The Australian Wooden Boat Festival - aboard Laurabara

Aside from the amazing scenery and great cruising grounds, one of the attractions of Tasmania was, for us, the Wooden Boat Festival which takes place over four days, every two years. It has become a huge event, attracting over 500 boats of all shapes and sizes, from kayaks to tall ships, and drawing over 200,000 visitors to Hobart.

The festival begins with a Parade of Sail, featuring over 150 boats, and we were extremely lucky to be able to take part. Not on Maunie, of course, as she has a fibreglass hull, but on a beautiful 49' ketch called Laurabada. She was designed and built by her owner's father (the first boat he'd ever built, which was quite some achievement) and was launched in 1953; Ivan and Anne have done an amazing restoration job over the past 2 years to fit new decks and coachroof, new engine and electrics and some wonderful carpentry below decks to bring her up to date as a really capable cruising yacht. We met them in a little port called Tiabunna about ten days ago and they invited us to take part in the event so, of course, we jumped at the offer!

Here are some photos of the boat and the Parade:

Laurabada in her show berth; she was much admired

Anne and Ivan sailed her down from Brisbane for the Festival

Lovely lines and sparkling varnish

The new wheel and compass binacle

Tough work for the foredeck crew! Roald, Suzie and Kerry joined us - there were 18 aboard in total.

The crew's thirst was well catered for

Anne and Ivan - lovely people and fantastic hosts

Not the hardest sailing we've ever done. We were very lucky to have near-perfect conditions for a gentle sail

Graham had teak deck envy

A glimpse of the deckhouse steering position and chart table

Our good friends Adam and Cindi from Bravo were on shore to watch the event (they are touring Australia in a 4WD with roof-top tent this year) so Adam was able to get some great shots of us among the fleet:

A bit of Photoshop work, to remove some modern boats from the photos and add a sepia filter, and this could have been taken in Laurabada's early years. The tall ship is the James Craig, built in the 1870's in Sunderland, England.

More photos and stories about some of the other boats will follow in the next update

The big ketch got a little too close for comfort!

We had a superb day aboard and were pleased that we could give Anne and Ivan photos of the event as a thanks for their welcome aboard.

We of course took hundreds of photos of the other boats in the Parade and on the pontoons so we'll add some of them to the blog in the next couple of days.

The Tasman Peninsula

The Tasman Peninsula is an impressive bit of coastline with a rather dark human history to it. We sailed in pretty perfect conditions so could hug the soaring cliffs.

Rock stacks known as The Lanterns

The old landing stage on Tasman Island, once used to haul supplies up from boats and then, via a rope and pulley system, up the steep cliffs to the lighthouse keeper's cottage

The peninsula has a curious narrow neck of land about halfway up it - it's called Narrow Neck, rather prosaically - and in the 19th Century there used to be some very unfriendly dogs chained up across it to prevent convicts escaping to the main part of Tasmania. The penal colony of Port Arthur lies to the south of it and, between 1830 and 1876, housed thousands of prisoners who worked its flour mill, sawmills and boat-building yard.

The remains of Port Arthur, abandoned and damaged in bush fires at the end of the 1870's and now a World Heritage site and major tourist attraction 

The old mill and accommodation block in the evening light, after the tourists had departed 

The buildings in the 1860's 

We're now back in Hobart for the 4-day Wooden Boat Festival which attracts hundreds of beautiful boats from all around the world. Today was the opening Parade of Sail with over 100 boats, ranging from 3m dinghies to 100m tall ships, taking part. The Maunie Crew took part as well, having been invited aboard a stunningly restored 1953 ketch called Laurabada - whom we met, with her owners Ivan and Anne, a week or so ago. Oh, and we should mention that the Maunie Crew has a new member, Kerry from Sel Citron, who flew over from NZ yesterday. We all had a brilliant day and took a lot of photos of the fleet so we'll post some in the next couple of days.

Anchored in a duckpond

After a couple of days in Hobart (a city that we think we'll really enjoy), we moved down to North Bruny Island, some 20 miles to the SE. We picked the anchorage called The Duckpond and, true to its name, it proved to be a very calm spot yesterday in spite of a brisk and cold southerly wind outside. This morning it has dawned calm and sunny by the southerly breeze blowing up from the Antarctic meant that the central heating was fired up!

We had fish rising all around us in the calm water.

