Tasmania, Part II

September 26-29, 2012 – Tasmania Australia Part II

Wednesday morning, day #29 of Return 2 Oz 2012 and we enjoyed a sunny day in Hobart. We walked down to the wharf and caught a ferry up the Derwent River to the MONA Museum. Several people have told us not to miss this museum, so it was top of our list of things to see. Quite interesting the Museum of Old and New Arts, it markets itself as an kinky adult Disneyland, we found it to a bit “out there” bit of sex, death and a lot blood. The building itself was very interesting, perched up on a cliff above the river. None of the art (pictures, sculptures, videos, etc.) were titled, each visitor was given an O machine (like an I-pod) which told you what you were seeing, a bit about the work and some also had audio attached.  We spent the morning seeing the exhibits. When we returned to the city we spent some time walking around the Salamanca Market area (old warehouses built by the convict labor) – lots of browsing and a bit of shopping.  Dinner that night was at a fun pub, Jack Greens. Didn’t every find out who Jack was; but he had a very fine selection of spirits, even our beloved 4 Roses Bourbon.

Thursday morning saw us packing up the little MoHo and heading north out of town towards Launceston.  At least that was the plan, after fueling up the rig, it suddenly “took crook” it would not stay running and as the guy from the fuel station said “doesn’t sound good” – gotta love a good understatement. A call to Apollo brought out a local mechanic who attempted to get us going again, to no avail, Mike limped it to his garage a few miles away.  After sitting there was several hours he still couldn’t figure out was wrong. We started contacting Apollo and asking them for an exchange rig – that was not going to happen. The local distributor had several in his lot, but was not about to give us one.  A bit of panic set in, tomorrow is Friday, if they can’t fix it, we will miss our Saturday ferry back to Melbourne….. Oh the drama began to build. Of course one always imagines the worst at times like these.  We made several calls to both the local Apollo and corporate Apollo all of whom said they would “get back to us”….. Several hours and we still had heard nothing.  We got a room at a local hotel for the night and tried to think positive thoughts J.  After dinner we returned to our room and we sent an e-mail to CEO of Apollo up in Brisbane, describing our delemia and our worries. We went to bed hoping that Friday would be a better day.

Friday morning – good news Tony the “wonder mechanic” worked until late last night and finally figured out the cause our problem, and made the necessary repairs.  We were able to get back on the road and make up time. We did hear that the local dealer had heard from corporate about our “problems” and there was an attempt at “making nice” – a bit late as they hadn’t seemed to care about returning our calls yesterday.  Back on the road we headed north towards Launceston. Made a stop mid morning at the Red Bridge, cute little park with interesting tree sculptures, and café with freshly made scones and donuts (yummy). Launceston was our stop for evening; we took a nice walk around town and had a nice beer sampling at Boag’s Brewery (Tasi beer).

Saturday morning, we survived a night of HEAVY rain and wind and headed towards Devonport, Tasmania (where we catch the ferry back to the mainland). We made a stop at the Catarac Gorge for a nice walk around. We had been there on a school trip back in the early the 1970’s. -- Still a beautiful place, and we got our look at it with a bit of sun (rain as soon as we got back in the MoHo). 99 kilometers to go and we are back to the port; on the way we stopped in LaTrobe to try and catch a glimpse of the illusive platypuses, -- a couple of walks around the pond with binoculars in hand revealed no “duck bills” More precipitation (a bit of snow too)… we made our way to the port, got the little MoHo secure in the garage on the ferry and breathed a big sigh of relief, we were going to get back to Melbourne and see our friends.