Tasmania trip.
Benalla to Melbourne.
We leave Benalla and head to Melbourne on friday, stopping the night in Wallan rest area.We have to drop off the caravan at Evernew, for some work on it, on Sat morning early.
We have until Monday morning to kill time, so we drive around Albert Park Lake, drive the Formula one track, walk the lake. They are already getting the track ready for the next races in March. 

 
We then go and have a swim at St Kilda beach.

Larry spent part of his childhood in Williamstown so we go there for a couple of days. Walk around his old haunts and go swimming at the beach. Williamstown is now the ' in place ' they have made a wetlands , marsh area on the old testing range for the Navy. This area was also used as a riffle range for people in Melbourne that were in the Olympics and Commonwealth games.
Changing this land into wetlands was the cheapest and safest option as it still has spent cartridges and other things on it. Behind this area overlooking it and the ocean is now large houses, apartment complexes and a up market retirement village.
While we are in Williamstown we walk out along the pier. From here you can see the Westgate freeway, Melbourne city and cargo boats coming and going under the Westgate bridge.

Spirit of Tasmania ferry


We get to station pier and join the queue of waiting cars, caravans, motorhomes around 6 am .
It takes 11/2 hours to get to park on board. First inspection is for gas bottle position and bracket, whether carrying fuel, fruit and veg. We have a couple of litres of diesel in a container so get a blue card. This means we will be pulled out of line later to empty it out either in the car or in their drum. If it was petrol we would have to fill the container with water, but because it diesel he lets us just empty it.
While we were in line a small flat top truck towing a caravan did not close the van door properly, so further down the line it opens catches a post and takes it off and part of their awning. Inspectors chasing them to get them to pull over, blocked line. I am so glad we were in the line over a bit.
We finally get to park and get our boarding passes, find our lounge chairs we will be spending the next 9-10 hours in. We get to move around a bit , go watch a national parks of Tasmania talk and movie, eat something, Larry goes and looks out over the ocean on the top deck, deck 10. Too rough for me.
We arrive at 6.30 pm and it takes until after 8pm to get the car through quarantine in Devonport.

Latrobe.
The caravan park is opposite the Mersey river which is supposed to have platypus in it. We have got here late so food is eggs and a tin of pears. Then shower and bed.The walk around the river is Bells parade and Sheeans walk. Starting at the memorial to Ordinary seaman Edward Sheean for his heroic wartime exploits. It is not bad but we go further up beside the river as far as we can go, we do not see any platypus, it is getting late in the morning though. On our way back we find a natural bushland walk up Dooleys hill that takes you up beside the side of the town. See some birds and some Tasmanian paddymelons. Small members of kangaroo family. Too shy could not get photos.

 
Codee

Stayed in caravan park opposite the beach.I did not like the free camp we had planned on. Walked around the beach at night to spot little penguins. Did not find any.
Next day packed up and headed for Table cape. On the way we stopped at Fossil Bluff. The sandstone showing layers of fossils.
We then went up to the Table Cape Lighthouse and on the way passed Table Cape Tulip farm. This place also grows opium poppies with signs everywhere that the crop can kill.

The lighthouse stands180mt above sea level and 25 mt high, with a range of 32 nautical miles. The light beam has been in operation since the 17 hundreds in some form. Back in early 18 hundreds a family lived here keeping the light going. They had a lot of kids and one fell over the cliff edge and died at age 10.
We walked from the lighthouse along the cliff edge to a lookout with a cliff top view of lighthouse.
 
 
We move on to Rocky Cape and stay at the Tavern, it has free camping and $3 a person showers..
We are staying here so we can go into the Rocky Cape national park the next day.
We have to fold the tent down and put everything away as we have to drive into the park.
First we check out the beach area and BBQs before driving to the first walk up to South Cave an Aboriginal resting place. Then its on to the walk to Postmans pass and Cathedral Rock. This is very steep and I only make part of the way and return to the car. Larry goes on.


We return to lunch on the beach and then snorkel , see some fish , but the deeper we go the colder it gets and it is too cold for me. It is late afternoon so we decide to spend the night at Rocky Cape tavern again. Each night as well as the normal menu they have $10.00 meals. Tonight is fish and chip night, which Larry has and the chef makes a very nice salad and chips for me. It is nice not having to cook when you have limited facilities and the wind is blowing

The next day is Saturday and we head towards Stanley stopping at some of the beaches on the way, not for swimming but to walk around and take photos.
Beaches were- Edgcumbe, Crayfish Creek, Port Latta,Black river and Pecks beach.


It is strange here some of the beaches have been taken over by caravans that stay and put up fences around them taking the best parts of the beach. These are Tasmanians mostly.
Stanley .
We stay at the Wharf opposite a wood boat builder who has set up a bit of a museum and has a sign visitors welcome. He has captained a ship to Antarctica and has a model of the Cuttysark. We were to see the actual ship in England but it burnt down just before we got there, so Larry spent some time in the wood boat builders place.
We walked into town and up to 'The Nut' , a hill state reserve in Stanley.The walk up very steep
Larry walked up I took the chairlift because at the top it is a 45 min walk around the lookouts and I was walking down with Larry.Photos show lookout above the wharf and the car, Stanley and looking up at the Nut from the car. It was a hard walk down as very steep but there is a rail to hold on the nearly straight up / down sections. We found Tasmanian paddymelons but not many birds. The Sherwaters, Muttonbirds nest here and come in at dusk. It is a bit late as most of the babies have fledged.

 
In the afternoon we walk down to the beach for a swim, a couple of kilometres each way.
Water is nice but we have to go along way to get shoulder deep as we are in a bay.
Greens Point beach
We head across to the top of the west coast and Marrawah and Greens Point. This is a surfing beach but still a nice stop over on are way to Arthur river National park.
There is road works going on all over and this stops us from going where we would like , so a lot of doubling back to get to see things and we do not have too long in Tasmania and we are still in the North west after over a week.
The Edge of the world lookout sits above very rough seas. The beach is full of driftwood and rocks. 


While heading for Julius river we have to double back to Smithton and out on another road , some bridges are down, we come across a logging truck roll over. We are first on the scene, we drive slowly up to it and manage to get past, expecting the driver to be still in the cabin. He had just got himself out and was bleeding from head, arm and leg cuts and was staggering. While I attended to him Larry tried to get help, no phones working , but found a local to get services on their way , then did some traffic stopping as the truck was leaking fuel and gas. By this time a vet had turned up and a couple of locals so we moved injured driver away from truck just in case. We had to wait around for the police to arrive , who were the last on the scene, after SES and Ambulance.
 
 
We had stopped just down the road to take photos of a snake that was on the road, who was gone by the time we pulled over. If we had not had stopped when we did we might have been part of the accident a few corners away.
 
Julius River sits at the edge of the park and is supposed to be the place for wild Tasmanian Devils without facial tumours, quoll and we do not see any. Other people we have met have seen them at night but maybe we do not stay awake long enough. We do find aring tail possum in a tree and a couple of birds but that is all. It is a bloody cold night and we have a blanket on top of the dooner,
 
 
We drove around to Lake Chisholm, but find a walk into see the lake, which we did. This area of the Northeast has things called sink holes. They range in size and most have swamps at the bottom. The most notable is Dismal swamp , you have to go 100mt down to the swamp. Lake Chisholm is a sink hole and the only one not porous so has made a lake not a swamp.

We are heading back to start our journey south, we can not get through the way we planned so have to double back and stay at Rocky Cape. It rains during the night so things do not look good for Cradle Mountain stay but we have booked and payed no refund so I hope it clears .