Tasmania Bound

After a day of travel prep in Narooma; you know the usual clean up and internet use etc. we get on a bus for Melbourne.

View from the Cematery Narooma

We did manage a great walk and swim capped off by a visit to a cemetery set high up on a headland looking out over the ocean. The lead up to the bus ride was interesting; we disassembled the bikes and packed gear across from Lynches Hotel which is where the bus stops. Lots of folks stopped to chat! Dinner and beers at the Hotel were great - we got to watch Olympic replays then we jumped on the bus at around 10:00pm. After an all night bus ride where the AC broke we arrive in Melbourne kind of tired.

Melbourne

A couple of days were spent exploring; we also managed to get a Yoga class in with a local Anusara Teacher, Camilla.  Melbourne is a lovely city with lots to do, nice architure a mix of old and new with waterways everywhere and different bridges and paths to navigate over them.

Southern Cross Station

Just a cool Melbourne Home

We then jumped on the train with our bikes to get to a bike shop that had experience with Bike Fridays. It proved to be a great shop  (Cycle Science; http://www.cyclescience.com.au/ ) with great folks. Peter the owner had us stay at his place overnight where we met his family and were free to use his internet to catch up on a few more things.

Peter Diana and Berlin

After stopping in at the shop the next day to say good bye it was back on the transit system(train) to get back downtown and close to the ferry for Tas.
We booked into hotel in South Melbourne and did a dry run to the ferry as we wanted to be certain we knew how to get to the dock.

We needed to be at the ferry for approx. 06:30 am so we were up early morning riding through the streets of Melbourne a lovely short ride just as the city was waking, following the route we had found the evening before.
The ferry ride was nothing short of spectacular. Melbourne harbour is huge and rather complex to exit. It was great to see this large ship navigate a severly constricted channel. The open ocean portion of the crossing was very calm which Diana though was great! The crossing takes 09 hours so we had lots of time to explore the ship and chat with people; catch up on some reading and knitting and watch several hours of Olympic Coverage. We arrived in Devonport Tas. at approx. 18:30. After a frustrating time trying to locate our fuel bottle which was transported seperately by the Ferry authorities - emptied and filled with water, we continued on to a hilarious encounter with a grocery store owner who was closing as we rode up but insisted on opening for us even though it probably meant that he missed the flight that he was on his way to catch. We found our way to the campground and set up camp looking directly out at the ferry we had arrived on as she was loading for her return voyage. She left with all flags flying at approx. 10:00pm. We look forward to our return trip on her sometime around the 20th of March. Next on the adgenda; riding the west coast of Tas. Stay tuned!! Diana & Ian