South Australia & Northern Territory – Here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!

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We are finally on our way! It has been a very busy last two weeks prior to our leaving.

We have had numerous farewell coffees, lunches & dinners with friends & family as well as a busy time preparing our car (aka Lightning) & our caravan (aka Wally) for the trip.

We said goodbye to our neighbours & left our home in Bellerive & travelled via the Midland Highway to Oatlands where we had lunch. The highway is one of our major inter-city highways running for 176 kilometres between Hobart and Launceston. It is a vital link for road freight to transport goods to and from the two cities. It represents a major north–south transportation corridor in Tasmania. It was known as the ‘Main Road’ or ‘Hobart Road’ for most of its history. In the 1930s it became known as the Midland Highway, and in the 2000s – it also had ‘The Heritage Highway’ label applied to it.

There has been mounting pressure for the Highway to be upgraded to a four-lane carriageway for 20 years to fall in line with the Auslink network of highways such as the Hume and Pacific as it is Tasmania’s most heavily travelled stretch of long highway. There are a huge amount of roadworks occurring on the highway as the state & federal governments work towards this goal.

We left the Midland Highway & visited the little town of Longford where we met our friends Bob & Vicki, &, enjoyed a coffee at the local bakery.The town is situated at the convergence of the Macquarie & South Esk rivers 21 km south of Launceston. The region is predominantly agricultural, noted for wool, dairy produce and stock breeding.

 

Our next destination was Devonport via the Bass Highway where we met our friends Sharon & Raymond Bent for dinner prior to boarding our ferry. The highway connects the major cities across the north of the state – Burnie, Devonport & Launceston. The road was named due to its proximity to the Bass Strait.After dinner we drove to the ferry terminal & boarded the Spirit of Tasmania 2 for what was a rough crossing of Bass Strait which made for a late arrival in Melbourne.

Our vehicles were adjacent to the overnight dog pens & at one stage it looked like Cheryl wanted to steal a little “cute, lovely” Fido but thankfully the owners eventually came!

We are now staying at Hoppers Crossing with my daughter Michel & will be catching up with my son, Trevor tonight.

Milo is Michel & Gopi’s dog. He is adorable & very well behaved.