Tea Tree

After two nights in the middle of nowhere, today we’ve made our way to somewhere: Port Arthur. The drive was about 3 hours, but the roads were open and not as twisty as previously. We started going through larger and larger towns, where there were lots of people, ‘proper’ shops, and petrol stations (we’ve had to fill up at a self service petrol pump more than once). Compared to the tiny places we’ve been to, this felt like quite a change!

As we reached the coastline again, we stopped at a couple of lookouts, before ending up at Port Arthur our last campsite of the trip, and our last night with the lovely Sheila ☹️

Port Arthur was another well known penal colony. So much of Tassie’s history goes back to the internment of criminals from the UK. Many of the towns and villages we’ve passed through have UK place names, Bothwell, Gretna, Hamilton, Osterley, Beconsfield, Chudleigh, Sheffield, Tewksbury etc. To coin a phrase, ‘there’s no place like home’, guessing the prisoners and those eventually released, must have been terribly homesick, naming their new villages after the ones they left behind.

We got to our site late pm, then spent what felt like several years disassembling each cupboard and cubby hole and attempting to pack things up. One of my least liked jobs, trying to replicate the organisational mastery, managed so triumphantly at home. The fear of knowing there’s always going to be ‘too much’ and it’ll never fit back in the original luggage is overwhelming. It also represents the end of our Tassie roadtrip, which is sad 😔

We shall finish this miserable task in the morning - success is by no means certain….😬Read more