20 Little Swanport, TAS - Day 1

The family left for Melbourne in the morning and that concluded the 10 days family trip. Many thanks to the family for the great time and company, and special thanks to our master organizer Carole for the first rate choices of the itinerary, accommodations, and particularly the superb restaurants!

miles and miles of open space as we drove through pasture land
Nine Miles Bay - the beach goes on forever!
We changed the van to a SUV for the next 4 days. We went back south towards Little Swanport for the next two nights. We took a different highway and it was actually fun driving the twisty road in a more powerful SUV (as compared to the gutless minivan).  The day was cloudy and we were unlucky in that every time we stopped to get out, it would start to rain and stop when we got back in the car! I guess we can't expect good weather every day.

We went into Nile Miles Bay area just north of Swansea. There were not too many access points to the beach as the land is occupied mostly by private homes. Since it was very windy and cold, the miles and miles of beaches were totally deserted. As I said before, it rained shortly after we got out, so we did not really explore. We saw a place selling oysters on our way out and we made it just in time before they closed.  And we were able to shuck them back under the sun … yummy!








kookaburra sitting on an old gum tree
We stayed at a place called the Gumleaves Bush Holidays for the next 2 nights. The place is a bit more rustic than we’d have liked, it is more like a cabin inside a park. The place reminded me of Bark Lake where Vision Youth went. The place had an obstacle course and David tried a few things after dinner … failed! I took videos of him for the girls to see :). The worst part of this cabin was the untreated water - we needed to boil it for a minimum of 3 minutes, it was darn inconvenient and reminded me of our camping days.  But it does have a wood stove to heat up the place, and we saw kookaburras, other birds, deer and wallabies on the property.

I had planned to make pasta for dinner; but silly me bought all the ingredients and forgot the pasta! Luckily, when I asked the owner if he had pasta in his little store, he gave me half of an opened bag that he did not use the day before. It was so nice of him and his wife. In general, we found people here very friendly and helpful.


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