The Ferry to Tasmania

The ferry ride last night was wonderful. We arrived bright and early (second in the queue actually but more soon arrived). It was really social waiting as they sent all vans into one line and that's how we boarded.

I went to Tassie by ferry many years ago. It was a rough crossing, I was seasick and being young and poor, we opted for seats for the night. This time it was so smooth apart from a bit of rolling around going through the heads and we had a cabin. A nice cabin with our own en-suite which was well worth the expense.

Loading was a slick operation. Russ only had to produce his licence to be given our boarding passes and room keys. The ferry is quite spacious with several bars, restaurants, a theatrette, gaming room and play room for kids. We had a reasonable buffet dinner, then headed down to the back of the boat and a bar with arm chairs and a pretty good guitarist/singer playing mostly 70s music. It was a lovely place to sit and see Melbourne disappear at sunset.

This morning we got a wake up call and an explanation of disembarking. We were able to take our time as our vehicle was on level 6 and would be last to be offloaded. We strolled down to a late breakfast (and hadn't finished it) when a call came over the intercom to say "could the driver of a silver Nissan Nivara TTJ129 come at once to their vehicle on LEVEL 5!!" We had to leave our breakfasts and run to the car-Ours was sitting in front of all those nice people we met last night and the rest of the level was completely empty. I could have died on the spot! Russ had guessed that because we only came up one level on the escalator to level seven with it's cabins and restaurants etc, that we were parked on level 6. I'd guess the escalator was two levels long! Anyhow I'll make sure I check the actual level number on the way home.

We drove the 110ks to Longford stopping at a bakery for breakfast no 2 and a new start to our holiday. It's 11.43 and we are completely set up in the very beautiful caravan park. It's on the banks of a river that we'll be able to travel about 10ks in in the boat one way, then get into the Esk river the other. We will be able to fish for trout which will be a first.

I'm surprised at the number of trucks on the roads-especially large ones hauling sea containers to and from the ferry. Luckily there are plenty of overtaking lanes as the hills make it slow going for us.