Tasmania trip 2015

 Hello there, How are things going with you? 

It''s been a while since I last chatted with you here, September just kind of disappeared !

Life has been busy, busy, busy, but we managed to fit in a fair amount of relaxing on our little holiday to Tasmania last week.  We caught the ferry over with our car so we could do lots of sight seeing. 

The ferry was lovely, it has recently had a refurbishment, so was very comfortable, although I felt very uneasy for the whole trip, there was a surprising amount of swaying for such a big ship. I  really only feel comfortable on land, the sea and sky do freak me out a bit! 

Anyway, once we got to Tassie we drove to a little Northern town called Boat Harbour Beach where we rented a house for a few days, it is a really beautiful part of the world, the house opened up to the beach, so the beach was actually our backyard, totally awesome!  It is quite a private little place, with cute little beach houses along the foreshore, everyone would have the same amazing views as we did.

It was very idyllic and I did go a bit overboard with the pictures! 

.......I also found time for crochet of course! :) ......

........early morning quick dip in the very cold sea for Max.........

.......on our balcony looking to the left........

.......looking straight ahead ( lovely!)........

........and to the right of our house..........

 low tide

....our house was the third one from the end at the far end of the beach...

Look at the colour of that water, very tropical looking, so clean and inviting, I'd love to come back when Summer has warmed things up! 

......colourful beach storage at the Surf Club.

We did a lot of driving around and saw many beautiful places.  Tasmania really does beautiful landscapes well, and there is scenery and awesome views all over the place.   This is Stanley, a town in Northern Tasmania that was super cute, with lots of original historic buildings, all very well maintained.

........love the colours of these weatherboards, so cute!

We climbed the Stanley Nut. a really big rock that over shadows the town, fabulous views of the town from up top, I loved the wharf areas and the patterns of the piers....

We drove down to Hobart after our 4 days up north, and we popped into the Coal River Farm and I got to meet Mel (of Coal Valley Views blog fame) and her husband in the flesh, they have an amazing new set up and a beautiful restaurant/cafe space as well as delicious chocolates that I did have to bring home with me!  Everywhere around Hobart has amazing views, there seems to be rivers and inlets all over the place, so all the nearby hills look down on very pretty landscapes.

We visited the Russell Falls, another lovely spot, huge trees and rainforest, very picturesque.

.....We went to Cradle Mountain and walked around Dove Lake, it was raining the whole way so we all got soaked, and the tracks turned into little creeks, but once again, the landscape was pretty special!  And there was still snow on the peaks in the background, I think it was about 5 degrees that day! 

Andre wanted to find some surf, so we found the surf beach on the west cost at Strahan, very wild and isolated!  A bit too dangerous to take the board out! 

We spent a morning at the MONA gallery, what an amazing space, I used to spend a lot of time looking at galleries and interesting art when I was a student, so I really enjoyed seeing everything in this fabulous building.  The boys found it a bit harder to see the 'art' in some of the work, but it was a great conversation provoker, and got us all talking about the nature of art and what make something a work of art.  A fun day I thought!  

The other great  thing about Tasmania was all the fabulous food!!   We went to a couple of Farmers Markets and I noticed a strong local food culture, we brought home lots of delicious ginger beers,ciders, chocolates, cheese, ice cream ( I ate that on the day!) and fudge.  I visited a free range pig farm that made all there own bacons and bought some fabulous meat,( it was super delicious!)   and had a nice chat with the owner about what they were doing and their very lush kitchen garden.  I am all enthused now for my own garden, and am going to give me kitchen garden a big make over! 

We went to so many other places too, it was quite a whirl wind tour!  

But I think that's enough for today, this post is already too long!   

Sorry for all the holiday photos, well done if you've made it to the end!  

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I am tentatively going to say that I am doing a personal 'Blogtober' this year, so one post a day for the whole of October, it's a big commitment, but I'm trying to get my blogging mojo back and this might help! 

Talk soon! 

xxxxxx