Fish n Chips Travel the world: Day 13 Hobart

Dad outdid himself again at breakfast and we all cleaned up and then said goodbye. Mum and Dad's plane to Sydney left at 8:50am. I was a little sad to say goodbye we had had four glorious days together exploring Hobart and surrounds.

I must admit to feeling a little scared this morning and it took a while for me to settle, the weather was perfect for riding though and the roads pretty good. We stopped in a little fishing village called Triabunna (pron. try a bun nah) for a cuppa down at the Maria Island (pron. Mariah like Mariah Carey) ferry wharf. There is a little bit of activity at the wharf men fixing crayfish pots and getting ready to go out for a 5 week stint on the West Coast crayfishing. There is a young girl who works on the ferry waiting for the next one to arrive to commence work. And there is a cute Labradoodle dog hanging around and the girl tells us his name is Dudley and the wife of his owner called him that because he is a dud!!! he's sooo cute! We then wander down the wharf a bit where another man is preparing his fishing boat to go out for a few weeks catching Trevalla & Pink Ling, he has a special machine that makes ice for him.

We get back on the road and our next stop is Swansea for lunch. We stopped at Swansea Bark Mill Tavern, I had Salmon patties and Dave had Battered Scallops it was yummy and after lunch we walked through the museum and learned about the Frenchman Baudin and Matthew Flinders who 'raced' to navigate and map Australia. This explains a lot of the French sounding names around the place but who has ever heard of Baudin? No wonder because on his way back to France to share his maps and the more than 200,000 live specimens with Napoleon he died in Mauritius on the way back (his 'friends' Freycinet & Peron changed all the names on his map to suit themselves) and was posthumously disgraced and therefore his findings lay hidden in the French archives never published. When his ship returned to France Josephine (Napoleon's wife) thought that all the animals and plants were meant for her and so she commandeered them ha ha. Matthew Flinders married and then left for his journey to map New Holland and didn't return to England until 10 YEARS later!!! His journal was published 'just' before he died although he never saw it in print as he had slipped into a coma. So sad that both these men sacrificed so much for the sake of being first to map New Holland. The rest of the museum was dedicated to the Bark Mill. They used to crush the bark of the Wattle tree to use in the tanning process. The machinery that they used to use is still functional in the museum today. It was all very interesting.

Back on the road again we head for Coles Bay and find Sheoakes on Freycinet our B&B for the night. The host Alan shows us to our room and it's really beautiful with views out onto Coles Bay. We put our stuff in the room and then ride up to Freycinet National Park to walk up to Wineglass Bay lookout. The walk is about 3km round trip BUT it's very steep and by the time we get to the top I'm hot, sweaty and puffing!! I don't like being sweaty icky!! BUT the view is amazing and the sun comes out just in times for me to get THE quintessential photo of Wineglass Bay awesome if I do say so myself!! The walk down is a bit easier but the stairs are a hazard! desparately in need of renovation. As we are descending to the carpark we see the Westpac rescue helicopter landing in the bus carpark not sure what happened but seeing that is never good and just as we jump back on the bike they lift off again.

Back at the B&B we both have showers before dinner. Dinner is provided by our hosts Alan & Margaret for $40 a head including drinks which is a good deal. We start with nibbles soft cheese with herbs, a blue cheese, duck liver pate, pickled walnuts and a trout dip all very yummy the pickled walnuts were a very unique taste accompanied by a yummy Tasmanian Cabernet. Main course was a fish 'pie' Trevalla with a walnuty 'crust' and a lovely salad with pear, watermelon and lettuce delicious. Dessert is a flummery type pudding rose water, orange and rhubarb flavoured (I don't normally like this type of dessert but it was more the consistency of ice cream and yummy!). The other guests an older couple from Victoria Sally & Bob and a couple from Hanover in Germay Heike & George and of course Alan & Margaret are wonderful company and we had a lovely evening. By the time we have a cup of tea it is time for bed in the huge King sized bed lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves.