LET THE TASSIE TOURING BEGIN - WITH A SEAFOOD MEAL, A MOVE TO MARGATE, SNOW AND A CHANGE OF STYLE IN THESE PRESENTATIONS (26 OCTOBER 2017)

It is, dear readers, a case of pure self-preservation and a necessary retreat from an increasing feeling of being overwhelmed by detail.

With the 2017 UN Reunion consigned to history we began our Tassie touring in earnest, and having now been at it for five weeks or so, I have reached the dreadful conclusion that unless I make some drastic changes to the manner in which I bring our adventures to you, I am going to continue to fall further and further behind.

This is the most fascinating place, and with quite different areas being so comparatively close to each other, very little time is taken up with mere travel between them. This, we have discovered, is both a blessing a curse. The fuel bill has been dramatically reduced, but the camera has been running red hot, and we have occasionally gone in sensory overload.

Scenery, history, food.....it is all so different here on the Apple Isle.....and each aspect has demanded our attention in fulsome measure. You may gain some idea if I tell you that we have left most of the small towns we have visited south of Hobart over the past weeks with a minimum of 300 photos in the files. As for the city of Hobart itself.......!!

I suspect we have been driven to some extent by the realisation that this is a potentially a 'one-off' journey across The Ditch. We are desperately keen to ensure that we don't miss anything, one direct result of which has been that we have taken very few 'lay days' compared with our normal travelling routine. And, as usual, we are equally keen to share all we are doing with you, but a practical approach demands that I sharpen my editorial blue pen to an even finer point than I have in the past. 

I must conclude this 'personal explanation', as they would say in The House, with the comment that the viral bronchitis which laid me so low for almost a month following our move from Hobart itself (and has now transferred its attention to Liz with a vengeance) has also contributed in no small manner to the present state of affairs. Whilst I refused to allow my condition to prevent me from getting out and about as much as I could, the mental challenge of sorting and editing photos and preparing scripts on a daily basis (which is what these blogs demand) was just too much. 

We have divided the island into what we hope are manageable (and understandable) touring sectors, and having done so find ourselves somewhat daunted by the prospects. We can now empathise with those to whom we have spoken who lamented the fact they did not allow enough time to see all they wanted to. 

We have also realised that with the restrictions of choice during the forthcoming summer school holidays (when most of the East Coast will be impossibly crowded), our desire to return to the Hobart area over New Year, the vagaries of the weather which have already forced us to sit out days of impossible wind and rain (and alter our touring schedules accordingly), and the imperative of allowing a reasonable number of rest days between mad dashes hither and yon about the countryside, we too were facing the prospect of running out of time.

But we have fixed that problem. We  have just altered our return booking from 24 February to 29 March. Hopefully that will do the trick, because we have to leave by then for a number of reasons.

So with all that out of the way, let's get on with it.

Before leaving the Hobart Airport park, we had one important mission to complete, this one in the food category. The cafe outlet of 'Tasmanian Gourmet Seafoods' was a mere five minute walk from our park. It boasted 'the best fish and chips in Australia'....voted by whom remains a question. Now we have been around the block a time or two when it comes to fish and chips, and we felt obliged to put them to the test.

Needless to say, on 'the day after the night before' (our final reunion dinner at Wrest Point), and such a good night at that, your scribe was a little jaded. I think it was as well that I am now so experienced with the requirements of preparing our van for departure.....today's effort was all done on automatic pilot!

A very late lunch or an early tea....a moot point. The cafe closes at 1600 hours on weekdays, so we fronted as late as we could.

And, dear readers, I must hand myself up at this juncture, and ask that you file this photo under the heading of 'Rarely Seen'.......ginger beer no less....and I wasn't even the designated driver!

Liz felt no such constraints, and was very quick to let me know that her BYO bottle of white wine was of high quality. The words 'cruelly smug' spring to mind.

Seafood chowder, followed by crumbed scallops and battered calamari with chips and salad were duly ordered (prawns were off the menu....the damned white spot disease is pricing them out of the market down here at the moment).

The staff here were most obliging even offering to take a photo for the memoirs.

But what about the food?  Another 'Curate's Egg' result. The chowder was a little thin, particularly compared with that I later enjoyed at the Dover RSL. Whilst it was chock full of seafood bits, a dearth of potato and corn, essentials for a good chowder in your writer's view, left it lacking somewhat. 

The scallops, a particular Tassie speciality, were a different matter altogether. They were sensational.....fresh, plump and tasty, 

and Liz had no complaints about her equally fresh squid. The salads were sensible and crisply fresh, but the almost cold, soft chips, a critical component of a meal such as these, left a great deal to be desired. We both agreed we have had better at the cricket at the Adelaide Oval, and left even more convinced that the boast on the advertising bill board was somewhat hollow.

But if nothing else, there was now no need to gallop around the galley Chez Marshies, and one of the 'foodie' boxes had been ticked off.

