I am Jaime Lauria.
My family and I are travelling around Tassie in our Rainbow Bus with 3 other families who also have buses.
Let me introduce everybody,
|
Lauria's
My dad Brendan My Mum Sharon My Sister Jessie |
Miles'
Colin Alison |
|
|
Pritchett's
Tim Julie Jenna Lisa |
Henry's
David Carol Claire James |
Wednesday
4th April 2001
Tassie here we come!
We leave home at 10 am and meet the other 3 buses at Rosedale. Miles', Pritchett's. Henry's and us - the Lauria's with the Rainbow Bus.
We are now all travelling together in single file and getting some heads swinging around as we travel down the Princess Hwy. We stop at Nar Nar Goon and fuel up before getting into the city. We reach the Spirit of Tasmania at 2.40 pm in plenty of time which is good as some of the buses have already got some repairs to do.
Pritchetts have a flat rear tyre, Lauria's blinkers and brake lights have stopped working and the Henry's water tanks have been leaking since we first started. We board the spirit at 3.15 pm and find our cabins, Pritchett's Henry's and Lauria's cabins are next to each other while the Miles' have a cabin up stairs. We depart the docks at 6.30 pm.
We make our way to the Nauticals for tea at 6.40pm. The kids can't wait to play the games in the Galactica Arcade and then watch a movie, The Power of One. While the kids are watching the movie the adults go off and have are few drinks in the Tiger bar. The Spirit is huge and not very rocky at all. We go to bed at 9.30pm and dad has told us to be up early to watch the sun rise.
Thursday
5th
The sunrise was beautiful, worth seeing! Our breakfast was delicious.
We are now waiting at our buses in the truck storage area - it is huge!
The platform is being lowered and now we can drive the buses out. First
stop is the supermarket to get our supplies. Devonport seems very clean
and welcoming. The fella's check radios and things while the girls are
doing the shopping. Now we are already to travel to Burnie for the first
night.
The coast it lovely the weather is fine and sunny and still. We are now heading to Wynyard where we find a lovely caravan park with heated pool and spa we all had a great time playing. There is also a tennis court so in the morning mum comes and has a hit with us.
Friday
6th
Today is Jenna's Birthday. We are going to Stanley there is a chair lift
there. The scenery is beautiful from the top of the Nut you can see the
coast and inlets from every angle and the ride back down is really good.
We have lunch and yummy sweets from the lolly shop. Smithton isn't far
so we continue West. We still have plenty of time and daylight so we decide
to go to Cradle Mountain. The buses are all travelling well together.
It will be nearly on dusk when we get to Cradle Mountain.
Carol has rung the caravan park and they have 4 sites for us but on arrival they are having second thoughts as they did not realise that the buses were so big. We stay here the night, wildlife galore, possums, native cats, wallaby's you name it!
Saturday
7th
It is 10 am and we drive the buses to Dove Lake. We walk around the lake
it has a board walk all around it which takes 1 1/2 an hour and worth
the walk with trees, bird life, forest. It is getting quite warm and we
decide to go to Zeehan. At Zeehan we walk through the Museum - very interesting
things to see here.
It is 4pm so off to Strahan for the night. It has started to rain, which is nothing unusual in Strahan. They have 7 metres of rain a year and this is where the Gordon River Cruises are. We will stay 2 nights here. We have our night fire as usual and it is will getting quite cold. Strahan is a lovely town and tomorrow we will go on the Gordon River Cruise.
We walk to the docks at 8.15am and board the Wanderer 111. We have also ordered lunch on the boat. It has started raining as the boat tour starts. We go through the Gates of Hell and see the fishponds they give us commentary throughout the tour and show us Huon Pine trees. This has all been worth while.
We are heading for Lake St Clair. Queenstown is an old mining Town and the hills are very baron from all the mining over the years. We go on a working mine tour which is under ground. Climbing the hills is slow work - it is very windy! We stop at Nelson Falls which are spectacular and definitely worth the stop. We have stopped at the Derwent Pub and play some pool and have drinks before going to the information centre and setting up for the night at the park there. It is a very pleasant spot with wildlife very active at night.
Tuesday
10th
After walking around Lake St. Clair in the morning we are off to Hobart
where we will stay 4 nights. We stop in Hamilton - there is a gift with
lovely hand made gifts.
We turn off to Russell Falls, which has huge trees and a pretty track to the falls. The falls were magnificent. There is a trout farm along the way so we called in and feed the biggest rainbow trout I have ever seen!! The caravan park in Hobart is called Treasure Island and there are lots of Ducks in the water.
Today we go to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. 8.15 am we catch the Metro bus into Hobart. We are supposed to go on the Cadbury Double Decker Bus but it has broken down. We arrive by another bus and all I can think of is chocolate, lots of chocolate. The tour was very interesting and I have pockets full of samples, the smell was awesome! We also have lunch while enjoying a Derwent River Boat Cruise - the meal was delicious. The rain has started again, quickly we get the bus back to Berriedale this time we are on a bus with this turntable in the middle it was fun when we went around corners. We try to hire some cars for the next 3 days we shall pick them up in the morning.
Thursday
12th
We have collected the cars and have decided to take a drive to Huonville
and Hasting Caves. The caves are very interesting and we took photos of
the formations.
