Finding an overnight campsite in any city can be a bit of a problem, but I’m lucky that I have a fairly regular spot in Hobart right outside a friend’s house.
Naturally I operate in stealth mode … curtains drawn and no lights after sunset.
Normally a fairly quiet spot, it becomes a bit hectic nearer Xmas and this is what greeted me this morning. The butcher and the delivery man were having a loud joke-filled conversation which woke me.
Of course, the jokes might have had something to do with the angle of the delivery truck too.
Revisited a favourite pub yesterday in Hobart — The Crescent — and had a lively session with some old friends (and don’t they look like everyone’s grumpy grandpa?).
They were in a nostalgic mood, tuning in to YouTube for some jazz classics — on an iPad which Dave, the pub owner, had commandeered so that he could watch while he served.
The pub also has a lot of books under the counter, some of which can be seen above. They’re not for lending, they’re a superb tool for settling pub arguments, and like all good pubs a lot of lively discussion takes place.
The library does wonders to settle bombast and prejudice. Somehow using the iPad to Google the facts would seem out of place in The Crescent.
Just spent a few days blobbing at Stanton, a lovely bed-and-breakfast establishment at Magra, north of New Norfolk … and yes, I camped as usual in Madam Plush.
However, mine host Mark, has decided he has had enough of ‘clients’ and decided to return the property to being a homestead, and a major transformation has begun in earnest.
Martin and Adele, his live-in boarders are both keen gardeners, and together they have begun to revive the veggie gardens of yore, the neglected orchard, and introduced chooks and a horse.
I’ll have more to report when I return for a working bee in a few weeks time.
This splendid wall of green overlooking the Meander River at Deloraine was taken through the back window of Madam Plush early this morning.
With office views like this, and the gradual return of energy following the traumas of the medical dramas earlier this year, I am beginning to feel rather restless.
A lot of ideas have been simmering through the fog of surgery and recovery, and I’m looking forward to some new creative adventures.
Despite its ominous name Dead River Beach is a delightful, peaceful campsite on the Victorian side of the Murray River.
It is a popular stopover for river travellers — lone kayakers, groups of schoolchildren on rafts, motley convoys of river craft travelling together, and the usual hoon or two in a beer-fuelled tinny.
Behind the campsite was a small brackish pond where one evening I spotted a pair of wild ducks and their dozen young. Unfortunately I ran out of ‘film’ on my digital camera at the crucial moment and captured this less than ideal exposure of the family outing.
Two days later the adults were back, but without any of their brood, likely taken by foxes.
Thought I’d head off about noon today, but was cut off at the pass.
One by one, from mid-morning on, an amazingly eclectic collection of classic and vintage cars began to surround my Mt Franklin campsite.
One that caught my eye was the 1927 Double-T Ford truck, above, that came from Kyneton. It started its working life trucking fruit at Harcourt.
There are about four dozen so far, and they’re lovely. Spotlessly clean and polished, and lovingly restored, they indeed evoke fond memories of a different era.
Madam Plush has even been sharing in the glory as the other campers flock over to view them.
Of course, my fickle friends, the Guinea fowl, immediately made a beeline to a 1950s Studebaker and preened themselves in its mirror-bright hubcaps.
I slept in a volcano last night — a first. Admittedly is was dormant, and had been for millions of years.
This nearby copse of deciduous trees, above, belied the dormancy with its skeletal white trunks and carpet of white, bleached leaves discarded last Autumn.
Mt Franklin is just north of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs, popular Victorian holiday spots for the many goldminers that worked the digging in surrounding areas more than a century ago.
With the gold long gone, the two townships now mine the tourists instead.
Technically, according to Parks Victoria, Mt Franklin is a ‘prominent, conical scoria cone with deep crater open via a narrow breach in the rim on the southeastern side’.
On arrival, after an easy drive up, I had my pick of campsites as the only vehicle there.
With that sorted I soon settled in, with my only company three cheeky and obviously spoilt Guinea fowl begging for tidbits. I buried thoughts of the lovely Guinea fowl curry recipe I enjoyed on trips through Southern Africa.
They were fickle though. Just on sunset a popup camper-trailer arrived to set up camp on the other side of the volcano’s bowl and they soon scarpered over there.
Roaring Beach on the Tasman Peninsula deserves its vocal reputation on days like this when strong southerly gales combine with southwesterly swells to send wave after wave crashing to shore.
It produces a tumultuous white carpet, beautiful to watch, yet awe-inspiring at the same time.
And the roar is constant, magnified by the cove’s unique acoustics.
Roaring Beach changes mood endlessly as the video below (recorded on my iPad 2 the day before I took the photograph above) demonstrates.
On arrival, after an easy drive up, I had my pick of campsites as the only vehicle there.
