Text for earlier post

The first photo here should be of the Melbourne tram. “Melbun” tram, I guess I should say, to get the pronunciation right. We used the trams to get around while there – like we have been doing in all the capital cities, getting a caravan park near public transit, then using that to go downtown. In this case, it was about a two km hike to the tram line. The buses were right across the street, but they quit running far too early. The core of the city is much like the large Canadian cities, with substantial Asian population visible. Anyway, on the way in to the city, we went through one of the older neighbourhoods that looked intriguing (area settled substantially by those of Greek and Italian descent) so we resolved to try to jump off the tram and stop there on the way back, perhaps have supper there. So, that is what we did. We landed in the middle of one of their Saturday street markets, where the side street is blocked off to traffic, and booths and food of all sorts were available for purchase, not to mention wall to wall people. We found a restaurant back on the main street and had a very nice dinner. We did manage to get back on the tram, although did get a bit lost walking from the end of the tram line to the van park.
The crossing to Tasmania was much better than anticipated. The weather was quite calm, and the ferry itself was great. We had a two-berth cabin on the way over, and have booked a deluxe cabin for the return trip. We had a good dinner as soon as the boat sailed, then Sylvia went straight to the casino, hit on the slot machine (pokie), collected her winnings, and went off to bed.
We landed early in the morning (about 7), and could have sworn immediately that the boat had made a wrong turn and dumped us in New Zealand. Tas is as green as the rest of the country is brown. The roads are also as narrow and crooked and hilly as the others are flat and straight. Maybe this place should join NZ.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that there is some sort of quarantine between most states, preventing the importation of fruit and vegetables – seems to vary from place to place – kind of a remnant of the British Colonial bureaucracy. Well, Tasmania takes it very seriously: They have just the one point of entry for vehicles, at Devonport where the ferry lands. They have sniffer dogs to ferret out illegal fruits and vegetables. We saw them apprehend a bouquet of flowers, for which the mutt was handsomely rewarded. We are getting used to the routine and had consumed or tossed all of our fruit and vegetables, so our next stop was a grocery store to restock.
We spent our first day along the Northwest coast – very rural and agricultural, lots of dairy cows, overnighted in a neat touristy village named Stanley.
We then worked our way down the West coast, as near as you can. We went to the National Park at Cradle Mountain, did a hike around Dove Lake. (This is significant, since at 7 km, it is the longest one I have done yet. It went well enough, although we got caught in the rain and cold, and there was one section of a couple of kms that was quite steep and slippery. Progress was very slow.) The photo is of Cradle Mountain – had one with both of us in it, but got rain on the lens. We overnighted in the Park, the closest to bush camping we have done yet. Still had power, and the shower building was near at hand.
Since then, we have been working our way down to Hobart, (doing some of the short walks in the National Parks along the way) and intend to head in there today (Friday, 23rd) for a look around, maybe post this. While we were on the West Coast (actually at Arthur River) a sign noted that, if you looked straight West, you could see Argentina. It seems that at 42 degrees S, we are South of Africa.