Just the World as We See It
Oh dear this is getting a bit tedious. Another glorious day after a cool morning. We went for a 4km stroll this afternoon and came back to have a nice fire before settling in to watch the footy tonight. No doubt you will be all pleased to know that our neighbour from the caravan park introduced herself assuring us she is COVID free and from Timboon so all is well in the world. Personally I would have preferred someone from Drouin but you can’t be fussy in a Viral World.
We’ve moved into Mildura now, staying at the Apex Riverbeach Caravan Park. We have a great site overlooking the river. It’s a strange phenomenon – no boats. As the Murray River is considered to be NSW, no Victorian boats can be on the river so its all very quiet. We had to leave early this morning to drop the halter monitor off so we decided it would be nice to have breakfast out. Not used to these kind of treats.
Not much going on at the moment, just sitting around enjoying the sun. No frost just a bit of sun and a quite strong breeze. The fruit pickers are just starting to go out now (lunchtime) so they must have to wait for the fruit to dry. We have decided that we may as well sit it out in the Mildura sunshine so we’re moving to another caravan park on Thursday, this one is right on the edge of Mildura CBD. In the meantime I shall catch up on my reading (currently reading ‘The Art of Logical Thinking’ by William Walker Atkinson – free on iBooks) something I forget to do at home!
Okay I admit it we decided it was time to run. I’m afraid the cold weather in South Gippsland was getting to us so we decided to head up to northern Victoria to chase at least some sun.
It was strange travelling along the freeways through the city, mainly commercial traffic but definitely much reduced. We were stopped outside the city to check where we hade come from and where we were going to. We decided to settle on Nangiloc near Mildura. I think the locals were stunned that anyone would choose to come here for leisure purposes – just a few fruit pickers here with us being the only tourists.
We will sit here for the next week and wait to see what happens. If all continues as is we will just move along the Murray River and eventually head to Sharon and Paul’s for a week before heading back home. Otherwise we are at the mercy of the COVID-19 restrictions.
Actually it’s great to see that even in a little place like this they are enforcing social distancing in the caravan park – we cannot use the barbecues (and they have removed the gas bottles) and must obey all the regulations displayed in the shower block. Generally everyone seems to be good humoured and following the restrictions
Well that’s Tassie done and dusted. We were up bright and early to get into the queue for the ferry at Devonport. We had to wait for the disembarking passengers and vehicles before we could board. There were a surprising number of vehicles arriving with what appeared to be holiday stuff on board – they must have been returning Tasmanian’s or travellers prepared to self isolate for 14 days. The vehicles going back to the mainland just kept on coming (there must have been no tourists left on the island by the time we boarded😀) and we didn’t manage to get on board until two hours after the opening of loading. It was another relatively smooth sailing despite the weather forecast of strong winds. We disembarked at around 7 p.m. and were back home around 9.
It was a really great trip, beautiful scenery and the feeling of stepping back in time with the many old homes and other buildings. It would have been very tempting to move there had we seen it thirty years ago (well I would have been tempted I don’t know if we could have broken Jenny’s familial links). The only thing we noticed was the narrowness of the roads. The closeness between towns was interesting, as was the preparedness of the locals to have a dip by creating and selling products from their homes or along the wayside. I would rate it as one of our best trips. The boring stats were 3273 kilometres and $629 in fuel. Heaps of free camps and interesting scenery.
Thanks again to the Willies for their company and good humour and the people of Tasmania for putting up with us. Special call out to Jack and Jenny Smith for the great visit we had with them.
Now if this virus thingy nicks off we may even get away for another trip this year.
We left our Sheffield camp at around nine trying to meander our way to Devonport. Unfortunately Tasmania is so small we only got to meand before we had reached the coast again. We shuffled around a few beaches but then headed into Devonport proper for a walk around the streets but then the rain set in so it was back to the cars to sit out the rain and have lunch. Off to scour the streets of East Devonport for a good coffee. We will park in the Spirit of Tasmania car park tonight after 7.30 p.m. ready to board at six in the morning.
We left camp a little later this morning – no rush we headed out to Mole Creek Karst National Park to checkout the caves. Not very well signposted but we eventually found the two sites and climbed into Honeycomb Cave to have an explore. Great fun with crystal clear water running through the floor of the cave. Little openings running off the main cave added to the mystery. From there we headed into Mole Creek and had lunch before driving over the Gog Mountain Range (just love that name) to the town of Sheffield where, once again, the shelves of the IGA have been stripped bare of rolled oats, powdered milk, flour and other dry goods. There must be a lot of mainlanders shopping up big before heading home. The Spirit of Tasmania messaged us to say incoming passengers must spend 14 days in quarantine while outgoing passengers remain unaffected at this stage so I guess our Saturday sailing is still on.
We decided to make our camp at the Sheffield Recreation Area which means we will only have a short trip to Devonport tomorrow for our last day/night in Tassie.
We went into Launceston early to do our pensioner shop at Woolworths. They had almost everything we wanted bar powdered milk and rolled oats. We walked around the CBD of Launceston for a little while before we decided to head towards Caveside which is a district about 60 kilometres north west of Launceston where there are several cave systems. By the time we arrived at Chudleigh for morning tea misty rain had set in so it was decided to make camp here.
There is a Honey Shop with a huge variety of products in Chudleigh and the General Store. Other than that there isn’t a lot to entertain visitors. A nice setup at the Showgrounds for an overnight stay so we will probably move on to the caves tomorrow depending on the weather.
We had a bit of a sleep in. The ladies did some laundry and Bob and I contemplated the ongoing madness in the world. We decided to set out for Cataract Gorge, Bob and Debbie were going to catch the free Tiger Bus, a tourist initiative supplied by Launceston City Council, from the hospital while Jenny conned me into walking up to the gardens despite the lady at the caravan reception recommending that it was to strenuous for most people to undertake. Unfortunately the last Tiger Bus had run for the day (unbeknownst to us) so Bob and Debby missed out. We made it to the gardens (with only one short rest on the way) where we caught the chairlift across the gorge. Spectacular views out over the gorge and gardens. We had a drinks break at the kiosk before walking back across the suspension bridge back to the car park. Good day out but I’m over the walking at this very moment.
We are finding it hard to cope with the short distances between places. Today we left Gravelly Beach for Launceston at nine fifteen, did a big supermarket shop, had coffee and cake and still got to the Caravan Park at eleven! We spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Launceston. This time it was Bob who had phone trouble, so we had to find the appropriate shop. We stayed in the CBD until dinner time so we could partake of a mixed grill at the Commercial Hotel. The reviews were better than the food but suitably stuffed with a huge steak, a lamb chop, a sausage, an egg, tomato chips and mushroom sauce we got an Uber back to the the Caravan Park at South Launceston.
