Tasmania and More

Hallo Every-one, Joe and I have just been to the state of Tasmania for a lovely holiday. We hired a car and after 4 nights in the capital, Hobart, we set off around the island to see as much as possible(I had in the mind the Griswolds heading to Wally World via The World's Biggest Banana etc). It is a relatively small state and it was almost like being in another country at times. The western areas are mountainous temperate rain forest and we enjoyed a steam train  ride through wilderness, here the engine is being turned manually

the King River Gorge through the train window...

We saw waterfalls, tree ferns and amazing fungi at Nelson Falls,

I visited the replica of Mawson's Hut at Antarctica on the Hobart waterfront(and cried, the 18 men were so very young and brave) and the beautiful replica sailing ship, Lady Nelson that brought early pioneers from England...

 Douglas Mawson's corner of the hut, the others were crammed into bunks around the edge

so very small for such a long sea journey

Beautiful deserted beaches on the east coast where it was dry farming land ...Marion Beach

had so much fabulous food and wine...seafood platter at Port Arthur...

We visited the  UnZoo and saw kangaroos, wallabies and most uniquely 2 Tasmanian Devils which are an endangered species these days...the female was eating a wallaby hind quarter...

Himself was snoozing in the sun...

This is a section of the Port Arthur Penal Colony, one of Australia's first settlements, well preserved but with a sad and violent history..

We saw mountains and historic houses, the oldest bridge and oldest hotel, markets and farms, ate scallop pies for the first time and walked miles every day. 

At the main museum in Hobart I learned more about the appalling genocide that went on in the this state in the 1800s when most of the native population were with slaughtered or imprisoned where they died in awful conditions. This was thought provoking to say the least.

I have so many more photos and stories but this will give you a hint of our holiday...here are some links to some of the sites we visited...

West Coast Wilderness Railway

Mawson's Huts

Tasmanian Devil Unzoo 

Nelson Falls

Port Arthur

Salamanca Market

Tasmanian Scallop Pies (on my to-do list)

We'd love to go again!!!

xxx

Some of Joe's Holiday Photos

Obviously Joe took pics of things I missed or didn't particularly see the beauty of so here are some of his photos taken with his mobile phone...the beach at Nice

statue in Nice

a water playground of fountains, very popular on the hot days in Nice...

our bedroom...

bounty from the market...

a window dating back hundreds of years...

 Carpaccio for lunch in St Remy...

very worn steps near the Roman Amphitheater... 

a lovely entrance to a home...

pretty blue shutters and ivy enhance this home...I think this is a holiday let btw

now doesn't this look mysterious...how long has that curtain been hanging in that window?

 this fish shop only opens on Thursday mornings, perhaps just to supply fish for Christians on Friday?

and last but not least, this battered door could tell some tales if it could talk...

Hope you enjoyed this little glimpse of Provence

Love Sue xx

Noumea Photos

So Twitch is a million times better now but still wobbly and will need the panacur for another 2 weeks...it's a miracle to us as we were sure he was not going to recover...he's been out of his box and is able to sit up to groom himself which is great. Thanks for all the love and support this last fortnight xxx

Now here are the few pics I took from the ship of Nouméa in New Caledonia. The reason there are no photos from off the ship is that on the first night I stood up in the dark at 2am to go to the bathroom, my knee gave way and slammed into the hard beading around a full length mirror. The pain was appalling and I spent much of the next two weeks in bed...more anon.
Joe went ashore as he was keen to buy a bottle of French wine, Gaillac, which we first had in Paris in 2007. Mission accomplished he also came back with a large square of beautiful fabric for me...it was called a coupon in French! Next to the docks is a large nickel mining plant which doesn't enhance the view but provides work for the local people.

My photos...


the first is my curry and chips...obviously comfort eating that lunchtime..

view from the table at the back of the ship

the nickel plant is a blot on the landscape, I would have loved to get up into those mountains on a tour...

Now this is Joe queuing to get back on board taken from Deck 12...it really is a massive ship...he's in the middle about level with the back of the right-hand bus...

Our steward was most attentive and enjoyed surprising us with animal created from the towels...this bunny was our favourite of course...

  Monkey was cute too lol

The next stop was Fiji and the photos are pretty similar but will share one or two, then we visited 3 ports in New Zealand.

Love from Sue
xx

PS have recently bought this book about our ancestor Jennet Cragg, most enchanting story telling from 1877!

Coo-eeee!

Lovely old warehouses on Sydney Harbour, see the bridge in the background?

Time to get back to this sad neglected blog I think!

