Bruny Island

Our trip down the East coast of Tassie has been a revelation - all those gorgeous, stunning, beautiful little bays with turquoise water, white sand and that endearing crescent shape with the morning sun glistening on the water have been enough to make anyone want to stay here.  Seriously.

I mean, we are used to not being able to go into the water. Back in Darwin it was because of the crocs and stingers while here it is because of the freezing cold water, but at least here you could don a wet suit.

Hmmm - Karen and me in wet suits. That would be a sight to see!

The point of that little love poem to the beauties of Tassie is that Bruny Island is all of that and more. A truly wonderful place.

Still, before we got there we had to leave the joys of Freycinet and trundle down the highway to the ferry at Kettering. We aimed south and chugged along. We stopped in Triabunna where we had mixed fortunes. The local butcher seemed very friendly and amazingly cheap. Sadly, the porterhouse steaks he sold us were tough and hard to swallow. Rather like the posters he had on the walls celebrating the last flag that Hawthorn won against the Cats in 2008. A friendly place though and they made us feel wanted. For anyone travelling that way I am told that you can camp out n the paddock behind the pub (the Spring Bay Hotel) and use the pub's toilets for free. They would expect you to buy a beer of course, but that's no hardship.

We stocked up at the local IGA (very nice people who sold us a sack of firewood for $6) and then had a coffee at the place across the road. Zero points for coffee quality, decor, cakes and atmosphere, but they got a few back for having cheap secondhand books on sale.

Leaving Triabunna, we continued on. We decided not the stress ourselves and we stopped for the night at Sorell, just twenty odd klms out of Hobart.

We left Sorell with few regrets. The overnight stop provided by the council was welcome, but it lacked charm although the diamond little RSL club close by made up for that in spades. A great little club with typical country town RSL prices, home grown veggies up for sale (tasty!) at a cheap price and a set of very friendly people. We didn't take advantage of it, but they also had both Coles and Woolies supermarkets so it would make a good restocking stop.