The Ship that Never Was!
Whenever I am on a plane I use the iPad “downtime” to catch up on my inflight reading courtesy of the travel magazines provided by the various airlines. During a recent trip I was surprised to see a few very familiar images. Images that immediately took me back to my 2005 Tasmania family holiday.
The article was proclaim the 3500+ showing of a play we had seen in Strahan, at the Visitors Centre Amphitheater. It is titled “The Ship That Never Was ” and is set in 1834. The Frederick, the last ship built at the convict settlement of Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour, is about to sail for the new prison at Port Arthur. Ten convict shipwrights have other ideas. So begins the story of an amazing escape, an extraordinary voyage and an intriguing twist in the tale.
Apparently is has been performed since 1993!
It was great family fun and Mr GG and the kids were all included on stage in the performance. The above image is my photo, which is almost identical to the one in this months Qantas Magazine.
Inspired by this trip down memory lane I though I would share some of my favourite Tasmanian Images with you.
We arrived in Davenport via the Spirit of Tasmania, our port of departure had been Sydney but that option is no longer available. It was a gorgeous day to be farewelling the Harbour Bridge and the buildings of the CBD. Notice the Harbour bridge climbers at the top!
We spent a very relaxing afternoon on “The spirit” researching the places we wanted to visited, and me familiarising myself with my new (Canon Camera). I was making the switch from SLR to Digital SLR so I had both bodies in my camera gear in case either myself or the camera had a melt down!
Our meal on board was a buffet of Tasmanian produce. Much to my delight Tasmania produces lots of gorgeous seafood. I have honestly never consumed so much smoked salmon and cheese at one meal. To finish we had a choice of desserts and then Cadbury chocolates… our holiday was off to a great start.
By the time we were ready to disembark the following day we had formulated a rough plan for the holiday. The number one priority was to ensure that we saw as much of this island state as possible. Mr GG is a man of extremes so we had brought the 4WD. He intended to take any dirt roads required to ensure we traversed the whole state and saw ever historic land mark, waterfall or point of interest!
So we spent the next three weeks circumnavigating the Island and then zigzaging through the centre of the state photographing and sampling everything Tasmania had to offer. As this was before the official commencement of Gourmet Getaways I don’t have food images to share.
If you are planning a trip to Tasmania I would highly recommend all the destination shown in the gallery of images at the end of the story.
Make sure you do the Boags and the Cascade beer tour and perhaps have a meal in their restaurant. There are so many great vineyard, a lot specialising in Pinot. Prior to this holiday I had not been fond of this style of wine, as I preferred a bigger red. By the end of our Tasmania tour I had a true appreciation of Pinot and it is still my favourite Summer red wine.
As you can see by these fat cows and green paddocks Tasmania also has great conditions for producing creamy milk! …and where there is creamy milk there is luscious cheese. We did a lot of cheese tasting and way too much purchasing. If it wasn’t for all the waterfall walks I might have sunk “The spirit of Tasmania” on the return trip.
We had promised the children a tour of the Cadbury’s factory so that required even more nibbling along the way. At the end of the tour there is a shop where visitors can purchased discounted chocolate seconds. YUM!
So that was my quick trip down memory lane… it is amazing how quickly time flies. I think a return trip may be long over due.
Click on an image to enlarge the thumbnail xx
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