Today is Monday Jan 23rd.

 We awoke this morning after a good night of sailing on smooth seas and therefore a night's sleep , looking out our port hole I could see landfall ahead on the horizon ahead of us which made me think we have nearly crossed Bass Strait and close to Tasmania. As we dined at breakfast we found out that we were passing Flinders Island on the port side and were about 2 hours from our destination in Devonport.
      After breakfast we packed our night luggage ready to go then went up onto the viewing deck to view the ship's entry through the mouth of the Mersey River and towards our dis-embarkation pier. About 10-30am a call came for all to proceed with luggage to their vehicle and await instructions for leaving the boat. with the excitement building the ship's crew and port helpers opened up the bow of the boat , lowered the gangplanks and the rush was on. Upon leaving we were directed to the Quarrantine Staion for clearance. Hooray !!! we are free to begin   LOL. Driving out through the port precinct gates we headed downtown to find the Visitors Office to obtain local maps, brochures etc for our first few days.
    With all this in hand we found a little coffee place in town to have a coffee before we headed out towards our first night stop here at Launceston, while having coffee we decided not to take the highway through Deloraine as we would be visiting there later on so we drove the inland route down through Frankford,Exeter and Legana to Launceston which was a tad shorter and gave us a look at some rural land down through the Franklin Valley. All in all it was a pleasant little 90 km drive stopping off in the town of Exeter for a pit stop and a cool drink at the local club.
   Reaching Launceston, which is the second city in Tasmania and third oldest in Australia behind Sydney and Hobart, we checked into our accommodation for the night a t a lovely little B&B called Ashton Gate B&B not far from center of town.