August 30

Sunday 30 August

Today we left early(ish) and headed for Richmond where we walked across the oldest bridge in Australia. Lots of friendly ducks near the bridge, the trees were in blossom and there were old English daisies, alyssum & grape hyacinths growing wild. Beautiful!

From Richmond, we headed towards Ross which is a convict town but on the way we found Oatlands. There were some cleverly designed shrubs in the shape of a cow, a man on a ride on mower with his dog & cat, and a 2 seater lounge. Also in Oatlands was an old flour mill which looked a bit like a Dutch windmill. The buildings are all made from old stone and the daffodils were starting to flower.

Ross is another historic town with beautiful old buildings. We had a wander through the wood shop and into the wool shed. We had lunch in front of an old stone church and soaked up the atmosphere.

From Ross we decided to head towards the east coast in the hope we might be able to catch a glimpse of Wineglass Bay. It’s a part of the Freycinet National Park however and you have to pay fees to enter, so seeing as it was mid afternoon, we decided to leave it for maybe another day. Instead we went to Cole Bay where we saw rocks with orange lichen, so we assume they must make up the bottom end of the Bay of Fires. The scenery was gorgeous.

After leaving Cole Bay we found a place that sold fresh shucked oysters on an honesty system! We enjoyed them Kilpatrick for dinner and they were absolutely delicious. We headed back through Swansea and on the other side of Swansea saw the Spiky Bridge which was built by convicts.

The scenery along the east coast is beautiful and I imagine it’s somewhat like I imagine Ireland to be. We came through Sorrell where there is a long bridge across the water to Midway Point and then another stretch of water with a bridge to get to the next part which is near our turnoff to Seven Mile Beach.

Got back to our unit and thoroughly enjoyed our oysters before remembering seeing something about Hot August Jazz in Hobart tonight. Bob got onto reception to ask and yep, sure enough there is jazz playing in North Hobart until midnight. So we headed in there, found an Asian/Indian restaurant where we enjoyed some satay chicken, curry puffs and dahl. Delicious! Wandered back up the street to where we heard a band playing earlier and went into this little pub which had a whole jazz band of about 20 people playing! Turned out to be the Hobart City Swing Band and they were fantastic. The girl they had singing had a great voice and turned out to be a great dancer too. We watched a few couples dancing to the music, not much space at all for dancing, it only really fitted 3 couples and they still ran into each other, but awesome to watch.

A fantastic day!

Hmm for some reason I can't add photos now, so they will have to be added later on.