Only ten days left till we are on the ferry - where has the time gone. We could certainly do with another couple of weeks to see the north and north-east and we have yet to squeeze in Cradle Mountain!

Rather than take the main road off the Tasman Peninsula, we found some 4WD tracks. The roads weren't too difficult in themselves but the rain had made them extraordinarily slippery so we drove with great care not wishing to slide of a mountain anytime soon.

Doo Town is a quaint little place with named houses - yep you guessed it: the houses re called Doo Me, Ittle Doo, Doo Nix and so on. But here are some pretty speccy coastal sights: the Tasman Blowhole, the Tasman Arch and the Devil's Kitchen, all huge holes, arches, caves or chasms carved out by the sea. And not too far to walk either… after yesterday's assault on the calf muscles.

A little further north was a tessellated pavement, a rock platform also carved by the sea but with such order that it looks like it has been laid by man. And here was a sight for a hunter-gatherer to get excited about - mussels of decent eating size! By chance I had a plastic bag - camera protection from the rain but not in current use - and we filled it with 139 mussels!

Again we sought out a 4WD track and duly climbed the wet, slippery and potholed track to nearly 600m. We were eventually driving in low cloud that almost obscured the road ahead. For a laugh we pulled into a lookout… for a photo of cloud.

Once we descended out of the cloud we could see Maria Island off-shore, but in the drizzle and cold, a trip over there (on foot, no cars) seemed unappealing to say the least.

At a free camp by a beach we cooked the mussels. Only a few were the black mussels we are accustomed to. The rest were a different shape which had to be prised open after cooking and which were a brown, not a yellow, colour. However, they were still very tasty and we are still alive to tell the tale.