Hopefully every-one had a safe and blessed Christmas? We had a lovely dinner with Mum and Dad, Paul, Gordon and Bree and Jessica and Olivia but didn't take any decent photos :/

In February, with Mum and Dad, we left home and flew to Sydney to join our much anticipated cruise on the Voyager of the Seas with an overnight stay in Sydney first. I had a window seat on the plane and was saddened by the dryness of this big brown land at the end of summer...soon the rains will be here and the greenery will sprout very, very quickly. What did fascinate me was once we'd flown over the Great Australian Bite I could see the Murray River wending it's way west across South Australia...it is huge and I could almost hear the stories of early settlers as they settled on it's banks.

We took lots of photos as usual so I'll post a few of Sydney and the ship today and then show some more in a day or two...Pitt St sign in the first photo...

This building is similar to one in Montreal, probably built around the same time (Joe looks a bit serious)

Queen Victoria sure gets around...

Another building very similar to one we saw in Canada...this is on the dock and perhaps housed the Harbour Master and his family at one time...

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I would love to go back to Sydney to explore it's historical aspects..and for the first time ever I saw big wild bats flying in a park at dusk!  I was thrilled to spot Luna Park under the Sydney Harbour Bridge...

Bye bye Sydney...

the unique Opera House...

The empty swimming pool on the ship, it was rather cool before we left although the spa was in much use

One of the many lovely decorative features on board...

Julius Caesar came along for the ride... he was watching over the pool area and was beautifully carved.

Our first stop was Noumea but that's a tale for another day.
Hooroo!!

The Castel Felice

I have just joined a Facebook group called Castel Felice Ship and found lots of photos and stories of their crossings to Australia from other members. There is no way I can learn who took all these photos so I cannot give credit to the photographers...

My parents, younger brother, Ian and I set sail from a snowy Southampton on December 10th 1967. I had my 11th birthday two days later, Mum and Dad gave me the presents from our family.
We had intended to fly to Perth but an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK meant we had to sail as a form of quarantine. The ships usually went through the Suez Canal but as the ongoing war/conflict between Egypt and Israel made it unsafe we had to take the long way around stopping at Los Palmas in the Canary Islands and Cape Town in South Africa.

We children were required to go "school" each morning to keep up our reading etc as the trip lasted 29 days in all. Being under the age of 12 yrs I had to eat with the younger children and the meals were more suited to very young children and so quite unpalatable for me...I made up at Afternoon Tea-time with extra cakes!
There were regular activities organised such as a fancy dress party and the most important crossing of the equator ceremony presided over by King Neptune...we were all given a certificate like this one...

Somewhere we have a photo of Mum dressed as a pirate doing the limbo dance!

Crossing the Bay of Biscay was rather rough and Mum was unwell for a day but once out into the open sea we all enjoyed the sailing. We went ashore in Los Palmas and saw markets selling typical Spanish dolls and sombrero hats etc. Later on we saw flying fish from the ship and it was soon warm enough to "swim" in this pool that was deeper than it was wide!

Arriving in Cape Town was memorable. The bright blue skies, Tabletop Mountain and porpoises swimming in the harbour made a big impression. It was Boxing Day and 96F and we went by bus to the park at the top of the mountain. I wore a pink long sleeved woollen dress from Marks and Spencers with long white socks and my black patent leather shoes for this outing lol!
Sadly we saw at first hand the shame of apartheid, park benches with "no blacks" etc written on them, separate toilets and segregation even on the buses. We also saw 3 young black women who had obviously been drinking try to board a bus ...the conductor would not let them on and swung his heavy ticket machine into the face of one girl. We were shocked and went back to the ship.

The crossing to Fremantle took 2 more weeks and we had to divert south to avoid a severe storm in the Indian Ocean. It was so rough that we children were able to slide on our bottoms from side to side across the Purser's Foyer as the ship rolled! It must have been frightening for the older people but I was invincible at that age. Ropes were strung across the larger rooms to hold on to and the dining rooms were almost empty as people stayed in their cabins.

Castel Felice was first launched in 1930, named the "Kenya" and sailed between India and Africa, you can read more of her story here . Robert Brinkhuis has written a wonderful account of his family's crossing here and I can now see that some of the photos come from his story.
This ship was 150 metres long, the Voyager of The Seas is 311m long and Captain Cook's ship The Endeavor was a mere 32 metres! Castel Felice was scrapped in 1970 in Taiwan.

So that 'dear reader' is how we came to Australia!

Did any-one else sail here as a "ten pound pom"?
Sue
xx

Edited to add thanks to Neal in the group

Incoming Passenger Lists for January 1968