April 24,2013

Burnie Tasmania.

Well this was certainly a great day.

It began early with a 6:30 wake up. By the time I had my shower breakfast arrived. It was cool and dreary and actually there was a little rain.

But we had a tour scheduled so away we went.

Because this is a very busy working port we are prohibited from walking on the dock, so the city provided us we a free shuttle bus to the town. Mush to our delight and surprise we were greeted by the mayor. He was dressed in his robe and his golden chain of office. There were volunteers passing out maps and tourist information. We were each given an I love Burnie pin. I learned later that the same pin sold for four dollars in town. So a free bus and a free pin was much better than no pin and a fourteen dollar charge to get into town when we were in Melbourne yesterday.

The first stop was at the Makers workshop. This is where we were to meet our guide for the light house tour and we found him right away. Much to my relief Steve had our name and a record that we had paid for the tour.

This Makers Workshop turned out to be quite an amazing place. There were artisans demonstrating their craft. It was very very interesting. They also had goods for sale.  We had an hour and a half before our tour was to begin and we spent it very happily watching the craftsmen and viewing the exhibits. We found some chocolate coated ginger which pleased Ken.

A very pleasant surprise was the greeting extended by 2 red hat ladies in full dress. I was so sorry that I had taken my Red Hat card out of my case. Anyway they were very nice, they gave me their card and a book mark and posed for a picture with me.

Soon Steve announced that it was time to go. This was to be a three hour tour of the area and it would include a trip to the top of the Table Cape Lighthouse.

There were eight of us taking the tour and we travelled in a small 12 passenger van so it was perfect. Soon after we left the skies cleared and we had a sunny day. The wind was cool but the sun made it feel much warmer.

 We were given a short tour on our way to the light house. The guide was Carl and he was a light house keeper early in his working career. It was a wonderful tour and Carl knew everything about the light and its history. It turned out that this was the last ever tour of the light. Carl  is retirering and there is no one to take his place. The owners of the property on which the light stands have decided not to bother with tours anymore. So we were on the last tour, I guess we were meant to see this one.

It is a beautiful well maintained  brick light covered with white cement.

The view from the top was spectacular.standing on the180 meter  high windswept plateau we know why it was called Table Cape, the land was as flat as a tabletop.

We were able to purchase a model of the light house and a fridge magnet. Carl happily posed for pictures and we gave him our card.

Steven drove us around and pointed out features of note along the way. We watch out for wildlife but they did not honour us with their presence.

We stopped for coffee at a lovely little place but soon we had to head back. The tour was supposed to be 3 hours long but we were treated to almost 4 hours of exploring this lovely countryside.

Tasmania really impressed us with its wonderful scenery and its friendly people.

We would readily return here because there was so much more to see and not enough time.