Farewell Franklin. As the sun streaked our delightful campsite with early morning gold, I returned to our van armed with the photographic treasures gleaned from Franklin's river bank.
In my absence Liz had been dutifully packing the interior for our day's travel (no small task.....and she does it exceptionally well...we've yet to suffer a breakage including some large, thin wine glasses)
Once I did my duty as 'outside boy', and we had completed our obligatory pre-departure checks, we were away. The districts of Tasmania's south-west of Hobart are collectively described in all the travel and tourist information as the 'Southern Trove'. They include Bruny Island, The Channel, the Far South and the Huon Valley. Within the next few weeks we would have seen them all, but today it was off to the Far South. Mind you, impressive as that may sound, we had only 55 kms to travel! And having sortied right down to Cockle Creek a week or so previously, we actually knew exactly where we were going.
With one last admiring glimpse down the mirror surface of the Huon River,
we pulled out yet again onto the Huon Highway where the next sign of group habitation along it came at the interestingly named Castle Forbes Bay, (presumably.....in the absence of proof to the contrary) named after the convict ship 'Castle Forbes' which transported many miscreants to a period of penal purgatory in Van Dieman's Land. There are many more homes scattered beyond the ribbon of the highway, but this is about all one sees on transit through this beautiful little Huon River cove.
Port Huon and Geeveston were soon in our mirrors as we continued south on what had remained, to this point, a reasonably benign highway, but, as you probably guessed from that comment, this was about to change.
Not too far south of Geeveston the road narrows significantly as it plunges into, and winds its way through, a patch of quite dense forest.
Picturesque as this may be (and it certainly was.....for all not preoccupied with a safe arrival at the other end) this section of the 'highway' left litte margin for error, especially for a rig of our size. I was a busy boy for a few minutes, but as I mentioned earlier, I had been expecting it and this was not the first time we had eased along a challengingly narrow road.
All went well and we soon emerged unscathed onto a much broader stretch of bitumen. Here we were occasionally amazed to find homes built incredibly close to the edge of the road,
and then there were the sights of some which were just the opposite!
The highway soon took us down into the town of Dover on the edge of the Port Esperance Harbour (we shall be back here for a very good look around in a day or so)
before we crossed the Esperance River and made our way towards the tiny dots on the map which are Raminea and Strathblane.
At this point of the trip we caught glimpses of yet another distant mountain to the west where the weather gods seemed to have forgotten it was late spring. We have since learnt from experience that the Tasmanian high country is invariably chilly at the best of times.
But fortunately things were much warmer at sea level as we reached the highway junction which took us down to Southport. Even although the road narrowed
as we drove past the first of the few houses which make up the western end of this small seaside town, we were still on the A6, the Huon Highway, which terminates at Southport. The road beyond here to Ida Bay and beyond becomes a secondary.
But the vagaries or otherwise of highway designations were the last thing on our minds as we pulled up at our destination for the day, where the hotel is not backward in promoting the fact that it is Australia's southernmost pub!
At this point I was more interested to discover just what sort of a site we would be offered here. After checking in at the front bar and receiving our directions, we drove down the roadway at the end of the hotel building,
into the park proper,
and past a few park cabins to our allotted area, where I was more than pleasantly surprised. The site we had been initially offered was not ideal, but a quick trot back to the bar soon fixed that. "Yes or course you can take the site you prefer." Followed by a statement of the obvious "we are not terribly busy at the moment".
This suited us just fine and we were soon set up on a good level patch which included a slab and surrounding grassed areas. We had read that this park can become muddy during wet periods, something with did not surprise us when we looked about, but with clear blue skies overhead this was the least of our concerns.
On the subject of 'head', ours were within spitting distance. The facilities were more than adequate but here we had our first (but far from last in Tassie) experience of 'pay as you go' showers. We had not had to shell out a dollar or two to enjoy a scrub since we were in Coober Pedy eons ago, but we knew of this demand in advance, so we were neither miffed nor unprepared.
Here this demand for 'user pays' is driven by the fact that water, like at Coober, is either collected from the sky or trucked in. It becomes a precious commodity. We had read some comments on the various advisories where previous campers had been outraged by this requirement. What we discovered was that for one dollar, two at most, a good, hot dousing of at least five minute's duration was on offer. Our comment to the whingers was simple...."get over it or go home".
Once we had set our camp, we spent the next few hours taking in the sights of the bay and beaches of Southport (which will be the subject of my next offering) before repairing back to base to prepare for our evening festivities....a drink or two and a meal at the first of our 'pub crawl pubs'.
Liz took full advantage of the balmy afternoon sun (one does at every opportunity here in Tasmania!) before we both tarted up (which is a relative term in these circumstances) and made our way across to the watering hole.
This short stroll took us past one section of the well grassed park camping area
and the rustic but perfectly adequate camp kitchen in its lovely bush setting.
All this is overlooked by the back of the hotel where the slope on which it is built means that the rear is actually two floors high.
We wandered around to the front bar where a few of the Southport residents were holding court (one somewhat more robustly than the others!).
As much as I love chatting to the locals, on this occasion we settled in for a pre-dinner drink or two (come on Lizzie....smile!) at a table sufficiently distant from the bar to allow us to have a quiet chat without being overwhelmed by raucous rambunctious ramblings relating entirely to feats of personal prowess at the end of a fishing rod.
After one aperitif became three, we decided it was high time to make our way past what is almost an obligatory feature of pubs such as this.....a wall of old photos
to the large dining room which takes up most of the length of the back of the building.
The rear verandah overlooks the park, as you can see. We decided that a table with a view would be just the shot,
and the bay windows built into the back wall provided just that....'that's more like it, Lizzie!'
We were a little surprised to find that we did have the entire place almost to ourselves when we sat down which meant we did not wait long before our meals arrived at table........
........and what else at a place like this? Fish and chips, of course! Flathead abound in the waters around Southport, and I can happily report that the battered tails on our plates were fabulously fresh, moist and delicious. With a crisp bottle of reasonable sav blanc to wash it down, we were more than content with our foray south.
And what we (unusually) didn't drink with our meal 'the keeper of the purse' gleefully carried home for 'ron'!
As we crossed off the first on our rather dauntingly long list of those pubs throughout the State which offer caravan accommodation (many of which do so free of charge) we both agreed this was a bloody good lurk although both budget constraints and respect for the welfare of our livers and health generally would require restraint. Well, that's Plan 'A' at least!
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