A fresh, but nice sunny morning. At 7° I might need to put the heater on for 30mins or so tomorrow if it’s this cool again.
A relaxed start. We get out the portable solar panel to give the power system a bit of a boost. I’d like to camp as much as we can before the van parks have to start at Port Arthur.
After breakfast we head off for a drive up the Tamar, while not exactly the plan (as I took Google’s directions more as a serving suggestion), we end up driving up the east side of the Tamar valley. We end up driving all the way up to Low Head lighthouse. When we arrive, it’s a bit windy, but the view is great, in this weather it all seems so peaceful, but I could imagine it being diabolical when the weather turns bad. Surprisingly, the kids seem to enjoy being here, even though this is not their sort of thing.
Back into George Town for an early lunch, and the kids have a quick play in a new playground they’ve got here, not as fancy as Launceston, but pretty great for a small town like this. It looks like they’ve recently built a new Woolworths supermarket in town, I genuinely wonder if that helps or hinders a smaller community like this?
Back south about 10km, and we cross over the Tamar on the Batman bridge (which the kids say with “The Batman” theme song!)
We drive up the west side to Beauty Point to visit Seahorse world. Justine loves seahorses and our visit last time was one of the highlights so we couldn’t miss out this time around.
We’re a bit early for the “tour”, so hang around the gift shop for a bit. Last time there was a bit more art work for sale, and Justine bought a really nice seahorse drawing as a print, but there’s not so much this time around. Justine was talking to the guy at the reception, who mentions he’s parents bought the place in 2002 (we visited in 2001), He then mentioned this was the year he was born (ouch)
The tour was OK, but maybe not as good as we recall it being, but that was so long ago. Anyway, the kids had fun, and learned at bit and I’m sure they’ll remember it for a long time to come.
We drive back down the west side of the Tamar valley, then though town and back to the camp site.
The kids stop off at the animals and feed them some hay that’s lying around.
Planning for tomorrow, while I initially wanted to try and get up to the central plateau, it really doesn’t seem there will be time to go there and get over to the east coast to have a enough time for a good look. Maybe we can take the scenic route on the way from Hobart to Lake St Clair next week. So, we’ll try and get away earlyish tomorrow and head east.