Our last few days in Tasmania.

Sadly at this point we only had a few more days left to wander around this   beautiful state, but we still had much to see and do.
We headed off from St Helen's   and made our way through lovely mountain country and stopped at the old tin mining town of Derby, A few years ago  it had practically  became a ghost town  but through the foresight of a smart business person a  wonderful tourist venture of mountain bike trails and hire was developed and now the small town is once again thriving.
We looked through the tin mining centre, and also the lovely old schoolhouse museum which were both interesting and informative.

We had the best  hot chocolate and coffee at Derby in a small cafe that we had anywhere in Tasmania.
Friends of ours from home had advised us to visit the small farming community  township  of Legerwood to see the wooden statues, and we are very glad we did.
Apparently  there was an avenue of trees planted   in the  town to honour all the local men that went off to fight in WW1, but all these years later they had started to become a problem and needed to be lopped off or removed , so a decision was made to have a local chainsaw carver come and carve  the trees into memorial statues to commemorate  the local men that never made it home.

We think they were stunning. We saw statues that this same man had carved in three different places and all of them were remarkable.
We made it to  George Town/ Low Head where  we booked into the caravan park , then went sight seeing.
It is a lovely area  right on the coast where the Tamar River meets the ocean, so picturesque.
We visited the beautiful old light house and pilot station,

It was a lovely place to stay, and they also do regular penguin tours everynight, but we decided not to do them.
The next morning we headed  down alongside  the Tamar River and back over the Batman Bridge,to Exeter where  hit the local bakery and bought some goodies as we were going to visit  a family from a farm that we have been in touch with on my Facebook  canning page  who live near Glengarry.
"Swampy Hollow Farm"  also known as Mark and Aurore, They can be found on Facebook at   http://www.facebook.com/Swampy-Hollow-Farm-626844447361218
We were made so extremely  welcome at  the farm by Mark and Aurore and their family, they too are on a small acreage and are trying to become as self sufficient as possible.

They have  a collection of bee hives and Mark was able to pass on some invaluable tips to Brian for our  future endeavours  into bee farming, they hope to be able to run a farm gate  shop in the future.

They have a myriad of animals, a sweet pig called Pumba that was expecting at the time of our visit but has since given birth to 5  gorgeous spotted piglets, a horses and ponies, a few cows , some sheep, chickens, goats,ducks and 2 sweet dogs.

  All their animals are treated with the  greatest affection  and most of the animals have either been rescue cases or  bottle fed babies.

We had a wonderful visit to Swampy Hollow Farm, a yummy morning tea and a test taste of Swampy's  chilli garlic sauce he had bottled, and sadly we bid them farewell and headed off towards Devonport . I hope that we  keep in touch and that if they come to the mainland one day then hopefully we can return their wonderful hospitality, as we really seemed to be on a similar journey in life.
We called into a raspberry farm and purchased fresh and choc dipped raspberries, and consumed them  within a few minutes if I am to be honest.
We booked into  the caravan park in Devonport and did some local sight seeing around the city.
Next morning we visited Ashgrove cheese factory, all around the factory and garden were  cute hand painted cows, they really were a feature,we  saw the cheese making process and tasted samples of many cheeses.

 

There were so many of  the cows , I decided to make a collage.

We purchased some yummy cheeses and then headed to a chocolate factory.

 We also called in to the "Axeman's  Hall of Fame at Latrobe, it was an interesting look around and learned the history of the local area  Axenen who have  won  great fame with their skills. Hubby and I took some pics of each other outside.

Our next stop was the Don River Railway  on the outskirts of Devonport, unfortunately we didn't get to ride the steam train  as there was not enough volunteers that day, but we were able to check out their museum, buildings and rolling stock that was there on display.

We had a lovely day and retired to our cabin for an early night.
The next day was our last , we had to vacate our cabin so  we did some sight seeing in nearby towns to Devonport, Ulverstone, Bernie, Penguin,, did some shopping, had a wander along the beach and collected some shells and stones to take home, had a lovely lunch and an ice cream  on the Mersey Riverside,  and  waited until we  were able to line up at the ferry terminal car park ready to  load the car back onto the ferry for our return trip.

We lined up about 4.30 pm but didn't actually  get on board until 7pm. It amazed me again how many cars and trucks are loaded onto the ferry, this time  we had our car on deck G2( right down the bottom) we  had booked a cabin for the night crossing and found it quite spacious and comfortable( albeit with twin beds) with our own private bathroom.

We   headed to the  lounge and restaurant area, had a few beers,

had a lovely dinner and a few more beers, watched a bit of television  and retired to our cabin for a good nights sleep.
The  trip across Bass strait  was  as smooth  as smooth, like gliding on ice, we slept like babies, and docked about 6 am  and   had an early coffee and breakfast in the restaurant and  waited to disembark at Melbourne.  We were one of the last  cars to  get off  due to where we  were  sitting in the ferry, and  when we finally disembarked  about 7.30 am we headed off straight  out of Melbourne towards Parkes.We spent two nights there with our daughter and her family.
We  have had a wonderful  11 days in Tasmania , it has been a lovely  holiday and break away from the farm,we have seen so many  interesting  and  amazing places. We  really only saw about half of Tasmania on the trip so we will certainly be returning again in the future when we save up again to complete the journey.
I hope you have enjoyed the holiday  too as you have followed along with us, we have enjoyed your company.
Please take care until we meat again soon,
Cheers,
Jane.