It's a good thing we didn't attempt the mine yesterday afternoon. We went in at 9.30 when they opened, and didn't come out until 12 noon. It was very interesting. Apparently gold had first been found here in 1870, and the mine continued to produce until 1914. It was shut down then due to a combination of the war and the dropping price of gold - it was no longer feasible. So the whole site was covered with old buildings in various stages of disrepair. Then in 19...

Today we are heading up the Tamar Valley. The plan is to do the west side today, then cross the bridge and do the east side tomorrow. On the way up towards Beaconsfield, we decided to drop in to a place called Grindelwald, which was advertised as a Swiss village. After a long and winding drive off the highway we found it - basically it was a resort attached to a golf course. They had set up a 'Swiss style' glorified shopping centre at the entrance. The shops don'...

Woke up this morning and found the air smoky and hazy again. The wind must have turned. Then we heard the fires were moving across from the west, and there was a fire just south of Deloraine, in Chudleigh. Glad we had decided against that. Today we decided to finally head for Launceston. We had been avoiding the big towns, but George had walked around the centre of town last time we were here on New Year's Eve and he was suitably impressed, and keen to check it ...

While we were in Ross we hatched the idea of getting a fridge magnet for each male member of our small group. Ross was easy, and Bernie quite straight forward (although the spelling was different.) We had plans to go to George Town on the Tamar Valley later, so George was covered. That left only Ray - and try as we might, we could not find a town in Tassie called Ray. Eventually we decided the closest we could get was Railton, the town of topiary, we had seen pre...

The next morning the smoke had cleared, which was good because we wanted to go to Stanley, but were a bit worried as it is further west and closer to the fires. Checked out the Wynyard market, and picked up some very elegant steak knives for a song. Then we pushed on to Stanley and arrived just before ten, beating the Tourist Info lady by a few minutes. Picked up a map to find our way around town, as we had missed the town centre last time. This time, knowing th...