Come the next morning, we were very definitely surprised! We didn't realise that lavender oil can be used in food recipes and we had to keep reminding ourselves that the lavender muffin we were eating was in fact, NOT a soap bar! The night before, we had stopped off in a forest replete with tiny forest wallabies before heading to the Southern Hemisphere's largest lavender farm (www.bridestoweestates.com.au). Once again the photos of the farm in full bloom looked absolute stunning with rows and rows of purple lavender stretching from this side of the valley to that. So stunning did it look, that you could almost hear all the bees going about their beesiness and you could almost smell the lavender scent throughout the air. But alas, this is Tasrainia!

When we got there, the cloud was grey and heavy and the drizzle obscuring the mountains across the valley giving the farm a slightly wet and soggy feel. We remarked how surprised we were that it was so cold; almost cold enough for snow! Especially since summer was only a week away (Australians this far south say that summer only "official" begins on 1 Dec)! Those at the farm seemed a little taken back that the warm weather was nowhere in sight and summer was only a week away. It seemed that the lavender blooms would need a lot of coaxing to get them out and into full bloom in time for next week!

From one farm to another, and what surprises many is that Tasmania has plenty of very good wine farms and judging from the wine press that was displayed at each and every tasting cellar, it seems very well accepted in greater Australia. Although we are no wine buffs, we certainly enjoyed our share of the Tasmanian stuff! Here you taste until you have had enough or until the legal drink-driving limit is reached. We thought it best that we educate our heathen pagan wine palettes in order to make comparisons for when we get to the Barossa, Eden and Clare Valleys in South Australia in a few weeks time. This was us hard at work....every researcher needed to be up to speed for the testing in the weeks ahead. I can proudly report that we wholeheartedly concur with what the wine press says about Tasmanian wine! Keep filling her up please, waiter!

So with wine and lavender firmly consumed and lunch still to be had, what were we to do for the afternoon? Especially since the weather seemed to have turned even more bitter and cold (and this was leading up to the official summer? Somebody forgot to inform the weather of the timescale and dates! Jeez, it was cold!) More rain, more rain and by the way, more rain! Oh yes, this is Tasmania where it was supposed to clear up after an hour or so.....about 5 days ago!

As usual, the scenery keeps changing with pretty much every kilometre that "The Cosy Devil" ate up. Old settler farms came and went and the Western Tiers came up on the horizon and their tops disappeared into the clouds. Oh that is a surprise. Higher and higher we went and colder and colder it became. Oh yes, that all-four-seasons-in-a-day thing came very definitely into play. Yep, we had everything so far, but snow. But up here in the uber-remote Western Tiers, there was snow all over them! Snow, a week before summer!

But the best surprise here was discovering a little town called Flintstone and appropriately so. Here was a little mobile home community where the rednecks hang out. As we slowly drove through this tiny hamlet, dirty moth eaten net curtains flipped back when you looked towards them. Suspicious eyes seemed never far away. Who all ar thees folks?!

In one house a little old man rocked backwards and forwards on his ol' rockin' chair whiling time away as the smoke from numerous fires twirled up into the cloud and mist enveloping this tiny hamlet. With houses named after the appropriate Flintstones characters it would have been no surprise to have seen Barney & Dino having a stroll down by the lake. The gene pool cannot be very deep on this mountain top.

And as we drove across the mountains through deep forested valleys watching wallabies scamper off into the forests and watching the gene pool getting shallower and shallower as we drove into more and more remote areas, we could have sworn we saw three eyed people staring out of windows of little towns that we hurriedly passed through! This part of Australia seemed to be the setting for films like "The Man from Snowy River"; all gum trees, damp earth and muted sounds. Although Tasmania is a small island, relative to the mainland, there are plenty of reminders that civilisation is a long way away. Gravel roads and thick forests and remote mountain lakes that seem to go on for miles and miles without interruption between little-hamlets-and-a-single-bar and the next!

With darkness coming and petrol running low, the place where we pulled off and set up camp on a little off-road leading off to who knows where had a sign on a tree that said, "No shooting no firewood". Either they are not big on punctuation or Saturday nights are filled with the kind of fun only shooting firewood can bring! Ahem to that, brudda!