BACK TO TASSIE - DEVONPORT TO HOBART AND THE 'CURATE'S EGG' WHICH IS THE HOBART AIRPORT CARAVAN PARK (19 OCTOBER 2017)

I recall commenting in my missive relating to our arrival in Devonport that we plan to return to this lovely town for a good look around prior to what I now know will be our very reluctant departure from Tasmania, but I cannot head off on our dash south to good old Hobart town without a couple of shots of something I suspect we may not see on our return....a very calm Bass Strait.

The day before we left we did a brief recce up to the heights of the Devonport suburb of Mersey Bluff on the eastern side of the town, primarily to check out the caravan park there (no good for us). 

Whilst there, we took the opportunity to drive up to the nearby lighthouse for a quick shuftie over the town and the coast (isn't this postcard stuff?)

and, believe it or not, this is what we saw looking north out over the feared waters of Bass Strait as they eddied benignly around the base of Hat Rock,

and further along the coast to the west towards Ulverstone. Seas as smooth as a baby's bum....a very unusual sight indeed, we suspected. 

We have since learnt that days like this, when the long streaks of icy cirrus clouds writhe high above a warm and sunny landscape, are to be treasured. They are decidedly in the minority at this time of the year.

Indeed, as we rose early the next morning for our 300 kms trip down the centre of the island to Hobart, the feathery fronds of cirrus had gone and heavier storm clouds were gathering in the west. The echos on the rain radar were not encouraging

and I scurried to hitch up before any rain fell. We quietly edged our way out of our park of the last three days under increasingly leaden skies

and joined National Route 1, which, for the 100 kms or so between Devonport and Launceston, carries the moniker of the Bass Highway. 

We had not travelled too far when the first spots appeared on the windscreen, and from this point on we were in a race to stay ahead of the cold front which was inexorably enveloping the entire island from the north-west.

By the time we had by-passed Launceston, turned south onto what was now the Midland Highway and driven through the tiny town of Perth, we had just begun to outrun the approaching weather. This allowed us a fine view down the South Esk River as we made our crossing of this well know Tassie stream, the first of many beautiful rivers we were hoping to see on the island.

The Midland Highway is also known as the 'Heritage Highway' which take travellers through some of Tasmania's oldest towns, towns such as Campbell Town, Ross and Richmond. We have every intention of roaming along here at our leisure after Christmas (when all the coastal parks will be seething with holiday makers) so today's pictorial presentation will be limited.

Notwithstanding that decision, I couldn't let this one pass. As we made our way south towards Campbell Town we came across this.....do you think they might have all been together?

We made a brief roadside stop in Campbell Town where we saw enough to seriously whet our appetite for a return visit, before pushing on with vigour south past the even more picturesque town of Ross. The highway skirts around this historic village and the larger town of Oatlands some 75 kms further south, but we were able to see enough from the road on which we were travelling to further confirm the wisdom of our plans to return for a detailed look around this entire area.

I now have to admit to a tactical planning error.  Many months ago, when the UN Forces reunion was confirmed as being in Hobart, we decided we had better ensure we had certainty as far as our accommodation went. After weighing up all the options (there is not a lot of choice in and around Hobart), we settled on the Airport Caravan Park as being the most suitable in terms of location and ease of access to the city.

The Hobart Airport lies just under 20 kms to the east of the CBD, officially in the district known as Cambridge. As I peered over our charts before leaving Devonport, I found what appeared to be a reasonably significant secondary road which would take us off the Midland Highway 10 kms south of Oatlands and thence directly south to our destination, thereby overcoming the need to cross the city of Hobart itself.

What a good plan, I thought. That was, until we actually left the main highway. By now the cold front had won the race south, and we were enveloped in varying degrees of moisture, ranging from misty drizzle to quite heavy downpours. And, although this shot does not really show it, my choice of a transit corridor was not a good one....this was a decidedly 'secondary' road.

At least the section which brought us into the tiny town of Colebrook was reasonably flat (this becomes a very relative adjective in Tasmania we now know!), and I have included this lovely town sign to remind me that at the bottom of it is the notation 'Formerly Jerusalem'. Just before we left the main highway we had been on the approach to the town of Jericho. 

With names like these we were now wondering just who had originally settled this area (and why the good folk of Colebrook had broken ranks). Another little mystery to be solved later.

But for now, I had more important things to occupy my mind, not the least of which was making sure we arrived in Hobart in one piece. Beyond Colebrook (nee Jerusalem!) we hit 'them thar hills' with a vengeance (again the photos do not do this stretch justice as far as the challenge goes...and to give her her due, 'The Navigator' was generally otherwise occupied as my second pair of eyes).

There was the odd period of respite when we could actually see more than 100 metres ahead of us before the next tight bend,

but by the time we were making our way through the pretty little town of Campania in the increasingly heavy rain, I was becoming a touch jaded and more than a little relieved that we had but 20 kms or so left to run.

This sign, confirming we now had just over 5 kms to go, was a very welcome sight, even if we did swap a narrow, somewhat torturous trail for heavy suburban traffic.