We just drove around a lot looking at different things on the way home, we could see all the lights around Hobart as we were on a hill - they were spectacular. This night we had our friends who now live in Hobart come for tea. They want to come to Judbury with us in the morning.
Friday
13th
We leave with our friends to go to the Trout Fishery near Judbury, we
are allowed to catch the fish at this place, and it is Good Friday so
Mum says we have to catch our lunch. It is a long drive and windy in places.
When we get there the lady explained what size the fish were in the different
ponds, as we had to pay by the weight we decided to go for fish that were
meal size.
We caught 6 trout all about 600 g and then Dad caught 1 that weighed 900 g! We have had a fun time fishing and cooking our lunch. We stayed with our friends that night and watched DVD's., which was great!
Today we leave early to go to the Salamanca Market we walk around for ages looking at all the interest things, lovely hand made gifts and we buy some things for our friends on the main land. The Botanical Gardens are not far so we decide it is a lovely day we should take a walk around. The gardens are very pretty and some people were getting married.
It is Easter Sunday and the Easter Bunny had not forgotten us. I had a huge Rabbit at the end of my bunk. We are going to Richmond today. It is a Historic Town with lots of old buildings and of course the Richmond Bridge. We had our photo taken in elegant old fashion clothes. There were lots of clothes to choose from and we waited for the lady to develop our photo. It was fantastic, it was like in the olden days.
Monday
16th
We all rode our bikes to the Farm Park called "Zoo Doo" - it
was longer than we thought with slight hills, we were glad to be there
after ¾ an hour. There were lots of animals to see and we that
could hand feed them in the open paddocks. They had lots to see and so
it was a great day for everybody. We are now going Copping which has a
fascinating museum, old memorabilia and relics. We all decide to travel
on to see the Blow Hole, Devils Kitchen, Tasman Arch and the town called
Doo which was very funny as all the houses names that were something.
Tonight we will stay at White Beach - it is a very lovely Caravan Park. The people here are all very friendly and fascinated by all the buses travelling around together - they think it is a wonderful idea.
Today we will all travel in one bus together to visit Port Arthur. The history there is unbelievable. The convicts had a hard and tough life it must have been like hell. The buildings are just incredible. I would not like to have been a convict here at all. They have tour guides telling you the history it was very interesting.
Today we are heading for Swansea which has a lovely coast line, all of Tassie has been beautiful. We pass Spikey Bridge which was made by the convicts. We are just travelling through towns, Nugent, Buckland, Orford, looking at all sorts of things. We decide to stay at Bicheno for the night.
Thursday
19th
We are going to a Bird Life and Animal Park. They have Tassie Devils.
This is the first time I have seen one live. The owner picked up one for
us to pat, he had hand reared it and said it would not hurt us. He was
very soft to touch. They also had a bird aviary with all kinds of birds,
we were hand feeding them. It was just a wonderful place with deer, ducks,
cape baron geese, kangaroos, wallabies, swans etc. Everybody had a wonderful
time here.
We will now travel to St Helens. We find a Caravan Park and decide to ride our bikes around the town. They have a good track for us to ride.
In the morning we had to collect our photos and the man said if we didn't hurry the road will be closed for the Targa Tasmania car rally. We came to the Scottsdale turn off when we saw a police car and a sign saying road closed. Pritchetts made scones while we were talking to the police man. He sent us in one bus to a road were we could watch the race. We took lots of photos and dad took one of Peter Brock. We came across a sign - "Pub in the Paddock", Dad had seen this on the TV so we decided to have a counter lunch there. They had this pig called "Slops", he was big and drank beer. Lunch was very nice. We continued on to Bridport as a truckie had told us it was a better road to travel on to get to Launceston. We had McDonalds for tea and then went to Longford for the night.
We take a tour around the Town which is much bigger than our home town Longford on the main land. It is a very quiet and pretty place. Dad went to Longford Bodyworks to meet the owner but it was Saturday and they were closed. Dads business in Victoria is called Longford Body Works as well and sometimes we receive their bills. We went to Westbury, they have a Hedge Maze, all us kids wanted to go there. The hedge is tall so you can't see over the top it was great! The fathers took a walk through a vintage museum while the mum's had coffee at the Hedge Maze. We will look around Launceston and stay at Longford again tonight.
Sunday
22nd
We are now going to Cataract Gorge. They have a chair lift which takes
you across the Gorge, we take some of the walking tracks around the area,
it is very relaxing, we are feeding the peacocks from the cafe. We will
go to the Automobile Museum and look at all the vintage cars. We make
our way to Beauty Point for the night.
It is very windy and the power has gone off at the park. Dad takes a look around and finds oysters so the fellas go and get some, they are huge, the biggest Dad has ever seen. We have the oysters for tea they were beautiful!
We are going to the Beaconsfield Museum an old Gold mining town. They have lots to see and do. We decide to see the Batman Bridge and have lunch there. We travel on and see a vineyard so we call in and take a look around. We taste the wines and buy some to take home. We are now travelling back to Launceston to visit the Penny Royal Village. We will stay the night in Deloraine.
Today we will visit King Solomons Caves. The caves are very fascinating. We have to get to Devonport so we travel upwards to Sheffield and walk around the town. This is our last day and we have had a wonderful time. All the buses are now on the Spirit and we are heading home.
Bye Tassie
it has been a great 3 weeks!
From Jaime Lauria.