June 26th (Friday) - Day 117 - Launceston
We had a really long drive over to Launceston and there was not much to see on the way. Just a few old towns which didn't need anything more than a glance through the car window. We were going to check into a hostel in the middle of town, but it looked a bit grubby and you had to pay 8 dollars for linen - not had to do that anywhere else so not going to start now! Instead we found a nicer place just outside the city centre. This issue with this one was that the office was shut until 3 and you had to have paid for the room by 4! Hence we could not go very far that afternoon. We drove up to a gorge and had a walk around for a few hours. They had a chair lift but no one was on it - like everywhere we'd been in Tassie it was dead quiet. We had a drive around town and headed up to a look out. Sarah was not feeling great so went to sleep for a bit while I read. Once I woke her up we checked into our hostel and headed back to town. Apparently there were monkeys in the park but the exhibit closed at 4 - it was only 5 past 4! We had a wander around town in the rain before deciding to head back. We went to a pub for dinner that night and we sat down and someone took our order. A few minutes later they told us the table was booked and we had to move. They put us on this table that was really low down. If Sarah had not talked me out of it, I would have walked out!

June 27th (Saturday) - Day 118 - Launceston (and surrounding areas)
Launceston is based about 60km in land on the Tamar river. We had seen from the map that the valley leading to the sea was a really good drive, hence we did that for the day. Loads of view points all the way along looking over the river and the valley. We drove up the right hand side first through a few little towns. One of them was a mining town were the mine collapsed in 1996 and trapped 2 people who were saved after 2 weeks. There was a visitor centre but it cost a bit more than we were willing to pay. The drive continued up to the end where there was a light house and a head land. We then had to turn around and go about half way back as that was the closest bridge. We then drove up the left hand side until we reached the head land and another light house! We went for a walk along the coast path to a few view points. The way back was more of the same.