BACK BY THE SEASIDE - SWANSEA - PART 1 (THE CARAVAN PARK AND A VERY TASTY SURPRISE) (1 - 7 MARCH 2018)

I'm getting there folks, I'm getting there. Less than a month of our Tassie travels and tales to go!

As if to encourage us to tarry longer in Ross, Mother Nature provided us a magnificent sunrise on the morning of our departure, early as usual (which does account in part for the fact that I was up and about to capture it on the now operational camera). The eastern sky was ablaze over the 'Four Corners of Ross',

and our caravan park. Or could this be an invitation to head east? 

Indeed that's what we did, firstly north along the Midland Highway to a junction just south of Campbell Town where we turned right to travel east along the B34.

Our trip of 85 kilometres took us through the timber country of the ridges and valleys of the most quaintly named Gilbert Dick Hills, through the Wye River State Reserve and on to the junction of the B34 and the A3,

the highway which is sign posted throughout as The Great Eastern Drive. It's certainly in the east, well most of it at least. This is one of the Apple Isle's major highways which takes traffic north out of Hobart and  up the east coast to St Helens. Here it turns westward to travel through Scottsdale and finally terminate in Launceston. In 'Tassie terms' this is quite a gallop.

For us though, we had but 10 kms to go as we turned right at the junction.

One real feature of an arrival into Swansea from the north is this magnificent avenue of trees, an arboreal 'guard of honour'. Despite local enquiries I was never able to get to the bottom of this planting....we just enjoyed it each time we passed through (and there were several).

In no time the roadside advertising told us our destination was nigh.

Having passed through this town before (in the opposite direction) we did actually know more or less where we were going as we eased along the main street of this pretty seaside town.

We turned right at the junction of Franklin and Victoria Streets

and eventually cruised down the back street from where we could now see a few of the peaks of the Hazards Range (the spine of the Freycinet Peninsula) ahead of us  

and one of the greens of the town golf course on our left.

Here we were, well almost.

With one final turn as directed by the park sign,

we made our way to the park entrance where the park office is part of the rather imposing and attached owners' residence.

With the formalities done, we continued on down past what turned out to be a magnificent camp kitchen,

a row of cabins opposite,

and on towards our site on the seafront part of the park.

Our allotted site was at the far end of this park roadway.

We had asked for a large patch with, if possible, some shelter from the wind and we could not have been happier with what we were given. Our patch was huge, tucked away in a calm corner, and despite the lack of water which was plaguing the State as a whole,

we were even blessed with a small stretch of green.

The Swansea Holiday Park is very well managed, something we have found to be common when the managers and owners are one and the same. The facilities were first class and the sea was not far away.

Midway along the eastern roadway of the park, where we were in residence, a path lead directly to the foreshore.

Beyond that the rather stylised old buildings which are part and parcel of the park infrastructure, house the ablutions, a large BBQ room (at the left of the shot)  and a most excellent, fully enclosed and well furnished camp kitchen.

As I mentioned, both the park BBQs 

and the camp kitchen facilities were fully enclosed, a real boon when the weather closes down, a not uncommon phenomenon in Tasmania! 

We made good use of the kitchen when we were joined here for a couple of days by very good friends from Adelaide (much more of this later). I'm not quite sure what Liz had said just before I snapped this, but I obviously missed a joke!

Our row of the park was pretty quiet on the day of our arrival, but this changed in no time.

For no particular reason that we could discern, within 24 hours, the 'gates had opened' and they flooded in.

And then we had one of those travelling surprises............. which no longer surprise us!

At the far end of the camp one couple in residence were Gillian and Jon, folk we had met a few weeks previously when they pulled up next to us in Stanley. I had taken Jon fishing and we enjoyed several 'enthusiastic' happy hours.

Needless to say, greetings were effusive, and then came one of the highlight invitations of our tour.  As we were 'catching up' and being introduced to a couple of their friends with whom Gillian and Jon were travelling, I spotted these two crays hanging by their curved tails on the fence nearby.

Needless to say, I did comment, to be told that the boys had just pulled them from a nearby reef and that they were cooling after just having come out of the cooking pot. It transpired that Jon spent many summers of his youth here at Swansea, and could still find the local rocky outcrops from which, as a diver of some skill, he could hook these delicious crustaceans.

"We were just about to crack them open. Would you care to join us?" Now that, dear readers, was a 'does a one legged duck swim in circles?' question if ever there was one! "Can we offer some salad and Chef Pierre's renowned seafood sauce?", was my immediate rejoinder. Good plan. I almost tripped over myself in my haste to scuttle back to our van, with fingers tightly crossed that all I would need was in the fridge and pantry....it was.

We shortly thereafter all sat down to a few pre dinner nibbles and aperitifs,

had a yarn to the (as always) immaculately dressed park owner who had strolled by,

and then, with the crays cracked, the simple salad served and the sauce stirred, 

we got down to the real business of the late afternoon. As is (quite coincidentally) evident in this photo, Liz does not share my enthusiasm for jasus edwardsii (which is odd...she is an otherwise highly intelligent lass),

so it was left to me to hold up the Mobile Marshies' end of the arrangement. I was more than happy to do so!

What a sensational welcome treat this had been. With good weather, the later arrival of our good friends from Adelaide with whom we spent two grand days, a pretty and interestingly little town, wonderful seaside walks for the taking, the magnificent Freycinent Peninsula with iconic Wine Glass Bay on our touring doorstep, and a nearby winery where we did make a dent in our wallets, our week in Swansea was, for me at least, one of the highlights of our Tasmanian tour.

Obviously there is much more to come.