March 4 - Port Arthur

Wednesday,  March 4, Port Arthur

The sound of the surf....what a wonderful sound to wake up to!! Dick makes a cup of good coffee with the help of the espresso machine provided by the owners. Carolyn is up not too long after Dick. She fixes a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast and we plan our day. We are going to tour the scenic sites on the peninsula and maybe the old penal colony, if there is time. 

We can’t seem to avoid computer problems on this type of trip. The hostess says she will loan us an adapter to use while we are here, but that doesn’t really solve our problem long haul. She suggests we try a little hardware, all purpose store in the little town, Nubeena, about two KM away for a conversion plug for Australia. What are the chances...the next stop South from here is Antarctica! Actually they have a plug, but it will only take the old style US plug...Dick buys it, hoping that the extension cord we brought for Carolyn’s heating pad has that kind of plug and we will be able to make it work with some of the other plug adapters we have with us. So on to the plan for the day.

Leaving Nubenna, we drive to the Coal Mines Historic Site, a World Heritage Site, but do not get to see much of it as all the really interesting stuff is on walking trails that take from 30 minutes to 2:30 round trip.  That is more than Carolyn can do and Dick’s legs are bothering him also.  This getting old is not fun!

Next we backtrack to the main road and head to Eaglehawk Neck on the thin strip of land that connects the main land and the peninsula.  Proceeding to the Pirates Bay Overlook, we turn off the main highway and follow the old road that goes along the coast. 

We also stop a the Tesselated Pavemant, a geological feature that looks like broken up asphalt and  then down the hill to an area of the bay where the Little Penguins nest. They are found only in Tasmania, but no one is home today. 

So we head for Doo Town looking for a couple of places our hostess has suggested for lunch. We find the Truck Spot where we stop and pick up two, made to order, coal-fired oven pizzas.  These will be lunch if nothing better comes along.  Sure enough, it does!  Doo-licious, a trailer, fast food operation that was recommended to us is at the parking lot for Tasman Blowhole.  This place does fresh caught local seafood anyway you like it as long as it is battered and fried!  We order fish and chips to share and top that off with two cones of strawberry ice-cream made fresh right there from locally grown fruit. 

Well fed and happy, we drive to see the Tasman Arch and the Devil’s Kitchen, sea and wind formed caves and canyons in the cliffs by the sea.  They are interesting to see and only a short walk from the parking lot.

Next we head for the Port Arthur Historic Site.  This is the location of one of the worst of the penal institutions during the time of “Transportation” of poisoners from England to Australia.  Many of the buildings there are in ruins, but it is large complex. They want $35AUD each as an entry fee that includes a cruise and a 45 minute guided walking tour that the ranger freely admits has lots of standing involved. Again, walking and standing for long periods is not currently our thing. Carolyn asks about doing our own thing and the rangers does say that there is buggy that goes around to the important sites for people who can’t walk much so that sounds perfect for us, but then she says we will have to get off at each stop to see the site and catch the next buggy whether we want to or not!  Seems like that defeats the whole purpose of seeing the area with out a lot of standing, so that rankles just a bit.  Since it is 2:30 and we want to see one more site, we opt for buying Jack a new pin and some other items very appropriate for two of our grandchildren and move on.

Now we head out along Crescent Bay to Manigon Bay to see the “Remarkable Cave.”  The drive is beautiful and we comment again how pretty this part of the world is and how unoccupied.  It is an undiscovered paradise; just one Hell of a long way from anywhere else!

The coast containing the cave is impressive and the walk down 115 steps to the cave is a challenge.  Carolyn opts to photograph from above while Dick makes the climb down to see the cave and back up the same 115 steps to return.

OK, it is getting on in the afternoon and we head for our cottage

but stop at the Sea Breeze grocery store for some more eggs and some pickle relish.  Then, into Nubenna for a visit to an ATM and, that done back to the cottage where we work on the blog, begin charging computers with an adapter loaned by our host and think about dinner. 

After some, hummm, discussion on how to deal with our latest electronic glitch, Carolyn suggests we order the adapters we need and also a new power strip from Amazon to be shipped to our daughter.  She can FedX them to us in Bangkok. Shades of 2009, a stolen computer in Australia and a care package from our daughter to our Hong Kong hotel.  Surely we can get by on loaners or even find what we need before then. Yes, we did figure out what caused our problem. We had bought a new small power strip for this trip, but unfortunately it was only for 110v and not 110-240v so when Dick set up the computer to charge last night the plug adapter blew its fuse because the power strip blew! The rest is history as they say!

While Dick places the order and sends emails to our daughter and to the Bangkok hotel, Carolyn goes for a walk on the beach. Looks like a storm is brewing in the west and the wind is really being to blow, the walk is nice!

A couple of drinks and the pizza we bought earlier is dinner along with a salad . The promised storm blows in with a vengeance...high winds and some rain. We work on the blog until late while we get everything charged up for our drive to Launceston tomorrow. We may just be caught up by the time we go to bed.