As you may imagine I was more than happy to finally arrive at the Hobart Airport Tourist Park (pictured on a different day)

and pull up at the office where by now, although the roadways were awash, the worst of the rain had passed.

But, dear readers, the past couple of hours were merely the prelude to stage two of today's travails. We had, as always when booking, made it clear how long we were, and had been told that the site assigned us would be more than adequate to accommodate our van.

Yeah, right.....once we were on that is. And now I must 'fast forward' a day or so later (as the skies above clearly demonstrate) to the park photos which show what I mean.

This was our site, very conveniently situated right across the road from the heads and the camp kitchen (about which I'll more to say shortly) and I daresay from this angle you would be wondering why on earth I had any complaint. 

Let me present this angle, where, if you look closely you will see black marks on the bottom of the large yellow post immediately opposite our site pad. This, and its neighbouring bollards, provide protection for the building behind it (the amenities block), but what they also do is make neigh on impossible to manoeuvre a rig of our length onto site 14B.

As you know, we are now pretty experienced and competent when it comes to mooring the landship, but getting onto this site demanded all of that accumulated skill. It was a bitch, and I was not in the least surprised to note (later...I was far too busy at the time) that many who had preceded us had had a close encounter with the yellow post. 

The sites in this section of the park are really designed to accommodate motor homes, which we were later to discover descend here in droves. This is completely understandable. Tasmania, like New Zealand, is a holiday destination to which many tourists fly and then hire some form of local transport to get them out and about. 

The park in which we found ourselves is ideally located to cater for the first and last nights of those picking up and returning their hired mobile homes, on arrival, and before winging their way off the island.  The site sizes are a reflection of that reality. We are shade longer and less agile than all but a very large bus, but eventually, after some considerable to-ing and fro-ing, we were properly positioned on our pad.

It was when we were settled that I realised we had another problem. Our site was not wide enough to allow us to park alongside the van nor was it long enough to be able to fit us across the front. After a quick visit to the office, I was told to park on the path which ran alongside our van. This struck me as less than satisfactory, but I did so initially until the folk next to us left and our new neighbours were more than happy enough for us to share their patch. Altogether not quite good enough in my view.

It was at about the same time we discovered the third oddity of these sites.....the cement pads of each were not wide enough to accommodate the width of our awning. If you look at the first site photo you can see that we did have a strip of the cement pad immediately below our doorway, but a good half of our 'annex' area was (so-called) lawn.

As this shot shows, the 'lawn' of the Hobart Airport Caravan Park was nothing more than an assortment of weeds, in this case flowering dandelions of a considerable height. We found that half our covered area was the equivalent of a country meadow. Never before in a caravan park have we had to look out for foraging bees as we moved to and fro under our awning.

Frankly, we took all this in our stride, but what did amuse us was the plea to be found in the park rules relating to car parking and I quote........"As our grassed area is new and still establishing, we would appreciate as much as possible if you could refrain from parking on the grass". Our only question was, where was the grass?

Anyway, enough sniping. We were on and established, and as we began to settle in we were soon to find that the general facilities here were at complete odds with the vagaries of the sites. The buildings which housed the camp kitchen and the heads were, as you can see in the shot showing the post, directly opposite our site, and they were both absolutely first class.

The ablutions were almost brand new, provided that joy of all campers, a strong, hot stream and even (wait for it) came with a heated floor. The adjoining laundry was equally well set up.

I have similar praise for the spacious and spotlessly clean camp kitchen, at one end of which were to be found all that one could need to prepare a tasty meal,

whilst at the other a small book exchange and wall mounted TV offered entertainment for those less well equipped.

Immediately behind the camp kitchen building was the park BBQ, complete with its own alfresco dining area. 

It too was gleamingly clean and well equipped, right down to the provision of all that was needed (and the instructions) to properly scrub the hot plates after use. 

Drop down clears at the windy end of the BBQ area made life more than comfortable when the not infrequent strong winds, which are something of a feature of this part of Hobart, were making their unwelcome presence felt.

Apart from the van sites, this park sports rows of cabins, extending along the entrance road beyond the park office

and on the exit road which we were facing. During out stay the occupancy rate of these was impressive, again, folk coming and going from the airport.

Finally, at the rear of this row of cabins, these much larger (grassed?) sites provided alternative accommodation for those who would prefer more room than a cement slab but here the downside comes in the form of complete exposure to any southerly or south-easterly winds

which howl unimpeded across this open area beyond the park boundary (as we soon discovered when we used this area at a later date).

So now you may well understand my use of the 'Curate's Egg' comment in the title of this blog. This is a park which is 'good in parts'....brilliant facilities but sites which are inadequate in size for big rigs, difficult to access by them, with no shade and surrounded by weeds rather than grass.

But it was convenient. Twenty minutes, maximum, in peak hour traffic saw us in the centre of Hobart where parking was, by the standards of a capital city, ridiculously cheap and accessible. All was now in readiness for the bash which had brought us to Hobart in the first place.