Tuesday 17th

No breakfast booked at Strahan so a quick banana and biscuits with coffee before setting off for Hobart. An interesting drive – the first section to Queenstown and beyond was very wiggly up and over hills, so it was very slow going. Stopped for coffee in Queenstown which to be frank wasn’t a very attractive place. It’s an old mining town and the landscape is full of mining scars and spoil heaps. They’ve made an attempt to make it tourist friendly with the railway (which was originally built for the mines) and with museums and displays but it has a long way to go before it becomes an attractive place to stay. Unusually for Oz the public loos were pretty bad as well.

Drove onto Lake St Clair, stopping at various places for photos, etc including Franklin River. At Lake St Clair we had lunch in the Visitor Centre (another NP and World Heritage site) and had a quick look at the lake before pushing on. Roads from here were decidedly better and we drove pretty well non-stop except for a side visit to Tarraleah to look at the penstocks running down to the power station. A strange place as it looks like a brand new holiday village with a smart restaurant/hotel and a café. Found out later that this is supposed to be one of the world's top 100 hotels.

Carried on until stopping for a quick drink in Hamilton. After that straight through to Hobart where we just caught the rush hour and strangely there seemed to be a great deal of traffic going into the city rather than out – possibly going to the Tasman Bridge to go out of town to the east.

The day started off cold, with drizzle on and off, but never the hard rain that we wanted to wash off the sand from the dirt road yesterday. Eventually it brightened and was quite sunny when we got to Hobart.

It had been a long hard drive, and we simply had a cup of tea and then took our time making sure that everything was OK and sorted for the flights tomorrow. After a short rest we went out to eat. At first we were very surprised – the whole area of the street parallel to ours (where we’d previously found all the restaurants) was full of people and cars, and our intended destination (Fish349) was packed. We drove down the street, and then spotted a garage with a car wash. We were a bit embarrassed by the state of the car after the dirt roads in Strahan, but when we went in they said they didn’t recommend it for the Tarago, because of the spoiler. Instead they recommended a place back on Argyll Street. We drove round the block and found that this place was a DIY car wash, with a sophisticated coin operated system – put in some money and switch between about 8 different washes and three nozzles. Took us 3 minutes and $2 to get the car looking better.

Back round the block and parked in a side road and managed to get a table in Fish349. Lovely meal again – Les had Flake – cheapest on the menu but great. Anne finally got round to trying the Atlantic salmon – excellent with a lovely salad which included pear and parmesan! Back to hotel and a nice chat in the bar with some Aussies – a Tassie couple in Hobart on business and a Melbourne couple on holiday – he was taking a break from firefighting!

Wednesday 18th

A steady start with coffee and biscuits in the room, then checking out and driving 30 mins to the airport. Very simple check in, and plenty of time for coffee etc and reading the newspaper before a quick flight to Melbourne. Clear skies, and the best views we’ve ever had from 35000ft.