Day 32 – it has officially been over a month since leaving Canada. This morning we landed in Tasmania. After taking the ferry across the Bass Stright we had an early jump on the morning.
Leaving the ferry at 6:30 am
We headed straight for our first destination but we were hours early. We also quickly noticed that our phones had no signal.
Roland continues to work on his photography skills
Chatting with a local at her store, we got directions to WOOLWORTHS and I got new prepaid cards for Telstra and some much-needed groceries.
With all that completed it was time to see some TRAINS!
Of course, Roland found the toy trains first.
Today we visit the Don River Railway http://www.donriverrailway.com.au/
A hodgepodge of tracks, station, and various trains, members and volunteers have lovingly restored and collected everything you see here. This was such a great place for both little kids and us adults.
Our scenic train ride
Scarlet’s first train ride.
After leaving the trains we headed inland to find a Honey Farm.
Along the way I noticed that like us in Canada, they have a changing of the colour of leaves.
We spotted some wild turkeys.
This is a very special mountain. Or, at least, we think it is pretty special. This is Mount Roland! A magnificent mountain it stands 1234 (no I did not make up that number) meter tall and is part of the Mount Roland Conservation area. It is also near the town of Sheffield, who is going to project a film about the area on the face of the mountain this year. The movie will be the largest in the world. A movie about Mt. Roland on Mt. Roland. (How many times can I work the name Roland into one blog post?)
So with the Honey Farm closed and being able to see Mt. Roland from miles away, where to next?
There is appears to be “Nowhere Else” to go…ba-dum-dum…
So we headed off to the town of ROLAND of course!
There we learned about the Roland Railway.
The sign reads:
Turning of the first sod for the Roland Railway took place at Railton on 26 2 1913 by the governor of Tasmania, Sir Harry Barron.
Construction of the 12-mile branch like commenced in Sept 1913 by the Public Works Dept. & completed Nov 1914 at a cost of £88888·6·9d ($177,776 · 69c)
Officially opened Nov 6, 1914, by Hon. J.A. Lyons.
A mixed goods & passenger steam train service between Roland & Railton commenced Nov 7, 1914.
In 1923, Roland became the terminus for the railmotor service.
The line was built to transport farm produce, stock, timber & minerals & to provide a daily passenger service.
The railway became uneconomical & was closed permanently on Dec 1, 1957.
This information board has been sponsored by the family of George Hays – Driver of the last train from Roland.
This was in interesting sight. From far away we could see smoke rising and touching the bottom of a cloud. A unique sight to say the least!
It turns out that it was a controlled burn being done.
Off we headed for some dinner at the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm Cafe. Unfortunately (or not) they were only serving sweets as it was close to closing time. We got Roland some pancakes and Dan and I shared some scones.
Scarlet had some baby appropriate snacks and wooed every person working there.
243 km later we booked into a Big4 campground in Launceston for the night.