Today is Tuesday 24 Jan 2006

  Awoke this morning to another lovely sunny morning today which I hope continues as we are starting out on the main part of our touring holiday. After doing the necessary things dressed and off to a delicious home cooked 2 course breakfast served by out lovely host we loaded our car and headed off on our day ahead with eyes wide open and a lot of excitement.
   Heading out of Launceston towards Scottsdale where we were going to have our first little stop over after about 60 kms. of driving along the Tasman Highway through rich farmlands and lusciously green mountains laced with timber and also huge giant tree ferns.. About half way we came to Mt Barrow lookout where we got a 270degree look of the north east of Tasmania. Onwards towards Scottsdale, the descent down of the mountain was awesome and will admit a wee scary at times as in places the road was very windy and a bit narrow in others. We arrived in town about 9-15am and stopped of at the Scottsdale Forrest Eco Center which is attraction showing all about the timber industry in the area, which still happens but the town is renown for its market garden industry and frozen food industry factories located here. The center also houses the tourist information also and also a nice little cafe, following a short stop we took a short drive out west of town to a huge lavender farm at Nawbola where we learnt all about the industry, very interesting indeed.
  Back on the road after about an hour at Nawbola back through Scottsdale then we were heading for a little detour of the main road to a little , what I call a drive through town called Ringarooma which is noted for its main road boarded by ornate carved tree statues. Apparently years back the trees were marked for removal but people arranged for them to be lopped and leave a trunk 10feet tall which were later carved. We stayed just long enough to grab a few photos and then back to the highway to the next little town in Derby.
    The small town of Derby was built around the discovery of rich tin mines, now defunct, way back in the early days of the local area. In the town that still has well preserved building from that period along with a tin mining museum that has be re-created as it would have been and look back then with staff dressed in period costumes which is a great tourist attraction to the town for travellers. Following a short stop there we journeyed on further to another small town named Pyengana which we were told by locals that it was famous for having the best meat pies in Tasmania, so being an avid lover of a good pie we decided to stop for lunch there. Also it is noted for a rather famous hotel called " Pub in The Paddock" plus another attraction in St Columbus Falls. Unfortunate our look at this was hampered by the walking track being closed so we had to look from long range, but what we saw was spectacular .
  With the time of day slipping away and still about 80kms. to our next night stop we moved on and now were heading towards the east coast of Tasmania and the seaside resort town of St. Helens. Located on georges bay its a very popular seaside and fishing resort town which has many coming from Hobart, Launceston etc for summer holidays or just to do some fishing. It is noted base for many charter deep sea fishing boats and Lobster boats. Several other attractions are located not far from here , the two most noted are Binnalong Bay   and the Bay of Fires with their white sandy beaches litter with huge granite boulders that are covered with bright orange -red lichen moss which is where their name comes from. A short drive further on we passed through another similar but smaller town called Scamander with similar things to St Helens..
   We did not stop in Scamander as we wanted to press onto our next stop at Bicheno as the day was getting on and the big day was starting to tire us out. Arriving into Bicheno about 5pm we made our way to our motel for the night, Wintersun Gardens Motel, located the reception and booked in and were taken to our room . Both of us were a bit tired so decided to take a shower get changed and go into town and find a nice place for dinner, this was because we were told back in Sydney that if you go to Bicheno you just got to have a meal of fresh cooked lobster.
   Knowing this we found this old heritage home that was turned into a restaurant and found out we were lucky as we had not booked prior but the waitress found us a table. Looking at the menu , which was made from local produce, meat and seafood we found the lobster and said done to your asking but NO cost... MMMM I was thinking so called the staff and asked the question on size and cost,   WELLLLLLL after climbing back off the floor onto chair and regaining my composure after being told size was about 500grams and was at a cost of around $37-50 per serving. So that went out the door very quickly, still wanting I decided to try another tact, " Excuse me what about a large one done our style for 2 people " I asked . She asked the chef who came and said " yes can be done cost will be $72, we really wanted to dine on lobster but sure as hell not at that price. That left me wonder why cost was so high in what was supposedly the lobster center of Tamania, so we settled down to a mixed platter of local seafood and chips with garden salad at a cost of $25-50 a double. very nice too.
   After our evening dinner that finished off a good day of touring and seeing a lot of things we just went back to the motel and crashed.