Tazmania has a number of national parks and today we are off to one of them – Cradle Mountain. But first, some ‘home maintenance’. I’ve topped up the water, now need to empty the ‘grey water’. Attach the hose, open the valve. and it goes…. or it doesn’t. Oh dear. Ask a neighbour… he’s stumped too. Leave it. We haven’t got time to mess about. Too much to see.

We’re off. First stop the town of Strahan.

I need petrol. The nearest petrol station is Queenstown airport – says the notice in the tourist information centre (which is a small noticeboard on the side of a building). Ummm. I’ve got an RV not a plane. Google maps says Queenstown.

We go to Queenstown. I get petrol and we explore. It doesn’t take long, but, they have a cafe in the station. It’s looking good.

Time to set off for todays big attraction – Cradle Mountain. Lots to see and lots of walks.

Wildlife time..

After Cradle Mountain, we headed for Ulverstone. A coastal town with free RV parking overnight on the green, provided you have your own loo. Well we arrived and decided we didn’t want to battle with the loo so I phoned a local site and they were able to give us (for $30) a powered site for the night.

Given my experience arriving just before closing in Strahan, I did wonder what reception I would get booking this so late. Well my faith in humanity was restored by the wonderful Angelina, who was not only lovely but gave us an added bonus by informing us that, at our pitch, it might be a ‘bit noisy’ around 10pm when the nesting penguins come in to feed the chicks and leave at about 4am. What??!! If you sit on the beach they will just walk past you she said. 9.00pm we walk down to the beach in the dark. On the beach already is a family with a red torch and a couple also with a red torch. Penguins can’t see red so that’s the light you need to use. Without it, it’s pitch black, other than the stars.

When the other left, it was so dark, penguins could have been walking 2 feet from us and we wouldn’t have seen them. But it was quite something to see them so close.

I’ll leave you with a star field shot. The amount of stars in the sky was also quite magical.