A Delicate Snowflake goes to Tassie

[Delicate Snowflake]

I trust you've all been behaving during my brief absence?

TL/DR: Delicate Snowflake drove a long way, then took a long ferry ride, then drove some more, then flew home.

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These past days I helped a friend move/retire interstate, from Sydney to a small town in north-eastern Tasmania.

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For me it was a brief splash-n-dash, between work commitments.

He had complexities for the move, including a dog, lathes and other machines, too many hobbies, etc. oh and there's 400-odd km [~250 miles] of ocean a.k.a. "Bass Strait" [not always calm!]. The main household goods are in a container with a removalist company, and his wife has to stay in Sydney for work, for one more month, before flying down to join him in retirement.

All my iPhone photos turned out to be rubbish so here's the short version sans-pics:

Sunday - we moved the ute, full of hobby things and a dog, to my parents home 2 hours south of Sydney

Monday & Tuesday - I had to work

Wednesday - drove 800+ km [~500 miles] to the ferry in Melbourne

Wednesday overnight - 12 hour ferry crossing to Tasmania - omg -2c [~36f] when we arrived...

Thursday - drove 160km [~100 miles] to the house

Thursday / Friday / Saturday - did the normal setup things power, garbage, water... found a few leaky pipes to fix etc., no furniture so we had sleeping bags [removalists will arrive in a few days]. No heater yet so these were 'fun' days, reminded us of our youth camping in the snow in the high country.

Sunday - returned to Sydney... the flight back took less time than the train back to my folk's place to collect my car

I will drive down in early July to deliver all the things we stored in my garage, they didn't fit into the moving container or his vehicle.

Once he's setup, I now have a holiday house in Tassie complete with chauffeur[!] and they live just 15 minutes drive from some of the best golf courses in Australia

[campfire]

Now that sounds like an adventure!

Good for you helping out.

And I'm not much of a golfer (I can find water with the ball no problem), but that looks like a great place for you if you golf.

[Delicate Snowflake]

I must remember to take my camera and get some decent shots of Tassie, it's really nice.

As for my golf game, well let's just say that if you watch me play you'll see shots you never get to see on that fancy 'PGA' golf on tv

Definitely going to check out those courses though

[MrKiwi]

[Delicate Snowflake]

I will drive down in early July to deliver all the things we stored in my garage...

Well it turns out that getting a spot on the boat for the car is harder than we might think. Lots of spots going there but none available coming back. July is school holidays in our winter, so all the Tassie folk are heading north seeking the sun.

So I ended up with a late September trip down to deliver the last of his things.

- 2 hours to drive to my parents for an overnight pit stop.

- 9 hours to drive to the ferry

- 13-ish hours on the ferry to cross Bass Strait

- 2 or 3 hours to the mate's house

After a few days and a spot of golf... headed back.

Pics to come

[Delicate Snowflake]

This was my view for most of the trip south:

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[Delicate Snowflake]

The boarding process involves lots of waiting and not much moving.

One spends between 30 min to 2 hours like this...

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And then the crossing... this time low seas, about 2m [6' approx.] so no sea sickness for this land-lubber

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Leaving Melbourne... you can see how long it takes from boarding to pushing off [hours].

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[Delicate Snowflake]

Once in Tassie, 0600 arrival, 2-3 very scenic hours got me to my destination. Tassie is very small compared to NSW.

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[Delicate Snowflake]

One pic from the house, the neighbour's kitten visits the front yard every day. The back yard is the domain of the dog, so no entry.

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But at night [no pics] the local wallabies turn up and literally barked back at the dog! Never heard that before...

[Delicate Snowflake]

I didn't have room in the car for the golf sticks, thanks to all 'good stuff' needing delivery. But I squeezed in 3 clubs and a couple of balls. So no resort golf but I played a couple of local courses.

Scottsdale local volunteer 9 hole golf course:

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Bridport local volunteer 9 hole golf course. They take their golf rather seriously, that there in the pic is a 500m [546 yard] hole. Plus they must have a volunteer greenskeeper with real experience. The greens were quite commercial, not quite like a championship course but much better than most. Quite difficult!

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[Delicate Snowflake]

Wildlife from Bridport Golf Course [ignoring the tiger snakes!]:

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Weblink with better pics: https://www.bonorong.com.au/blog/2022/8 ... ed-echidna

[Delicate Snowflake]

Heading back, from the river in Devonport, we got to see a 210m [690'] truck carrying ship turn around with just a short amount of space at either end.

Clearly I am a land-lubber. I was impressed. Not much clearance by my standards.

Later in the week, floods hit that river, all commercial traffic was stopped, unable to turn around safely in the current.

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[Delicate Snowflake]

So on the trip back, the swell was 6m [21']... way too much for me, sea sick most of the way.

And yes, I know, it's "not that bad" but it was for me. Yes I am a land-lubber.

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Arrival in Melbourne was a fawlty-towers-esque debacle. The one passenger that could not be found, was the one with the caravan blocking the exit ramp. So we all sat in our cars and waited. And waited. And waited. Ugh!

Once off, 11 hours drive back home in the rain. No decent pics.

I will fly down in December to see how they are going. Flying is great compared to driving, apart from the lack of carrying capacity

[Camp Director]

That was great. Thanks for sharing.