Thursday morning we were up bright and early to hit the road. We took a quick drive down to Carnarvon Bay, which is the nearest town to the Port Arthur site. Then we headed back up to the town of Richmond, which is renowned for its old bridge etc. We pulled into a little park near the old bridge but by this time Mum wasn’t feeling very well so it took quite a while to convince her that the old church just up the road was worth the walk. The church turned out to be the oldest continuously used Catholic Church in Australia. Although it didn’t look much on the outside it was very nice and well kept inside and Mum was very glad she made the effort to climb the hill and have a look. One interesting thing was that there was the grave of a little 4-year old, right against the wall of the church, whilst the main cemetery was at the rear of the church on the other side.
We had a brief drive around Richmond before heading North towards Launceston via Campania and Colebrook before joining the Midland Highway at Jericho. It was a lovely drive, fairly winding, but we were amazed at how dry most of the countryside was. We detoured off the highway into an old historic town called Oatlands. There were many old buildings including an old flourmill, which used to have large wooden sails like those on Dutch windmills. Now it only has a windmill like fan doing the driving. We decided to fuel up and nearly died when we saw the price of fuel - $1.48 per litre. However, as they are the only service station in the town, I guess they can set their own price. We had lunch in Oatlands in a little park overlooking a water habitat and then continued on to Hadspen where we were booked into the Cosy Cabins for the night.
After finding our way into and out of Hadspen we eventually located our digs, unloaded our gear and headed into Launceston. We went straight north to Beauty Point where we booked in to see the Seahorse exhibition. This was really a very interesting part of our trip – after watching a video about sea creatures, we did a tour through an aquarium area with all different species of Sea Horses, and Sea Dragons before going through the breeding room where the seahorses ranged in age from those born that morning to a tank of 2 year olds containing over 14,000 live specimens. Leaving Beauty Point, we travelled back to Beaconsfield, the small gold mining town where two miners were trapped underground for 2 weeks back in 2006.
Unfortunately the Museum was closed by the time we arrived but we could hear the mine working behind the museum. There were a number of static displays outside the museum and in the little park opposite.
After leaving Beaconsfield we headed back into Launceston, where we were to meet Keith and Liz Liddington, parents of Keren Franks. We met at a fish and chip cafe on the Marina wharf at Launceston and after a lovely feed of fish and chips Keith and Liz escorted us out to Cataract Gorge. By this time it was nearly 9.00 pm but there was plenty of light and there were scores of young people still swimming in the Gorge Pool. We went for a stroll over the swinging bridge. and around through gardens, along several paths and back across the river by way of a low crossing. The flowers around the Gorge were magnificent – especially the rhododendrons – by this time it was almost dark but people were still arriving to go swimming. We invited Keith and Liz back to our cabin at Hadspen where we finally cracked open the bottle of wine which was waiting for us in the motel at Port Arthur. We entertained until 11.00 or so when our guests departed and we hit the hay.
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