we were served a choice of tea, coffee or hot chocolate and a warm scone with herb butter.

The first half of our trip was good with a commentary of the history of the surrounding area and the construction of the railway in the late 1800’s

Stopping at Lower Landing we were offered a guided walk through the surrounding rain forest, but we chose not to as it had been raining on and off all morning.

Soon enough and we were back on the train for the return journey.

Our next stop was Queenstown. The road was as windy as we remembered.  A slow 40kms later we reached our destination, the Empire Hotel.

I had read about this hotel as being part of the towns rich history.  The building has a beautiful Tasmanian Blackwood staircase.  The wood was cut from the local area, sent to England to be crafted and shipped back to Tasmania to be assembled in the hotel.  The whole staircase is now heritage listed.

We had a good lunch at the hotel before having a look at the Queenstown Station.

Our final stop for the day was the Lake St Clair lodge where we are staying for the night.

After our big lunch, we had just cheese and crackers for dinner.

Tomorrow we head to Hobart for 3 nights

They say Sunday is a day of rest, and that is what we had planned :). A whole lot of nothing.

One of the reasons for revisiting Strahan is to ride on the Wilderness Railway, but it does not run on a Sunday.  The plan is to have a rest day, do a load of washing and just generally look around.

I had thought we could have dinner at  lovely restaurant that is situated high above Strahan Harbour and has lovely sunset views…until we realised that the sun does not go down until after 8:30pm…  Too late for us 🙂

So we thought we could perhaps go up and have lunch.   No such luck. :(. They are only open for buffet breakfast and buffet dinner.

I was able to take some lovely photos from the deck though.

We called into the Gordon River Cruise office to ask where we needed to go for the Wilderness Rail and were told to “keep following the harbour around to the other side and you cannot miss it.”. The only reason we could miss it from where we were was that the cruise boat was in the way 🙂

Sure enough we found the station and where we needed to park.  The carriages were at the station so we got a good look at both them and the station cafe.

There are also great views across the harbour looking at Strahan itself.  I am sure they would be extra lovely without the cloud 🙂

We have not decided yet if we will have lunch at the station when we return, or whether we have lunch in Queenstown on our way to our next night’s accommodation at Lake St Claire.

Back to the cabin for a cup of tea and find somewhere for lunch.  We had decided to go out for lunch and then finish the last of the roast chook on sandwiches for dinner.

Well that proved easier said than done:(. It appears that not much at all in Strahan opens for lunch 🙁

We found “The Kitchen” on the Esplanade and had nice meals. (Meatball Linguine & a Seafood Basket.

Back to the cabin and I did a load of washing (and typed this blog) while he had a bit of a nap 🙂

We will get up tomorrow,have breakfast, pack the car, head to the station for our Wilderness Railway trip and then head east again toward Hobart.