28
December
2005
Got a rude shock in the morning @ 5:14AM!!! when the shipwide announcement came on asking everyone to get ready for our arrival. Unfortunately for our sleep the boat had made good time and managed to dock around 6AM!! After an hour and a half wait (thanks to Quarantine checks), we finally made it to dry land and promptly located breakfast at bakery chain called Banjo’s (more on them later) eventually setting off to explore Devonport and surrounds. Besides Devonport, we managed to fit in Mersey’s Bluff, Braddon’s lookout, A very lovely township called Burnie (passing through Pengwin which yes had a oversized pengwin chained to the sidewalk to stop it from being stolen) and a very quick trip to Rocky Cape National Park to get our National Park Visitor Pass for our Trip before finally calling it a day. Unfortunately during one of our stopovers @ Mersey’s Bluff my lovely (almost new) Canon G6 died 
resulting in a few frantic calls to get my backup Canon G1 sent overnight from Melbourne (more on that story also later). Lucky we had Sharon’s camera to capture the views still I was left feeling a tad lost without my camera to play with..
Posted: Holidays
27
December
2005
Left Melbourne around 9pm, onboard the Spirit of Tasmania I, sailing overnight to Devonport. Devonport is 400 odd kilometers away (as the crow flies), about nine hours on the boat at 25knots. We did managed to get in a few photos (the sun had set) on the way out of the Bay but unfortunately most of the shots came out blurred due to the very poor light and motion of the boat. Spent a lovely evening sailing out of Port Phillip Bay (which takes about three hours) watching the various townships and a lighting storm until we finally reached open water just before midnight.
Posted: Holidays
