Melbourne to Devonport

Another cool day in Melbourne for our trip back to Tassie on the Spirit of Tasmania.

We set the alarm for 5:45 am and were on the road by 6:30 am. Several other vans left at the same time so we ended up in a convoy headed for Station Pier. We all followed the route recommended by the Caravan Park, which is left out of the caravan park onto Ballarat Road, left onto the M80 Ring Road, exit left for the M1 West Gate Freeway, exit left for the Todd Road Service Centre, left onto Cook Street, left onto Todd Road, left into Williamstown Road, then right into Graham Street, right into Bay Road, and right again onto Beach Road, then left into Station Pier. Quite easy when you know where you are going and ignore the GPS.

Once again we were loaded onto Deck 5 with the rest of the caravans fairly quickly, and were having breakfast and reading the papers when the ferry departed early at 8:50 am. The Captain advised us to expect 2 to 3 metre seas on a 2 to 3 metre swell, with winds of 25 to 30 knots from the South West. As it turned out it was smoother than that with the ferry only experiencing a gentle roll, once we had cleared Port Philip Heads. After breakfast we checked out our cabin - we usually take a cabin for a daylight crossing as they are half price (compared to night sailings) and give you somewhere to lie down and have a snooze.

We returned to the cafeteria at about 2:00 pm for a late lunch of very tender roast lamb with vegies, followed by a cheese platter. The Goaty Hill Pinot Noir made it even better.

We were called to the vehicle deck at 6:25 pm but it was a case of hurry up and wait, as we did not get off the ferry for another 20 minutes. As quarantine checks are now done before embarkation in Melbourne we were waved through the final checks in Devonport and joined the queue at the Discovery Caravan Park at East Devonport. We had booked a drive through site some weeks ago as we did not want to drive home in the dark. The only drive through sites are en-suite sites so we had paid a premium for one of those so that we could stay hitched up for the night.

We ended up on a back-in en-suite site, so much for booking a drive through site! Backing in the dark is hard enough but gets much worse when the is no lighting in the caravan park to help see where you are going. Even the light on our Site 2 power stanchion was not operating - Not Happy Jan! The site was long enough however for us to remain hitched up.

No photos today.