Devonport

We had really enjoyed being in our cabin over Christmas, but on Boxing Day, it was time to packup and move out of our cabin because we were driving to Devonport for 2 nights before taking the ferry back to the mainland.  Camping around Tasmania has been lots of fun, but it has been very hard to go from a tent to a cabin and back to a tent – twice, while we’ve been in Tassie, because life in a tent is always harder than in a cabin (or in our caravan!).  We drove from Launceston to Devonport on Boxing Day.  Not far out of Launceston, there is the Tamar Island wetlands, and we decided to do the 1km walk to the island and look at the wetland.  It was a nice walk with lots of birdlife.  We also saw a small tiger snake next to the path.

Tamar Island Wetlands was really beautiful

The Boys walking along the Tamar Island Wetland Boardwalk

We think this is a small tiger snake which was just off the path

Two black swans at the wetlands

We had planned to stay at a site just outside of Devonport at the Seventh Day Adventist campground.  Previously on our trip we had found that SDA campgrounds are very well priced and generally pretty good (like Perth and Townsville), however when we arrived at this one, we decided we didn’t want to stay, there were no hot showers because this campsite is normally only used for conferences and doesn’t have an onsite manager looking after the campground. So we drove into Devonport and setup the tents at a caravan park right on the river where we could see the Spirit of Tasmania coming and going.  It was quite late in the afternoon, so we just had dinner and went to bed.

Thursday the 27^th December was our day to explore Devonport.  We took a short walk along the foreshore near the caravan park, and then drove over to the ‘Spirit of the Sea’ sculpture on the other side of the river.  While we were on the viewing platform, Sam lost one of his crocs into the ocean.  We hung around to see if it would get washed up onto the rocks, but it just stayed bobbing up and down on the river, so we had to abandon it – much to Sam’s disappointment.

Liz and the kids with Devonport in the background

Mike trying to fish out Sam's croc (shoe)

The kids always like to play around on the fitness equipment!

We then drove to the lighthouse and had a walk around the headland.  We had some lunch at a nearby beach and then went exploring on the rocks (as it was low tide) where Natalie and Sam caught some small crabs while Josh and Mike built a pyramid of rocks.

The Devonport Lighthouse

Josh, Sam and Natalie with Bass Straight behind them

Our final stop for the day was at the Mini Golf centre, where we all enjoyed playing some crazy mini golf – with some very hard holes on it – but it was heaps of fun.  Golf took a bit longer than we thought it would, so after golf, we headed back to the tent for some dinner and our last night in Tasmania.

We all enjoyed a game of mini golf in Devonport