After a couple of relaxed days in Stanley it was onto the final leg of our trip, driving eastward to the coastal town – Ulverstone. Tasmania – you have done it again, the drive along the coast was very picturesque, with smaller townships hugging the coast line I knew we would be coming back to these townships to browse the quirky shops.

As for all plans we make they need to be fluid, thinking on your feet with being flexible ensuring we make the most of the good weather we have enjoyed, we were fortunate to have been able to check in early at the Ulverstone Caravan Park and setup the vans to allow us to head off into the wilderness.

Blasting over the CB radios, This is your tour operator for the day and today’s tour will include;

• A country side drive to Latrobe, where we will stop for our picnic lunch, this will be followed by a drive around the town – Railton, where we will seek out the topiary designs, for the peeps that have been good we will continue our tour to enjoy some coffee and fudge in Smithfield, finally closing the loop as we hunt out wild platypus in Tasmania’s Arboretum. A little surprise around every corner as Latrobe had the best quirky shop, known as Reliquaire.

Today the 11th Day of January, we had planned a lazy morning as we were set for a big afternoon hiking Cradle Mountain followed by an evening of dining for us and lastly the Devil’s @ night tour. Our journey took us along the Wilmot Letterbox Trail, some very interesting letter boxes which broke up the drive from the amazing countryside :-). Cradle Mountain has many tracks to trek for all peeps to explore, the weather can change very quickly but for us it was a nice mild (warm) day, no need for the rain jackets. The team was split into 3 groups, due to an injury Group A completed a couple of the closer walks – Pencil Pine falls, Group B started with Group C completing the shorter version of Crater Lake, with the final Group (Group C) completing the Crater Lake trek – 5.7km circuit, Grade 3. As I was part of Group C I can only comment on this trek, it certainly was a great exposure to hiking, with tough terrain, waterfalls, lakes and amazing views, it certainly was worth the 2.5hrs of trekking but we were glad to get back on the bus.

After a hard day trekking around Cradle Mountain the appetites were up and rumbling and we were soon treating ourselves to a feast of recovery. The Galdells headed back to Cradle Mountain to finish the evening learning about Tasmania’s night time carnivores at Devils @ Cradle – Tasmanian Devil and Quoll (Spotted and Eastern), a very interesting night and great way to finish a full day.

I should also mention we were very lucky to have seen a couple of Wombats wandering around, some saw more than others and it was reported later that evening after the Devil tour that one of us went spot light (headlights) searching for the wombats in the rain.

The final 48 Hours – we had a rest day with each family heading off in their own directions revisiting or exploring for the day. Of course I had let it slip earlier on that we could return back to some of the towns we passed through to allow the girls to visit some shops….why.I.Say. So off we headed back to Wynyard, Burnie, Penguin, Ulverstone and very quick look around Devonport so we could plan where to unhitch the caravans safely allowing us to explore the next day.

Our final day had arrived and as our sailing was not until later that evening (730pm) we had decided to book a cave tour at Gunns Plains after a local advised us about these caves. The cave was formed by an underground river that still flows today – allowing fresh crayfish and platypus to occupy these caves as homes. Each cave tour has a uniqueness about it but this was the best we have done so far as the operators have you climbing , ducking, descending, walking backwards throughout the tour, while also stopping to share some amazing formations of Stalactite & Stalagmites. Following on from this tour we headed back into Devonport for one last shopping fix, fun fact – Devonport has a population of <22,000 compared to the Marion Council of 93,000.