coffee

Coffee.    I was in our local bakery yesterday  grabbing a Coffee.   I found myself asking the bakery girl if they had Raw Sugar.    The look she gave me said it all.   I am still very much a Mainlander.

Bushfire recovery

Saturday before Mothers day we took a trip down the Tasman Peninsular.   This is down the road towards Port Arthur, south east of Hobart,  through the areas that were affected by the January Bushfires.   We thought it might be a good opportunity to support the local businesses.   We bought a great lunch from the Dunally Bakery and took some time to drive though the township that was burnt to the waters edge in places.
The picture above was immediately post fire.   It was burnt to the ground on January 4th and with community support and I suspect a lot of effort it was able to re open in early feb,  only one week after school went back.








Other parts of the Town are slowly being fixed.   Lots of  bare blocks with Caravans and water tanks.   Now that the weather has started to cool down I wonder what sort of winter these residents are going to endure.   One upside  is that there is vast quantities of scorched firewood being cut and stacked.   This seems to be a Tasmanian obsession,  again I wonder just how cold winter is going to be.

We proceeded further down the peninsular,  stopping and looking at great places like EagleHawk Neck,  Sommers Bay,  Pirate Bay,  Tesselated Pavement,   the Blow Hole and Devils Kitchen.

 

 

 



 

The most surprising thing for our day out was that  no one got wet,   not even Will

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its not winter yet.

Autumn in Tasmania is proving to be delightful.   Cool fresh clear days with blue skys.    Colors changing across the landscape,  woodfires burning,   people getting around in puffer jackets.   Flannelet and wool shirts,   beanies and scarfs  are common.    It is interesting that there is not the 'Bogan' association that exists between flannelet and jeans in Melbourne.   Most of the shirts I've seen worn have been carefully ironed and are tucked in,  even if the wearer is wearing tracksuit pants!

Tas School holidays have been and gone.   we managed to all get to Melbourne for a few days.   It was good to catch up with family and some friends.   We spent one day up at Kilmore,   the kids had a great time,  the quad bike was a hit.   It was interesting to see the different ways the kids operated the bike.   Ella and Kiri were like timid old ladies puttering around.   Summer and Will wanted to go fast and hear it roar.  it was a it frightening really,   sitting on the back yelling "Slow!".   the kids thought it was funny,  the more you yelled the faster they tried to go and the more they laughed.  I'm not sure where they they got that from!