Wednesday 7th April 2004

Today is another one of those days that started last night, with an invite to Ray Smith's home and dinner with him and his son Tim.

It started with the journey out to his home in Lachlan in the dark, but that would not be any worry because we had been there before. Wrong.... Someone shifted his place further down the road and it took a telephone call to find out where we should be. However we made it, even if we were a little late and on arrival we were welcomed into a home that was warmed by a wood heater and lit by numerous candles, creating an atmosphere that would equal any restaurant. After a chat, we were served up a very impressive Lasagne that was all his creation, including the sauce. We were then served a tasty sweet to finish off a great meal that would put a lot of restaurants to shame. We had a great night and really enjoyed the company.

Today was not an eventful day as we packed up and moved from New Norfolk down through Hobart to the Snug Caravan Park, which we had stayed in about three weeks ago when Judy was still with us.

After settling in at the caravan park, which included putting the awning out and the annex up, we drove back up to Kingston where we did our next weeks shopping at the Coles Store there. We then called in at Blackmans Bay to fill the patrol up with fuel before stopping off at the bottle shop at Margate to ensure we had enough drinks to satisfy a thirsty boy when he gets here tomorrow. One of us is getting very excited and can't wait for our daughter Kym and Son-In-Law Lee to arrive at Hobart airport in the morning.

Tomorrow will be a busy day and we are looking forward to showing Kym and Lee all we can of Tasmania over the next few days.

Settled in Snug Caravan Park

Thursday 8th April 2004

oops! Sorry about the web site not being updated last night, in fact the journal page was updated but due to a power failure and 'one of us' not reminding the 'other one' to check that nothing had been lost while preparing the page, the link to the journal was lost. So the page was there, just that no one could get to it! It is available now as you have obviously found out. Hopefully it won't happen too often.

It was pretty early this morning when 'one of us' woke up and was rather excited because daughter Kym and son-in-law Lee were arriving at Hobart airport at 9:30am.

After getting the usual morning chores out of the way and receiving a call from them whilst they were in Melbourne, we managed to get underway at about 8:30am for the fifty kilometre drive out to the airport. This had us traveling through Hobart at around 9:am and as such there was a fair traffic buildup in the city. Well all I can say is that it is a good thing I was able to keep the windows wound up because 'one of us' certainly was wound up as we were delayed by trucks and traffic lights. I did think of making a recording and then selling it as a language course for camel drivers in training.....

However we did make it out to the airport in good time, with only a ten minute wait before the big red Virgin Blue aircraft landed. After they disembarked from the aircraft and the expected tears of joy were dispatched, we loaded the luggage and ourselves into the Patrol and headed off back to Hobart. Our first call was straight up to the top of Mount Wellington as there was only a light cloud cover near the top of the mountain. Hobart itself was behind this cloud, but most of the surrounding area was visible and the cloud added something more to the views and made it a little different to what we had seen when it was clear last time we were up here.

The next call had to be back in the centre of Hobart City as Kym wanted to see the Cat & the Fiddle herself, so that is were we ended up, drinking a coffee as we waited for the fiddling to begin. It was then straight to the Chickenfeed Store in Centrepoint Arcade for Lee to sample the range of wares found in these amazing shops.

The eyelids of the two travelers were starting to droop by this time so we then made our way back to Snug and the caravan park where a couple of beers were needed to prepare Lee for an afternoon nap (I'm sure the lack of sleep on the flight to Tasmania last night wasn't enough).

After all that we can look forward to Roast Pork for dinner and I'm sure that if we look hard we could find a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to go with it and Lee bought a bottle of Port for a night cap before we retire.