Ripples caused by dozens of fish

The forecast promises brisk northerly winds tomorrow so we are heading back into Hobart today for a week at the Derwent Sailing Squadron marina. Some more photos to follow in the next couple of days.

Meeting some of the Tasmanian wildlife

Shoal Bay

The scenery is spectacular but the wildlife is pretty amazing, too. We spent a couple of nights at anchor in Shoal Bay, on the west side of Maria Island and did some great walking. The whole island is a National Park so the natural woodlands and grasslands have been preserved, though they bear the marks of penal colonies, commercial farming and even cement-production activities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Haunted Cove. The rocks are a deep orange, caused by a covering of lichen

A hike to the beautiful Haunted Cove at the very southern end of the island introduced us to some Black Cockatoos, a large (and venomous) brown snake, some Bennett's Wallabies, an ant-eating Echidna and, later on, we ventured to the other side of the bay to meet our favourites so far, the Wombats.

The rubbery nose of an Echidna

These shy animals curl into a spiky ball when they sense danger so we had to wait silently and patiently for it to peek out

A Bennett's Wallaby watches us watching him. You can see why Joseph Banks, the naturalist on Cook's ship Endeavour, struggled to find a description for kangaroos and wallabies when he first saw them and, for a while, thought they were some kind of giant, mutant mouse!

Bennett's Wallabies are the most common species on Maria Island - they have black feet and forepaws

A larger wallaby, and friend

Not a sheep! Our first view of a wild Wombat, grazing the open grassland

Back-lit Wombat

Graham was within about 3 metres of it without being noticed

No tail and a rounded rear end (important attributes as you'll read below)

Some Wombat facts (courtesy of Wikipedia) for you:

• They grow to up to 1m long and weigh up to 40kg
• They have a very slow metabolism so take up to 14 days to digest their grass and plants food
• They dig burrows with their sharp protruding teeth and paws
• Their only predators are Tasmanian Devils and Dingos
• Whilst they move slowly, they can accelerate quickly to 40kph and maintain that speed for up to 90 seconds.
• When startled they have been known to run straight at humans and bowl them over before giving them a deep bite or two. Didn't know that until after we'd been stalking them with the camera!
• If chased by a predator they run to into the nearest burrow and block the entrance with their rumps. Their lack of tail and their very tough rumps come into play as they donkey kick with their back legs or else drop down to allow the predator to climb over their back then squash its skull against the roof of the burrow.
• Their poo is cuboid
• They are protected in all Australian states apart from part of Victoria but they were once hunted, with a government bounty paid for each kill.

Feel free to casually drop any of these facts into conversation!

So, apart from seeing the elusive nocturnal Tasmanian Devil, we were very happy with our wildlife on the island, and then had some very different mammals to accompany us on the sail further south.

Of course, all this good stuff has to be tempered by some bad stuff and so we spent a couple of hours investigating why the engine cooling water flow-rate seemed a bit slower than normal. 

The water pump impeller (replaced only 8 months ago) had lost six of its nine vanes. The challenge was to find them in the cooling system, a process which involved some disassembly of pipework.

We are glad to report all is well now and we found a super anchorage further down the Tasman Peninsula.

Canoe Cove in Fortescue Bay, tucked behind a wrecked ship for perfect shelter

Climbing Mount Amos

Tasmania isn't known for its settled weather (we are in the Roaring Forties, next stop Antarctica, after all) but, after our welcoming gales, we've had a few days of beautifully sunny and calm conditions. We took full advantage of it to climb Mount Amos in the Freycinet National Park. The signs at the bottom of the track warned of significant safety risks, a poorly marked track over boulders and smooth rock slopes and some strenuous and steep ascents but it was worth it for the views!

The rocky mount dominates the north side of Wineglass Bay

At the first viewpoint on the lower slopes

On the smooth rock face of the higher slopes. There are warnings not to attempt the climb in wet weather because these areas become very tricky.

The rock surface shines - it's not wet, it's the calcification caused by rainwater cascading down it. 

An improbably-balanced boulder. Coles Bay is below.

Some narrow gullies had to be climbed (this was one of the easier ones).

Team Maunie at the summit

It was a long hot day but so worth the effort. Dianne kept the severity of a toe injury from us (she stubbed it as we landed the dinghy on the beach) and hiked through the pain - it looked an interesting colour when she finally took her walking boots off!

and this little piggy went "Ow, Ow, Ow, all the way home!"