Devonport

Arrived in Devonport on the afternoon of 22nd January, checked into caravan park in East Devonport. Our first evening after dinner we walked to the shore area alongside the caravan park and watched the Spirit of Tasmania II set sail for Melbourne... we'll be on board the same boat in 2 nights time.

 

 

On Jan 23rd we drove to Burnie (about a 45 minute drive) to catch up with Darrin's family again.  Had lunch there and then a walk around the Romaine Reserve backing onto their house. The following pics are of cousin Henry, Auntie Kirsty and 'Queensland' Nanna with the kids...

We'd promised the kids a suprise on our last day in Tassie.  We took them to the Don River Railway in Devonport. They all love trains, Zac especially so.  They were all thrilled to be there.  Our visit included a 30 minute ride on a 1939 Diesel Rail Motor along the Don River to the coast and back.

The trip down, we were right alongside the driver. Zac got to blow the whistle a couple of times which he was delighted about.

(Zac with his hand on the whistle button)

 

After the train ride we wandered around the rail yards which had a mixture of diesel and steam locomotives, plus a variety of passenger and goods carriages.  Some had been faithfully restored by the volunteers who run the railway, some were in much need of some TLC to get them up to the condition they once were. We also got to go inside the actual workshop with one of the volunteers who showed us around a genuine tank engine, which looked remarkably like the famous 'Thomas'.

After lunch we drove out to Ashgrove Cheese for some more sampling and purchasing

Dropped into Anvers Chocolates again as well to taste some more fudge!

 

 

With time to kill before our evening sailing, we went to a great adventure park on the west side of Devonport, right on the Back Beach where the kids had a great time.

Before long, it was time to go and hook up the caravan and join the queue for our trip home. Took our own dinner on board which we enjoyed as the ship left the port.  Initially the journey was reasonably rocky and we 'drugged up' and got an early night!

 Greeted by a warm morning and colourful sunrise as we docked into Melbourne.  The end of a terrific family adventure that took us to some great places around Tasmania over our 34 days. We'd experienced such a range of natural scenic beauty, interesting history and architecture, adventure and exploration, such a variety of animals in the wild, a few squabbles and tantrums... quite a few actually! But it was an awesome time. Now that we're home and have begun the unpacking and cleaning our minds have already begun to think about where we might go next...