Hiking to the bottom of Tassie

We were delighted to meet up with Adam and Cindi from Bravo at the Cockle Creek campsite in Recherche Bay. They are travelling in Tojo, their Toyota Land Cruiser, with a roof-top tent and have covered many thousands of kilometres around the more interesting and deserted parts of Australia. Adam has posted some pretty spectacular photos on their blog http://svbravo.blogspot.com.au/ so with him and Kerry around, Graham felt seriously challenged on the photography front! Adam and Cindi joined us aboard Maunie for a pizza night and, after a long break from sailing their own boat, we could see that they are itching to be back afloat; hopefully we have persuaded them to spend 2017/18 cruising the east coast of Australia so that we can spend some more time with them.

We decided to tackle the 5 hour 'easy' South West Bay hike to the southern shore of Tasmania the following morning, in spite of a rather dubious forecast. Sure enough we were rained on pretty heavily and the light wasn't great for photos (Graham getting the excuses in early here) but here are some (with a few of Kerry's added, too).

The mid section of the hike had about 2km of duckboards to protect the fragile wetlands. Still some blue sky at this stage!

Di remains cheerful as the weather begins to change

South West Bay

Di and Cindi. Di less sure about how much fun she's having

Kerry at the cliff edge getting photos - a few of her shots follow

Cindi heading towards the cliffs, photo Kerry Lorimer

The Maunies in wet weather gear. Photo by Kerry

Graham gets some cliff-edge shots. Photo by Kerry

Dramatic coastline under leaden skies. Photo by Kerry

Seaweed treble clef on the rain-pocked sand

A break in the clouds at last, but there was more rain to come

Adam and Cindi in the beautiful woodland. Photo by Kerry

The hiking team at the end of a great day. The End of the Road is the furthest south vehicle access in Australia. Photos by a Passing Stranger

We said farewell to Adam and Cindi and sailed north to Bruny Island, with a very pleasant lunch stop at a winery - the most southerly winery in Australia (they are keen on these superlatives around here). The wine tasting was ok but the cold climate produces lighter wines than we prefer; lunch, however, was excellent!

We are now back in Hobart to restock the food lockers and, of course, to do a few more boat jobs whilst we have the luxury of shore power. We had a final rendezvous with Suzie and Roald before they flew on to Melbourne and they took us in their hire car up to the summit of Mount Wellington for a superb view over Hobart.

Looking East over Hobart

Kerry left us yesterday, too, to fly to Sydney, so it feels slightly strange to have the boat to ourselves again after some great company over the past few weeks. Ah, well, on with the work: 

Removing and re-bedding the fore hatch that was dripping sea water when subjected to big waves across it

Our plan now is to look for a decent weather window to cross the Bass Strait again, then head up the coast towards Sydney. We are hoping that there we'll be able to find a radio specialist to fix our usually-wonderful SSB radio; its speaker has fallen silent, though we have established that it still transmits. Graham took it apart (as much as he dared, at least) in the hope of spotting an obvious loose connection but without joy.

Looks pretty straightforward, eh?