February 2014

Forecast for Deloraine today is 12 to 25 degrees and mostly cloudy.

We picked up a bunch of newspapers this morning and settled down for a good read. David was talking to the fellow on the next site who had just come from Forth, between Devonport and Ulverstone. The camping area is a free camp located behind the local sports ground and camping for up to 3 days is permitted.

After lunch we decided to go for a drive to check out the Forth free camp, then drive on to Sheffield to check out their free camp. Forth is all grass with lots of trees while Sheffield is small and on gravel - no argument - we will be going to Forth tomorrow. There must have been about 40 vans at Forth, and we were told that many of them were waiting for tomorrow's daylight sailing of the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. There should be lots of room by the time we get there.

Sheffield is famous for its murals so we took a couple of photos while we were there. On the drive back to Deloraine we copped a real downpour, and by the time we got back to Deloraine we copped it again - thunder and lightning as well - but thankfully it did not last too long.

One of Sheffield's murals

Another mural at Sheffield

Forecast for Deloraine today was fine with a temperature of 14 to 29 degrees.

We were packed up and on the road by 9:15 am and decided to call at Evandale again to use their dump point as it was not far out of our way. We stopped for morning tea at Perth, and eventually arrived at the Deloraine Apex Caravan Park on the Meander River. We booked in for two nights and were allocated site 22. After 4 nights at Myrtle Park on limited water we need the time at Deloraine to do some washing. After setting up we went for a walk into the town for papers and a cool drink, as it is very warm and humid.

Site 22, Deloraine Apex Caravan Park

Deloraine street art

Shearer (or is it a Kiwi) with a sheep

Meander River from our camp site

Still cloudy with a forecast temperature of 14 to 24 degrees.

Today we went into Launceston again for a seafood lunch at Seaport on the Tamar River. After lunch we bought a few groceries at Woollies, and topped up with diesel as we are on the move again tomorrow.

Seaport Marina at Launceston

Tamar River cruise boat at Seaport

Not so warm today - 12 to 22 degrees and cloudy.

David spent the day trying to sort out why the inverter was continually blowing fuses - eventually he found that the 12 volt socket at the front of the van was incorrectly connected with the negative terminal connected to the positive wire. It probably happened when some work was done on our van last year, as we have not used the inverter for quite a while. While it took a while to find, its all fixed and working now. The loose connection in out satellite box has now been soldered and it is now working properly - over 80% signal strength - we have never had that before - so the box was probably faulty when we bought it a few years ago.

We had a fire again at night and invited our neighbours from site 7 across to enjoy the fire. Brad and Kim are from Noosa and are travelling in a camper trailer with their dog CJ, and Australian cattle dog. Not only does the dog have a coat for the cooler evenings, it also has pyjamas for sleeping. We have seen just about everything now.

No photos today.

A warm day today with forecast temperature of 12 to 28 degrees.

Last night we had a few problems with our inverter for the Satellite box - it kept blowing the fuse - so we decided to go into Launceston to find a Jaycar store so we could buy some more fuses, a soldering iron to fix out satellite box, and a 12 volt extension lead as a back-up. We also found a camping store and bought a jaffle iron and a fire poker.

Back at camp David spent some time fishing while Di enjoyed the sun. Our camp site has a picnic table as well as the fireplace and is large enough to cater for three vans or tents. That evening we spent our time outside enjoying the fire.

No luck with the fishing

Still no fish - although they feeding on the surface

Our camp site

Di enjoying the sun

A good fire in our fireplace