The Montifiore Manse

Pics from Day Trips with Bert and Jan

Here are some long-awaited pics from some of the trips we took with our friends Bert & Jan Stam from Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. As I put the pictures up, I realized they weren't exactly in order chronologically; however, they are basically in order within each trip.

Here is Bert with his new hat that he got at Salamanca Market in Hobart. Salamanca Market is a Tasmanian craft and produce market held every Saturday down on the waterfront in Hobart. A street is filled with over 300 booths and tents selling just about anything. After careful time and thought, Bert selected a good Ozzie hat for himself. With or without the hat, Bert is always one cool guy- though he would vehemently deny it.

Bert wasn't the only one who was looking at hats. Jan and Martha were trying on a couple. Not exactly their best choice for church hats, but amazingly cute!

Here is our crew just finishing a bratwurst lunch break while shopping and sightseeing at Salamanca Market.

We took a little cruise together out of Strahan, a little town four hours northeast of Launceston. This is our tour boat heading out through historic Hell's Gates. Hell's Gates is the dangerously narrow and shallow entrance to Macquarie Harbor on Tassie's west coast. Inside Macquarie Harbor is the famous Sarah Island penal colony. It was a place of secondary punishment for convicts sent to Tassie who re-offended.

Here is a picture looking back at Hell's Gates from the Southern Ocean.

Sarah Isaland was one of the most notorious penal colonies. It was known for its harsh conditions and corruption. Eventually Sarah Island was closed as it was replaced by Port Arthur near Hobart. Here are some ruins of the soldiers' barracks on the island.

After we toured Macquarie Harbor, Sarah Island, and went up the Gordon River, we went back to the town of Strahan. There we saw an advertisement for a play about the true story of the last convict-built boat on Sarah Island. The convicts stole the ship and sailed to Chile. Some escaped from there to America or Jamaica, but others were deported back to Tassie again. We had thought we would simply watch the play, but folks from the audience were pulled into it. Yours truly got to play the part of a hero of sorts and then die quietly afterward.

We spent the night in Strahan and drove north to Stanley to see the Nut.
The pic is of Bert, Martha, Jan, and I aboard a small, rocking boat for a one-hour "Seal Tour."


Yes, we got to see seals on the Seal Cruise. Quite up-close, in fact. The only challenge was to take a picture that actually caught the object without blurring or totally missing the intended subject due to the rocking of the boat in the waves and the movement of the animals. It didn't help that it was necessary to zoom in quite a lot to get a good photo.

This is the Nut as seen from the seal cruise boat. It is a big piece of rock sticking up out of the ocean. It has a fairly flat top and there is a chair lift to the top for those preferring not to try the steep hike. Many scientists believe it to be a volcanic plug.

This and the following pics were taken from the chair lift on the way up the Nut. For some odd reason, our camera quit working near the top and started working again once we got down. Murphy's law, perhaps? The view from the Nut is spectacular, though, and these pics do not even begin to capture it.

After visiting the Nut, we headed east and then south back to Launceston. On the way, we stopped at the Creative Paper Factory in Burnie. It is a very artsy place with paper artists working in residence and sculptures made from paper on display. They make their own paper from all sorts of things, even kangaroo poo. We almost didn't stop here, but seeing we all had coupons for a free tour, we gave it a go. It was informative and fun.

Check it out! There are larger displays, like two old men playing checkers and a jazz group singing and playing by a paper piano.... but for some *ahem* reason this one stood out as special.

Here are Bert, Jan, and Martha making a piece of paper with a "Creative Paper" water mark. This paper was not made with kangaroo poo, just various types of cloth and fiber.

The day after returning from Stanley, we continued our three-day touring marathon with a cruise of the historic Tamar River that flows all the way down to Launceston. We started with a short excursion into the Gorge, and then turned around and went north halfway up to the ocean.

On the way up we got to see a pair of white-bellied sea eagles! Even better, we managed to get a decent photo of them. :)

On the west side of the Tamar, there are a number of netted vineyards where the grapes are grown that will eventually supply their life juice to make world-famous (right, folks?) Tasmanian wines. (What? You've never heard of any Tassie wines?? No, you know you love the "Ninth Island" Chardonnays and Merlots... you just have a bad memory for names!)


And finally, we made it up to the Batman Bridge. It's a fascinating piece of construction and the only bridge across the Tamar. It's also the place we'll leave you for now... hope you enjoyed the ride!