Exploring Tassie

We have been in Tassie almost a week now and are loving every minute of our time here. I think we have almost covered 1000kms since we have been here. Our older kids flew down for a vist and made a long weekend of it. Kinda of feeling a little flat this evening after spending a wonderful few days with them.

Such a huge job trying to keep on top of all the photos we have been taking, Something like a couple of hundred a day,but there is so much to see here. Unfortunately the camera cannot capture what the eye can see, or the nose can smell, or the hand can feel, or the sounds you can hear - at times it has been a senses overload. Just a beautiful beautiful state to spend some time in.

Last Wednesday and Thursday we spent the days exploring some of the lovely towns around Devonport, so this post is to share some of the beauty of places like Sheffield, Railton, La Trobe and Wilmot. All unique in their own way.

SHEFFIELD
We fell in love with Sheffield, its the town of murals. Appartently the story goes something like the town was dying and they were looking for a way to revive it, so decided to have murals painted all over town to draw people to it, and it seems to work. It is a quaint little town, so friendly, and you could spend the day just wandering around town reading the stories of earlier days.
They also have some of the nicest cafes and their Curried Prawn and Scallop pies are to die for. We also visited the House of Marbles whilst we were there. Some amazing amazing marbles, unfortunately we were unable to photograph them, but some were truely beautiful and they ranged in right from very little to about $900 each. Definately worth the visit though. We also found the most amazing second hand shop that just had absolutely anything and everything you could think off. Just good fun browsing around in there. The views from Sheffield are wonderful too with Mt. Roland in the background, and lovely lush green pastures around.

WILMOT
We went on a very scenic drive from Sheffield to Wilmot up through the mountains via Morina, only about 33 kms away from Cradle Mountain - in fact we were closer to Cradle Mountain than we were to Devonport. This is just a beautiful area of Tassi, we discovered the very original "Coles" store - what a change from "Coles" today. Steve was determined to buys something from there, so I scoured some beautiful Goats milk soap.
The Gardens around here were beautiful - alive with colour, but the thing that impressed us even more were the Letterboxes. Amazing amazing letterboxes. You could tell we were tourists, as we travelled back towards Devonport, each time we discovered one we would have to pull over to take a photo. These are only a sample of them - there are heaps more. These guys have the most wonderful imagination when it comes to building letterboxes. Well worth the drive just to see the Letterboxes.
LA TROBE

We also visited La Trobe, and honestly I think we will go back there as we really didn't have enough time to explore this gorgeous town as much as we would have liked. We did however visit Anver's House of Chocolates. They are something else, both our kids have put in orders for us to get more and bring it home.
We got to taste test Chocolate here, and also to see them make it through glassed windows. It was fascinating. We were told by others, that it was better to see it here than visit the Cadbury Factory in Hobart.

We checked out the "Cherry Shed" also but was a little disappointed in this one. There really wasn't anything there much to do or see, and as the Cherry Season isn't really in full swing until the middle of December, the only thing on offer there were Cherry Ice creams, which I have to say were real good.
We did discover this lovely recreational park just out of La Trobe, called Bell's Park Reserve, it has a few attractions there, the Axemam's Hall of Fame, Trout fishing display, and a section on the platypus, although no real live platypus there. Sherwood Hall is also situated there. Steve got talking to some guy there who was a wealth of information when it comes to fishing in the area, and he was able to give us some good contacts so that Steve can have a good at fly fishing.

RAILTON
This was another lovely little town we passed through on our way to Sheffield. The town is famous for its topiary trees. We were a little disappointed as it seems most were still in the growing stage, but we did see a few which do look pretty impressive. Our GPS took us on a countryside detour here and we passed some amazing scenery which I am sure we probably wouldn't have driven through otherwise. The GPS has been great, but every now and then it takes you the long way round, and this was one of those days.
Friday we headed over to Launceston to await the arrival of our big kids - have taken hundreds of photos this weekend, which I am still trying to upload and shift through, so will be back with those in the next couple of days.

I am afraid, I haven't found too much time yet just to sit and do nothing - I have bought some crafting away with me, and it has not even come out of its box yet.

Must go and have a shower and warm up. We are definately not use to this cold weather.