Friday Feb 19, 2010 Hobart to Strahan

When we left from our accommodations we used the GPS to get us so far. Once we were under way I turned it off. I am not sure where we went wrong but the next thing we knew we were in Bagdad. I made a joke about taking a wrong turn somewhere. On we went as I tried to locate where we were on the map. I finally located us at Kempton on the way to Launceston. We were heading north instead of west. I guess we should have left the GPS on. We sure laughed a lot about getting on the wrong road. Instead of going back we made our way to Bothwell then took a secondary road to Hamilton. We thought we might make a couple of side trips but this one was unplanned.

We stopped at some power generation areas just by the road. The tarraleah and tungatinah generating plants. By the time the water gets to Hobart it will have passed through 8 different generation plants. The water is clean when it starts and still is by the end of its work.

Lake St. Clair is where we stopped for lunch. It is in a National Park. It was a nice spot to stop for lunch. Our next stop was to see Nelson Falls. It was a 20 min. walk through the bush alongside the creek. A very nice cool and refreshing walk. Even though there has not been a lot of rain lately, the falls were great to see.

There has not been a lot to see on the trip, mainly trees and mountains. Most of the trip was through the National Parks. The road down into Queenstown was full of bends, twists and hair pin turns. You drop quite a way in a short time. Reminds us the trip from Wanaka to Queenstown in NZ. There is a working copper mine at Queenstown. We could see the waste piles as we drove down into the town. You climb back up to make your way to Strahan (pronounced Strawn). It is a lovely coastal town. There are only about 500 permanent residents in the town with about 1000 tourists. When I walked into the only grocery store, I met up with the 2 couples from our Bruny Island Cruise. They are only here two days. I am sure we will meet again during our stay.

We went out to Ocean Beach to watch the sun set. One of the few sun sets we have gotten over the ocean. It was beautiful but chilly.