Van Diemen’s land, or Tasmania as it is now called, was a colonial island used by the British in the 19^th century. For those not too clued up on geography, it lies to the south of Australia, and can be arrived at by plane or ferry. We chose the ferry option, which involved an overnight sailing of about 12 hours. We had decided we were going to do two weeks on the island touring in a motorhome. A strange decision, as all of our previous motorhome experiences had resulted in disasters of one kind or another….but we were sure this time it was going to be different. It did not start well, as in an amazing error of planning (for which no one will receive the blame), Fran someone had been given the job of arranging the motorhome and had decided to rent one from Hobart. Now whilst Hobart is the capital city of Tasmania and a beautiful place to visit, it is about as far away from where the ferry lands as is possible. Fortunately, we had come over in Lottie’s van and so we were able to drive the 3 hours necessary to pick up the van, but it is wasn’t a good omen. On picking up the van we noticed that a few things weren’t quite right. The statement from the owner “some friends have said the brakes are a bit spongy but they just need pumping”, didn’t fill us with much confidence. Neither were we impressed when she said the cooker doesn’t work, as it’s been condemned on safety grounds. Also the bike rack wasn’t suitable for our three mountain bikes and we had to waste a day hiring one that was. There were other issues, too numerous to mention here but we had to accept the vehicle as there were no other options available. So we all spent some time praying to Gods we don’t believe in and set off on our travels. Stuart drove as we all agreed he has the strongest legs with which to operate the brakes in the event they were needed. 

After sorting the bike racks out we headed for our first campsite on the Tasman Penninsula, Southeast of the island. The campsites here are incredibly well equipped with everything you need and really put even our best sites in the UK to shame. This one even had a social room with sofas and a huge open fire. After the first night in our comfortable but deadly mobile accommodation, we walked to nearby Port Arthur, a penal colony where we sent our most hardened convicts and secondary offenders, those who had offended since having arrived in Australia. We arrived in blazing sun and it has to be said, the place has a certain beauty about it. This was soon tarnished however when you realised the brutality that ran through the history of the place. It has to be remembered that at the time, even non-convicts had a battle to survive in this land, so far from “civilization”. When the penal colony was operating the age of legal responsibility was 7 in the UK. As a result, some of the convicts were very young indeed and a few even having to wear leg irons throughout the day.

After the beautiful but equally thought provoking Port Arthur, we needed some exercise, so enjoying a good mountain as we do, we headed for Mt Wellington. At 1271m, it isn’t the highest in Tasmania but it does give great views of Hobart and the surrounding areas. We spend a good time up there soaking in the late afternoon sun and enjoying the views before heading to our next campsite.

Now, it’s a well know thing about driving motorhomes, that when you reverse you should have someone out of the vehicle watching you back. Why Stuart the driver didn’t do this when attempting a three point turn is a mystery. What is also a mystery is where the muddy verge had come from in an area that hadn’t seen rain for quite some time. The result, was a vehicle wedged across and almost completely blocking a significant road. Now it looked just like a dirt farm track to us but we’d already had a rather irate person bollock us for stopping on the brow of a hill on this farm track significant road. After a couple of attempts to move the mud bound vehicle, it was Lottie who came to the rescue. She disappeared down the road and grabbed a farmer who duly came and pulled us out. It was a bit embarrassing but at least we hadn’t caused a local traffic jam on this “significant road”.

We are a great lover of beaches and today we visited a beach that we all felt has to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Stuart did have to be a bit sparing with the truth to get us there but it was well worth it. He explained the beach was a short walk up a slope. Short was about 12km and a slope was in fact a mountain. Many tourist made the trip to the top of the “slope” to view Wineglass Bay but not many carried on down the other side to the beach. The result was that for about 30 minutes we had this beach all to ourselves. I won’t do it a disservice by describing it in words, the pictures do a better job.

They say that disasters come in threes, so to be fair we were expecting something else to happen to the Motorhome, so the next day and with a well-practiced sigh Stuart announces whilst driving that the engine was overheating. “It’s not just hot, I’m stopping now”, he states in a rather resigned way that seems to be very common for him these days. We pull over in a beach car park that very conveniently was nearby and we use our vast experience in car mechanics to see if we can fix it, at least we would have if we could even have opened the bonnet……. but surprise surprise this was also broken on “Donkey”, the nickname we had given this wannabe motorhome. We did eventually get the pickup truck to take Donkey off us and deliver Lottie’s van to our location but not for over 24hrs. So ended our motorhome holiday and we entered our Motel mayhem!!!!!