Arrived in Tasmania

Well, we are in Tasmania! yay! We arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday after a few warm days of travelling, but we just made it before all the rain hit the north west of Melbourne where there was flash flooding etc, just where we had come through the day before. Our few days in Melbourne were for washing and a bit of shopping. We travelled over the Westgate bridge, gee that is so high, and then back under the Yarra River through the tunnel. First impressions of Melbourne, big, busy, fast, we will look forward to seeing more of Melbourne when we come back through in April!

We left the van park at 6.45am this morning attempting to beat the traffic. Over the Westgate bridge we went and down to the pier where the Spirit of Tasmania sat ready for us to board - hang on a minute - we sat in a queue of traffic on the pier for two hours waiting to be loaded on. They were unloading 22 semi-trailers and the Ferry had been 45 minutes late getting in. Did you know the Ferry has 2.5km of parking space for vehicles and there were heaps of motorhomes and caravans going on today.

Consequently, we finally got on and left over an hour behind schedule. But, nothing dampened our nervous excitement as we went up to Deck 7 and found a lounge seat to park ourselves for the day. When we had started going, we went a watched the days' kids movie in the on board cinema. having come out from that (after and hour and a half) we were just about to pass through the heads of Port Philip Bay - just that bit took two hours!

The rest of the day passed with time in playground, visiting the gift store, a nature and wildlife talk mostly about the Tasmanian devil, face painting, a cartooning lesson and resting. A few of us felt a bit queasy, but the swell was only 1 - 1 1/2m so it really wasn't that bad. In the afternoon it got really calm and we didn't even notice any rocking movement and we all felt super then.

Docked in at Devonport at 7.30pm and all queued up again to get through customs! Checked into the van park here and got everyone to bed at 9pm. That made for a long and tiring day but very fruitful as we crossed the epic Bass Strait and are here to enjoy the Lovely Apple Isle.

Trust all is well with you, God bless you,
From the travelling Birch's

Pictures are
Grace as we are going through the heads
Our lounge seats
Face Painting
The Spirit of Tasmania before we sailed