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Today is Thursday Feb 2 2006
Well here we are awake and ready for breakfast prior to leaving this lovely little town ,Stanley, and begin our last driving leg of our tour back to Devonport. While eating breakfast it dawned on us how quickly the last 11 days have past us by and that Saturday is approaching very fast and our departure for home.
Thanking our hosts for the good night we set out driving along the Bass Highway which hugs the Bass Strait coastline passing through towns like Wynyard, Burnie, Penguin, Ulverstone and into Devonport. I will say also between these towns there are many smaller towns/hamlets and some have things to look at as well.
Just out Stanley is a place called Port Latta which is the ore loading seaport for the mined ores that are carried many miles by enclosed conveyor belt from Savage River to Port Latta where itis refined into pellets then loaded onto large ships by another 2km conveyor belt out into the deep water and the ships.
Passing Port Latta you have the opportunity to stop at many places along the north coast of Tasmania as there is always something or some place to stop to view something. A lot of the small places are beach side and holiday places others are small towns. As we passed through we stopped at places like Crayfish creek,Rocky Cape, Sister's Beach then into Wynyard. These smaller places were just long enough to get a photo or two.
Wynyard is the centre of a rich farming area and also a popular tourist place with its own airport nearby and has several major attractions to visit like Gutteridge Gardens that is anice parkland setting with BBQ/Playground for family picnics, Along with that one can take a short drive to Table Cape where you have a lighthouse shining at night over rugged coastline and next door you can visit the Cape Tulip Farm, supposedly the biggest in Australasia region, there is also a few paddock of poppies grown here.
After Wynyard the next town we came upon was Somerset, which where we turned off the highway south a day or so back, on our way to Burnie. The Town is the 4th largest on the island and has a deep water port which enables Ore carriers and Merchant ships to come and trade as well as being port of call for cruise ships at times. It has several large industries in or close to town those being Australian Paper Mills, one of the state's main industries,along with Lactose Cheese factory . Alos you will find a fine attraction in Burnie Pioneer Village which has a display depicting the town and how it was back 100 years ago. The traveller can also get good views or and over the town from two lookouts located in Mount Street and Round Hill. To go with those , if one is interested you can visit a working Alpaca Stud Farm not too far out of town.
With Devonport not too far away we came to a small town called Penguin, as with many places in the early days this was also a iron ore mining and timber town, shipping timber to the mainland and to NZ. It got its name from the little penguin rookeries that are very common along the coast. Main attraction here are Hiscutt Park an authentic Dutch windmill and the Big Penguin statue located in a park in the main street area of the town. Upon leaving the traveller has two options to continue either along the main Bass Highway thats inland or along the old highway tht hugs the coast where you can see the rugged coastline between here and Ulverstone.
Well with only about 15 minute drive before reaching Devonport now we drove into Ulverstone that during late spring and summer becomes a very popular seaside town that is the centre of the dairying and agriculture industry here. several drawcards are the Shrine of remerance Clock Tower in Main street along with some nice memorial parks like Anzac and Tobruk Parks. Two other things are the History Museum and Woodcraft Guild Workshop and Gallery that merit a little look.
With the journey over we arrive in Devonport outer suburbs and into the city crossing the Mersey River and into East Devonport to Find our accomodation for our final two nights in Tasmania at Rannoch House B&B. The best part about this place it was not 5 minutes from the ferry terminal for us
Arriving at the place we found it was a lovely large old country mansion and a great way to conclude our stay here, itwas close to ferry and to town also.
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