Onward Ho!

So we've made a start. Managed to finally stuff the caravan full of what will likely be a whole lot of unnecessary gear, clean the house and finish giving away whatever we couldn't pack into the caravan. Moving house and getting sorted in a Caravan really makes you aware of the clutter that seems to hamper everyday living - couldn't believe how much junk we've accumulated in 6 1/2 yrs! Mental note - buy less stuff! Right - so we made it without much ado to Port Melbourne and the Spirit of Tasmania terminal and managed to get fairly reasonable fuel economy along the way - was worried about this as our trip back from Dubbo a month or so ago seemed to guzzle a full tank over 150kms - must have been the wind!  The Spirit of Tasmania is a beautiful ship - and it looked like our crossing of the Bass Strait would go smoothly overnight until I woke in the wee hours with Piper beside me virtually burning up - I was suprised not to see steam rising from her - managed to cool her down in the shower, as being a good doctor, had left Nurofen/ Panadol in the inaccessible caravan down in the hold. Needless to say we didn't get a lot of sleep! Drugged her up first thing once out on the road and she stopped cooking. Once all buckled in we headed to Sheffield en route to Cradle Mountain. Very nice little town with lots of good quality murals and an early opener (6am) to fill our innards. Aidan had heard of some place called Tasmazia and assurred us it came highly recommended from his friend Lucy. It was a short jaunt from where we were so we made the trek. It was adjacent the Lake Barrington Rowing Centre so we had to have a look - it had hosted the world rowing championships in 1990 - 2000ms of straight, flat water - looked amazing ! The maze place was great as well and we fortunately were able to find our way out again. Once back on the road we headed to Cradle Mountain, found our camping spot and pulled out the bikes for an afternoon explore. It is rather hilly country and the boys struggled but prevailed (eventually) over some nice little rollers. I was so proud! Did a little "Enchanted Walk" as well in preface to a few more days of tramping around- had to get the kids' legs up to speed. At dinner back at camp a wee Wallaby wandered through sniffing out the Lego before scampering away - ahh - nature! It was a pleasant way to cap off our official first day out!