With our UN friends winging their collective ways home, and a much recovered self back on deck first thing the following morning, we were soon hitched and making our way through the city and on to the the small town of Margate, just over 15 kms south of Hobart itself.

I say 'through the city' advisedly. Now we accept that the population of Hobart is not large, a shade under 250,000, but the complete absence of any ring route or other road by which to traverse this city from east to west/south, other than by using one of the major central city streets, is an utter nonsense. We were very glad that by now we did know exactly where we were going as we jostled our way through the moving crush of morning city traffic.

Margate is the most northern of a group of small towns which lie within the district known as 'The Channel', or simply 'Channel', a nomenclature which had us initially quite confused.

Hopefully this map, courtesy of 'huonvalleyescapes' will make things a tad clearer. What is essentially a blunt peninsula south of Hobart gains its name from the body of water which lies between Bruny Island and the 'mainland' of Tasmania (is that and oxymoron?), the d'Entrecasteaux Channel, named after that intrepid French admiral who sailed through here in the late 1700's (we had already come across him in Esperence, WA, and I'll have more to say about him and significant 'early others' later).

All those towns which lie on the eastern side of the peninsula are recognised as 'Channel towns' and as we soon discovered, this is an area rich in both history and enterprise (again, more later).

Here is another map (photographed on South Bruny Island...again, more later) which may also help to 'get' this part of Tassie.

As I type I can tell you that we've now visited all the towns shown on this map with the exception of Woodbridge and Cygnet (and they are on the agenda for tomorrow) so you can see how much work I have in front of me!

Now, back to Margate, which is almost a cross between an outlying suburb of Hobart and a small town in its own right. Although it a Channel town, it actually lies on the western edge of North-West Bay (just to confuse the issue even more) as opposed to directly facing onto the d'Entrecasteaux Channel which 'officially' ends at Dennes Point at the top end of Bruny Island. (I told you Tassie can be confounding).

Vicki and Andy, our Margate friends, live in one of the few areas in and around Hobart which is actually flat. Indeed it was one of the selling points for them when they moved here.






As we hauled up this slope and on through the small commercial area of the town

and made our way past the (very good) local museum beyond

an finally into Jacaranda Drive which runs right down to the edge of North-West Bay, we were more than pleased with their choice of domicile.












'Flat' works for us when docking the van, and we had soon backed onto the driveway which was to be our new home for the next couple of weeks.

Our most generous hosts provided both power and water and with a bit of levelling of the starboard side to counter the slope of the driveway, we were soon all set.










Andy is a member of an historical engine society, and the centre piece of his shed is a fully restored Lister diesel standing engine, trailer mounted to enable it to be taken to the many exhibitions held around the State.









But there was more to this very large den than diesel engines and tidily arrayed tools. It came complete with the bar, a leather lounge and a wood stove....all the creature comforts.









With our van almost backing into the shed, this was like having our own private lounge room, and Liz was quick to take advantage of the fact that this 'man cave' was user friendly to the fairer sex and black cats! We felt very spoilt indeed.




Andy could not have been more helpful and obliging when it came to showing us around and providing all sorts of useful local information, and I'll happily report on these trips and tours in future missives.





We did agree that self catering was the best way to manage meals, and I was pleased to be able to set up our Baby Q in a sheltered nook on more than one occasion.






I make mention of the shelter because, dear friends, no sooner had we arrived here than the weather soured, significantly. Days of sunshine disappeared in a trice, as did my shorts (to be replaced by jeans and trakkie daks)

We had, by now, learnt that at this time of the year in Tasmania, one grasps fine, sunny days with glee.  But with caution.  A pair of sunburn ears soon taught me that when Mr Sol is blazing through the depleted ozone layer at these latitudes, caps must give way to a broad brimmed hat. We quickly adopted the practice of adding eight to ten degrees to the actual temperature when the weather was fine, and this proved to be about right in terms of skin exposure.

But this was not a current problem. The winds were whipping in from the south bringing with them an icy Antarctic chill. 





From Andy's driveway we could see the top of Mount Wellington over the roofs of the neighbouring houses (as indeed one can from most parts of Hobart and beyond to the south) and on this particular afternoon the threatening grey clouds were rolling in with gusto.







Within the space of less than five minutes, all signs of the massive mountain which lords it over Hobart had been obliterated. An god it was cold! I casually mentioned that it felt cold enough for snow.









How right I was, and what a sight greeted us in the clear light of the following morning.











Sure enough, Mount Wellington was indeed capped with snow, like icing sugar on a plum pudding....speaking of which, we were told that the sight of snow on the peak on Christmas Day is not unknown. 





A later trip up to the summit convinced us that this news should come as no surprise, but more of that later.  For now we were content to just rejoice in this marvellous sight....Mother nature had more than adequately compensated us for our creature discomfort!