Devonport to Burnie

It took just 20 minutes to get the old Vectra off the Spirit of Tasmania. The operation is a well oiled machine. First stop, the laundromat which doesn't make for instructive travel stories. 90 minutes and with a week's worth of freshly laundered clothes folded and bagged later, I departed. Being the well organised person that I am I had made absolutely no plans about what I was doing and where I was going. So I headed to the Devonport Tourist Information office where two volunteers (I think they were retirees) spent a good hour with me showing me things to do in Tassie (thank you guys you were great). They then handed me off to one of the paid staff who booked me some accommodation in Burnie for the night. With no more excuses I headed out to discover Tasmania.

God Bless The Spirit of Tasmania 2 and all who sail on her

Now I was not sure what to expect of Tasmania (I'm thinking another country maybe) but it took a good ten minutes to head out of Devonport and I was off into the wilds of the north west. When I had been in the Yarrangobilly Caves they had insisted I visit a couple here. According to the map they were about a 30 minute drive away so I headed out to check them out. Well 30 minutes wasn't quite right. For starters you don't often get the car up to 100 k's here, the roads wind about too much for that. Martha was a trouper and found all of these off the beaten track places (some of the road signage left a bit to be desired). What I hadn't factored in was the laid back lifestyle. I came across some stock crossing the road and one of them went a bit berserk. Well all the locals stopped to help, right in the middle of the road. So what could I do but go with the flow. I got out of the car and helped herd the recalcitrant cattle into the right field and continued on my way. All in days work.

I went into two caves both full of natural beauty and amazing limestone formations. I won't bore you with the details but I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Both of them had glow worms (these are essentially just maggots filled with luminescent poo). It's a lot harder to make tourists get excited about bright coloured excrement so they call them glow worms instead). 

The first one I visited was the Marakoopa Cave. Here are the pics.

The second one was the Gunns Plains Cave. Here are the pics.

I headed into Burnie and checked in to my accommodation, had a steak at the pub and went to bed early. That washing and drying stuff really took it out of me. It's off to a whisky distillery tomorrow. Good Times !!