Heading southwards on the convict trail

We Left launceston and headed south towards Campbell Town, it is a very old town made up of beautiful old sandstone block houses and businesses mainly built by convicts.
I have followed a face book page called Suburban Jubilee "( Also known as Tanya) for a while now and when Tanya saw that we were coming to Tasmania she sent out a very gracious invitation to call in for a  cuppa  and a chat.

And so we did,
What a lovely visit we had, It was lovely to meet them both , I felt like I had known Tanya  forever and we chatted away for ages.
We both are avid preservers and where as I seem to do the more common everyday things, Tanya seems to do the ordinary as well, but also does many specialty things that are amazing.
Tanya and her husband are lovingly restoring their old convict built sandstone home that was once a bakery, with the original bread oven still a feature. I got to go up in her wonderful attic space and dream. I am so  envious of that old home and in awe of what they are doing. I hope that I keep in touch with Tanya as we appeared to have so much in common.
While in Cambell Town we  visited the Red Brick Bridge,

And visited some wonderful wood carved statues in the park. The town has laid a trail of red bricks  right along the street with convicts names engraved into them( hence the convict trail)

A little further along the road we came to Ross, also famous and visited for its beautiful old bridge.

We stopped here and and a picnic lunch by the river, it was a lovely spot.
The next stop was a place called Oatlands, it  had a wonderful wetlands lake  and bird sactuary  and many  tourists were there feeding ducks and black swans.
There is a beautiful old restored flour mill at Oatlands and we had a tour of it and the surrounding buildings, it was a real look back in time.

Oatlands is known for the vast number of  convict build sandstone buildings it has , it is a  relativley small town but boasts over 150  buildings, most as private homes but also many businesses. we drove around  and most of them are in incredible well maintained condition.

The next town along the way was Richmond, Richmond is also a very historic convict town ( many, many Tasmanian  towns were built on convict labour and in all respects appear to be very English in design as well as name.

As we headed down  towards Sorell, the country side changed dramatically in appearance, it became very dry and brown. Some locals had told us that  Tasmania is suffering very dry conditions at the moment, but until this point all had looked lush and green compared to our little farm out west in NSW>

We reached Sorell, only to find there was no motel there, so we moved on  towards Hobart and found the Travel Lodge at the Hobart Airport...We were expecting it to be noisy with planes one side and highway the other, in fact it was the opposite, so lovely that we decided to stay there 3 nights.

It was a lovely day of history today, we enjoyed it all, we are finding that we are getting around Tasmania  fairly easy. We have decided to halve Tasmania  down the middle and concentrate our   travels into the eastern half and return another time to do the west.
The plan for tomorrow is Port Arthur,and we are really looking forward to that.
Take care everyone,
Cheers
Jane.

The Journey Continues

The  first morning in Tasmania saw us head off south towards Launceston.. On the way we came to a town called Westbury that had a stream  exhibition, so we stopped as hubby is a total fan and I quite like them also.

Pearns Steam world was an amazing place., there were two massive sheds full of all the big toys of Hubby's dreams.
We moved onto Launceston, found a motel and booked in for a few days.
there was a wonderful auto and bike museum that we also looked through,

The car museum was great, they had a collection of Mustangs, and Ducati bikes, both  great machines.
We had a lovely lunch at a pub, wandered through the park which boasts a wonderful conservatory

and a wonderful monkey enclosure,

The  next  morning we caught up with one of my Facebook friends  for the first time, "Swampy Hollow Farm"  AKA Mark , we met for coffee at Bunnings and chatted for a fair while, It was  good to meet in real life, we hope to visit his farm at Glengarry before we head home. We then   went to the Penny Royal adventure park, we just had a wander around the complex, it was lovely but to do all the activities would have been very expensive. This park has just undergone a major revamp.

I particularly loved the old mill, it still has to  have major repairs.
After  Penny Royal we met up with a young friend who has relocated to Launceston for work and had lunch with her.

We then drove out to Youngtown to Visit "Franklin House" , a house built in 1838  by convicts for my Great, great,great,great grandfather,Britton Jones , himself an ex convict who had been  transported  to Hobart for 7 years for stealing lead.

It is amazing to  wander around the home and know that it had family connections all those years ago. it was just lovely, and the volunteers were interested in my family line as I was the first ti visit as far as they were aware, they asked me to send my  family information on my return home.
The next day we decided to have a walk around Cataract Gorge. e headed there around 8 am while it was still cool.

It was a lovely walk around the gorge, such  awesome scenery and worth every step, one side was quite hilly with many steps , the other gentle and wheelchair friendly.
We then went into town and looked at St Johns Church, the church my  great,great,great ,great grandparents were married in.

After lunch we did a cruise back into Cataract Gorge and a little of the Tamar River,

As we cruised along the gorge, the sounds of bagpipes rang out, a lone piper was up on the bank in a shelter , the wonderful music was reverberating around the gorge, the boat  operater joking said the piper is always there as his wife won't let him practice at home. :-)  :-)
After the  cruise we decided to take a drive to Beaconsfield to go to the mining museum. ten years ago men were trapped in the mine for 14 days , 1 man died and 2 survived. After the tragedy  the mine  only operated for a few years before closing down.

It was a wonderful museum, brilliantly put together and a great tribute  to the many lives lost in the mining industry.
We also  visited Beaconsfield cemetery as my  grandmother was born in Beaconsfied and her grandparents are buried at the cemetery.

 We then headed home, past beauty point where we saw this  gorgeous old rusty bus, which I love,

My brother had seen this bus on a trip to Tassie, and I sought it out as I loved it so much.
We crossed the Tamar river over the Batman Bridge

I remember seeing Photos of a trip to Tasmania that my grandparents did when this bridge was first opened and I  wanted to travel over it just as they did all those years ago.
That is about the end of the Launceston  area section of our trip. I hope it hasn't bored you to tears .
We have loved all the things we have done and are having a wonderful time.

Until we meet a little further down the track,
Take care everyone,
Cheers,
Jane.