Cannonball Run

It was our last day in Tasmaina and we had a flight to catch. We had to be in Hobart by 5pm and we had several hundred kilometres to cover.
But first here are some photos of Liffey Falls. I'm pretty sure we visited them on the way to Launceston but I forgot to put the photos in yesterdays posting...
So here they are. This place was so like NZ it wasn't funny. I'm pretty sure those pesky Tasmanians had popped over to NZ and stolen a bit. I'm not sure how they got it past customs, maybe they snuck home on a Sunday (when NZ is closed)?


The track to the falls had this rather amazing piece of sculpture. It was a combined effort, with 3 artists contributing glass, steel and wood work. See what happens when people work together! Isn't that nice!



Here are the Falls... According to one of the locals there used to be two logs in the falls and they looked more impressive but someone at the local council decided to have the logs removed (after 30 odd years). Maybe they were looking a bit messy?
But then, this same local also thought NZ was like a carton of eggs... maybe we'll just smile and keep walking... :-)





So where were we? Oh yes, racing to Hobart to catch our flight...
We left Deloraine and headed south, through the Lake District. We had a little over 250km to cover.
We climbed altitude (the lake district is kinda alpine). If we had been here in winter everything would have been covered in snow, but we weren't, so it wasn't.



When we got to the lake district the road promptly changed to gravel....


Gee, what a shame. I hate driving on gravel.... honest :-D
A bit further along the road there was a sign saying 27km of gravel road. MadHatter didn't photograph it, she was too busy trying to photograph the lakes.





We had a long way to go so I couldn't afford to drive slow (honest!). At one stage our trusty 121 managed 90kph - don't tell MadHatter! My subaru would like Tasmania!
The lake district has a population of about 12. During the fishing season this swells to about 48,000,000. I think it wasn't the fishing season when we were there. It was kinda empty. We stopped at a service station in the middle of nowhere (literally) to get a bit of fuel. This wasn't the kind of place you'd want to run out of gas... they make movies about things like that! MadHatter eyed up the selection of pies in the service station pie warmer (she's been in Australia too long!). Curious as to the variety of pies on offer she asked the helpful attendant: "What are they?", to which she got the reply: "They're pies..." (with an 'are you from space?!!' look).
"Oh.... what flavour are they?"
"Meat"

Nice.
They do things simple round these parts.
Anyway, enough mingling with the locals, it was time to hit the road again. Unfortunately the gravel finished just around the corner and we were back onto the black stuff.

After a few hours we passed through this wee town. I couldn't resist.



Yes, I know it's spelled wrong, but I thought it was funny anyway.
Small things...

Before we knew it we were back in Hobart. We made a b-line for the airport and boarded our flight back to Melbourne. As we took off one of the engines made a really loud "I'm going to break" squealing noise, but it didn't.

And so concludes the travel blog for Tasmania, long may it rest in peace. It has only taken me several months to complete it, and now I have a few other travels which have happened in the mean time which need to be blogged. Is there any rest?!!