travelling allrite

For us Tasmania is all about the food. It's so fresh, so tasty here. First thing this morning we headed off to Battery Point to eat breakfast at Jackman and McRoss. Sure their bread is described as artisan and we don't have ironic tatts and beards, and yes, B orders something with avocado that's not guacamole, but the food is actually really good. In my opinion the scrambled eggs in smoked salmon on a Danish bun is the pick of the menu. Fortunately the hotel in Launceston found Alex's toy, but we had promised him a trip to the Hobart Teddy Bear Shop, a place holding memories for B and I. After some agonising decision making he finally selects "Pinchy". After three days of long travel we decide on a shorter journey, just down to the historic town of Richmond. The route there passes through the Coal Valley region of vinyards. Not being wine drinkers, these don't interest us, but then we spot Coal Valley Farm which offers cheese, chocolates and frui...

There are no commercial passenger train services running in Tasmania and haven't been for forty years. The only way to ride the rails is on heritage services scattered over the island. The most popular of these is the West Coast Wilderness Railway (WCWR), an isolated 1067 mm service running between Queenstown and Strahan on the West Coast. Before roads reached the region rail was the only way to transport goods and people between the rugged mountainous interior and the coast. A myriad of private railway lines eventually fed into the Emu Bay Line to Burnie on the northern coast of the island. The WCWR began its operation life in 1897 as the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company as a tool for transporting copper from the Mount Lyell mine in Queenstown to the coastal port, closing operations in 1963. In 2002 it was brought back to life as a tourist operation. Naturally I wanted to catch it! Alex left his favourite soft toy back in the hotel in Launceston and the night befor...