Sunday, October 10, 2010

Tasmania Part 8: in which a wrong turn is taken and cheese is eaten



The snow did not keep up overnight, but it was still very cold, so the car was covered with snow. This tickled Kirsty, because she could take a picture of it to prove that it did in fact snow up there.

As we drove out of Cradle Mountain along the tourist route of more winding mountain roads through forests we were regularly treated to jaw dropping scenery. By this stage it was becoming almost passe. With the exception of the Inca Trail in Peru I have never seen consistently fantastic scenery like that in Tasmania and this includes New Zealand’s famed South Island.

As we came out of the hills we went through idyllic pastural land of rolling green meadows filled with cows and sheep. That’s the other thing about Tassie, the scenery can change so quickly, you never know what you’re going to be treated to around the next bend or over the next hill.

It was about then that we and the GPS had a disagreement. We wanted to take a fairly roundabout way to Devonport so we could visit the Ashgrove cheese factory, known for it’s painted cows and excellent cheese, on the way. The GPS disagreed. It eventually stopped talking to us altogether, we later found out that was because we’d turned the volume down. The ‘perform a u-turn when possible’ was really getting on my nerves, so it was just as well. However this meant we went left when we should have gone right and wound up on the Midlands Highway and not the Bass Highway which was where we really wanted to be. Around Campbell Town we figured this out and backtracked. We not only got to the cheese factory (try the pepperberry cheese if you ever get the chance. Awesome!), but also found a chocolate factory!

Then it was into Devonport, which was a lot larger than I expected, for the ferry back home.

1 comment:

  1. Except we went right instead of left... (you'd think you'd know the difference between the two at your age! *laugh* At least one of us isn't geographically-challenged, we'd be in loads of trouble if we both were!)
    The painted cows were really cool - they weren't there when we went to the factory last time.


    And in 3-4 years time we're going to have to go back & do the top of the island - we saw a little bit on the last day, but there's heaps more to see (like the seahorse farm!!)

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