Hobart, Apricot Jam, Raspberry Jam, Twilight & Brrrr

We headed South down towards Hobart, tailing Mum and Sir in their Motor-home, somehow managing to make a 2 hour long trip stretch across the good part of a day. Visiting little Hamlets like Evandale (where Molly and Bevis (Daniel’s mums’ aunt and uncle) used to own the Pub…and their faces are painted into the murals inside….and they established the Penny Farthing Bicycle Races here as well)

CampbellTown (where the first telephone call in the Southern Hemisphere was made between Campbell Town and Launceston….and the footpath is lined with plaques set into the bricks recording the names, crimes and sentences of convicts, and the first man to fly solo around the world was born) and Conara Junction (where Sir; aka Daniel’s Dad; grew up), then we meandered our way through Historic Ross. A town steeped in History, nestled on the banks of The Macquarie River, and has many original sandstone convict built buildings still in use today. The bridge is quite unique and The Australian Engineers Association have recognised it as a fine piece of early Australian Engineering. I took a photo of the Post Office! As you do, just because it was so unusual…quaint. And because I thought my parents would get a kick out of it, being postal workers and all…

Temptation	These buildings form the centre of the town, and are all on the same intersection.	Recreation
Salvation	The information centre sign	Damnation

Ross Bridge

Ross Post office

We pulled up at Old Beach on the North side of Hobart, at Great Aunty Jan and Great Uncle Nigel’s house (Daniel’s Mum’s little sister). And the woman is amazing!!! Plying the children with squishy desserts and the biggest tin of Jelly Beans you ever did see, and taking them for rides down to the Jetty and along the banks of the Derwent River! It is a beautiful spot, with views that linger over the Derwent River and skip across to Mount Wellington. It’d be a lovely place to live if it wasn’t so bloomin’ cold!!! We arrived to find her kitchen bench groaning with freshly made bottles of Raspberry Jam, and a Hot Roast Dinner well and truly underway. Today I watched Mum and Aunty Jan cut up Apricots galore…to make 10kg of apricot Jam!!! All whilst I gave 5 members of my family haircuts! Rosa’s is very short…and very cute. It was one of those moments that parents occasionally find themselves in…hmmm today I’m going to be a Hairdresser! :) It may not be a professional job but hey, it works! I have to mention at this point that Leisl made the observation that I have GENUINE hair! I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, so I asked. Only to find that because my hair had silver streaks in it (where gray is poking through) it apparently classifies my hair as GENUINE! Hmmmm….

I have finally convinced my children to climb into bed….it took some convincing as daylight lingers on here in a strange kind of way. The locals have informed me this period of the day is called TWILIGHT! It is taking some getting used to. Trying to convince my tribe to go to bed at their normal time of 7:30pm is not even in the realm of possibility. It’s just too daylight! So, they’re finally getting to bed at 9:30pm. At least with Daylight Saving it means that in QLD it would be 8:30pm, so I guess that’s not so bad….and they are getting up later in the morning…. Something that Daniel and I have both copped some flak for from certain un-named peoples!!! Stupid munted Daylight Saving time!!! It really is taking some getting used to.

The kids got to try out their Thermals tonight. Not sure what the temperature is, but they’re cold. Well we are camping in a tent! And they are Queenslanders. And they were crying…. It’s not nice to be cold. But once you get to bed and warm up a bit…it’s not so bad. This is the point where I confess that we brought our Hot Water Bottles, and rather than sleeping bags we were all in favour of carrying our Doonas. A decision which we are all very pleased with. (except for a brief moment on arrival in Tamworth, NSW when we discovered all the bedding was wet!).

So far though it has been a terrific experience. Tassie is not at all what I expected. Suffice to say, we are lovin’ Tassie! It’s beautiful, it’s different and it’s Fantastic!!!