Sunshine coast to Tas and back

johno · Post by **johno** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 4:34 pm

Bit of an update.
Had a few days camping at Bay of Fires - met some really nice Tasmanian folk - one that restores vehicles and has 2 splitty's and a few other old vehicles - going to drop in and see his collection of cars when we get near Hobart. then we went to scamander and did the family thing and camped with some of my wife's family.
After that we passed through Bicheno, had a quick coffee at Ian's ( silver bullet) coffee shop and saw his nicely restored low light, then on down to Coles Bay.
Nice to meet you Ian.
Couple of days in Coles Bay, then continue South to Tasman peninsula, Hobart, Bruny Island, through the Derwent valley and over to Strahn.
That's the plan at this stage

kombifrolics · Post by **kombifrolics** » Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:37 pm

Sounds great all the best !!

johno · Post by **johno** » Mon Jan 25, 2016 3:10 pm

Time for an update
We are now sitting in Strahan.
Since the last update, we have been to Hobart and been to MONA, stayed 4 nights on Bruny Island which was great, even if the roads were a bit rough in some areas. After Bruny, we went through the Derwent valley and across to Strahan. It has taken about 4 days to do this , as we have visited Mt Field National Park and Lake St Clair. This part of the trip has been quite slow with steep and winding roads and sudden dips in the bitumen that can be a bit bone jarring not to mention bottoming out. There really are some quite spectacular sights though and plenty of things to do as a tourist.
We've heard a lot about bush fires, but have not had to take any detours yet. This may change over the next couple of days as we make our final run up the west coast and then travel East to Devonport to get on the Spirit of Tas to start our trip home. By the time we get on the boat, we will have spent all of Jan on Tas.
We have certainly met a lot of people on this trip - lots of experts, but also a lot of very nice people too. Some can really test your patience though as they think that you are some kind of 24 hour display that they can wander on in at any time to have a look at, but I guess there are'nt a whole lot of split screen kombis travelling around down here ?

tatvw · Post by **tatvw** » Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:00 pm

Where are the pics sounds like a very cool trip

johno · Post by **johno** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:38 pm

Well we've been home for a few weeks now.
Thought it time to finish this story and now that the forum is back - thanks Mods.
From Strahan we drove up to Cradle Mountain.
Stayed 3 nights in the Big 4 park there.
This was a really nice spot to camp - little expensive, but great facilities and really well set up with mini buses at the tourist centre to take you into the park.
The place is very well set up for the tourist, however a lot of the park was closed due to the threat of the nearby bushfires.
On one of the days that we were there the national parks people even flew the walkers on the overland track out by helicopter and shut that part of the park.
We met a lady that had spent 5 yrs planning and the last year preparing for this walk and now couldn't do it - I'm sure she wasn't on her own.
Had a great time here even it was a little smokey at times. Really must get back to this place.
Our time on Tas. was now coming to an end - we only had 4 days left.
Unfortunately the weather went sour on us and the rain came in and apparently it didn't even rain much in the bushfire areas that needed it most.
So our last 4 days were spent in Devonport doing little runs out from there - chocolates, wine, cheese, berries etc - oh and a little car prep.
From here it was back onto the Spirit of Tas and into Bass strait for another calm crossing ( lucky both ways ) to Melb.

johno · Post by **johno** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:49 pm

From Melb. we came back up the Hume and then had a slower trip from Sydney to home, staying a couple of nights in Nambucca and a couple in Byron where we had more rain.
Drove home from Byron in heavy rain to the sunshine coast.
So all up we were away for 6 weeks minus a day.
We did approx. 6500 Km,
averaged a little over 13 litres per 100 km.
Experienced proper rain only 5 or 6 days.
Drank a bucket full of Tassy wine
Cheese and berries got a fair nudge too.
Anyone thinking of a trip down there, we would thoroughly recommend it - had a blast.
Now to try and post some pics - sorry it's so late.