East Coast

Wow, we appear to have stumbled into a time warp - for a couple of days we were back in winter. There was even snow on the mountain near Hobart!
 But we luckily sped through spring and are now well and truly back in summer.
 We were last in Longford and so close to Perth (not home Perth, Perth Tasmania) that we had to drive there for a look.

 Not much to see,  the usual small country town, so we pressed on south east through the Henrietta Plains and then out on the Esk Highway through an area called The Dog Kennels  to St Marys.

St Marys is like so many other towns in Tasmania - lots of For Sale signs.  Apparently 60% of the town is unemployed.
We had a wander around town taking in the Quilt Gallery, which is also the agency for Wide Span Sheds - multi-tasking or diversification? The museum called Cranks and Tinkerers is in the process of moving premises so was in a bit of disarray. The present building is up For Sale and was the old supermarket,  the sale includes another small shop next door and a 4 bedroom house - the asking price is $400,000. (They're dreaming son!)
The Recreation ground offered free overnight stays and spotless toilets and hot showers so we set up for the night.

We took a short drive out to Irishtown, but it's nothing more than 2 houses now. (Oh ! and lots of wrecked vehicles.) On the way out there we did see a nice touch of whimsy..

The next day we took the road out to Bicheno, a big tourist, seaside destination.
The road out of St Marys through St Marys' pass was spectacular.

Bicheno and the surrounding area was full of motorhomes - the most we've seen so far. Have they been here on the East coast all along or just arrived?

Bicheno town has 3 or 4 caravan parks, about 10 cafes and restaurants and was really busy with holidaymakers, our first real sign of the peak season.

We had lunch in Porks cafe, Michael says the fish and chips were the best he's had for a very long time.

We only popped down to Bicheno for a day trip and were soon heading north again, back up the same road (there really isn't a lot of choice if you don't want to use narrow dirt roads). Up through Scamander, passing little coves and beaches with huge granite boulders covered in orange lichen.
We stopped for the night at St Helens, and again this town was buzzing with holiday makers. The shops were full and it felt like a vibrant seaside town.
 On the edge of the recreation grounds the council has set aside an area signposted as :
                      An Overnight Rest Area for Campervans and Motorhomes only.

Fantastic, there should be more like this, no vehicles that are not truly self contained.
We naturally supported them by staying the night.

Next day we headed further along the A3, stopping first at "Tasmania's Top Bric-a-Brac Shop" it sounds much bigger than it is. It was actually quite a small shop but had lots of interesting things from books, china, jewellery, glassware, lace, lavender products and souvenirs.
 Next stop was a coffee stop at the Holy Cow cafe. This is at the Pyengana Dairy Company, naturally enough in the village of Pyengana. They have been making cloth bound cheddar cheese here since the early 1900s. We had a 'cheese tasting' session, but didn't add any to the fridge. It was cheddar exclusively.

Carrying along the road to the dairy we drove 10kms of tortuous winding, twisting, very narrow road which had obvious signs of damage from rock falls and slippage, up to St Columba's Falls.
The highest falls in Tasmania having a drop of 90 metres.

There was a 10 -15 minute walk from the car park to a viewing platform (at the base of the falls) but due to flooding the platform was closed for repair. We had a good view of the falls from the car park so settled for that, we suppose that currently they should really be called a 'cascade', but image that in winter they are really dramatic.

We stopped for lunch at a lookout near Weldborough. It would have been an almost 360 degree lookout if the trees hadn't grown so tall! It used to be a farm but Forests Tasmania have taken it over and the thistles are doing well.

Next stop was to see the Chinese Memorial in the Moorina cemetery.

The area was a big tin mining area in the 1800s and Moorina itself once had 7 hotels, 3 banks, the usual story - when the mines close the town dies. Now its about 3 houses in total.

The town of Derby didn't have any overt appeal, so we drove on....

                                                                                                         to the little township of Branxholm.

The town is in the middle of a hop growing area, it has a supermarket, bric-a-brac shop, cafe and a pub.

 It also has a swimming pool and next to the pool is a small caravan park, there are about 6 powered sites, the ablutions are clean and it's $14 for a powered site so this is our stop for 2 or 3 nights.
We still have to check out events in Launceston but now that we're up here in the North East we could be there in a short time. Otherwise it will be up to the coast and town down the banks of the River Tamar.