And This Little Pig said Holidays

Well G'day everyone, I know I have been gone for over a month, but have been planning big!!! My first holiday in over 15 years!!!!

And will be making up for my absence big time in this posting.

Every August I go home to the family farm, to help Mum with kidding out the Dairy Goat herd. Well this year Mum and I are at the current moment on holidays.

Meah is with a good friend, Sue for some reason the rest of my family believe she is spoilt rotten, and refused to have her L Sue has a Labrador, a Labradoodle, and a Labrador cross Nova Scotia Duck Troll Retrieving Dog (that’s a mouth full) She is having a wonderful time, being thoroughly spoilt. Sue is also taking care of the cats, calling in and seeing them everyday at home, feeding and checking their food.

Podge, is with my hairdresser, and her 13 month old Mini Dachshund, and is adjusting well, and thinks my hairdresser's partner is the most wonderful man in the world, and seeing she has had nothing to do with men, this has been a real surprise to everyone.

Evie and Quincy have gone home to the farm, and are being taken care of by family, who are obviously under a false impression that they are not spoilt. They will learn the error of this assumption.

Now finally onto the holiday, we are currently in Tasmania, sorry don't have a map, but if you have ever seen Oz on a map there is an smaller triangle shaped island at the bottom, well this is Tassie.

We decided to drive and take the 'big' ferry across.

So we left the farm in Tamworth, NSW on Friday morning the July 8, here is the speedo on my car… what a fluke.

We traveled just past Dubbo before stopping for lunch, which Mum had cooked overnight in the slow cooker.

Don't tell Mum I snapped this photo of her :D

Also that little bit of bright green in the photo is our traveling companion George the Green Sheep.

We stayed the night in Narrandera NSW, which is on the banks of the Murrumbidgee which means 'big water' in the Wiradjuri Aboriginal language. Just under nine hours of driving.

The next morning (Saturday July 9) we set off for Melbourne VIC to catch the ship, but did have one fun stop at the 'Big Strawberry' where George had his photo taken. Then because we had plenty of time, we detoured to Bendigo, stopping in at the Bendigo Woollen Mill, brought some beautiful pure wools to knit, will have to grab a photo at some time.

Then on to Melbourne, arrived around 5pm, the day involved around six hours of driving.

So wandered off to take some photos before we lost all the light, this is the little pier off to the side the terminal.

Mum on the wharf, again we won't tell her I was using her as a model, and yes it really was cold.

Our 'ferry-boat-ship' to Tasmania, the Spirit of Tasmania II.

In the queue waiting to get on the Spirit, the view out to the city of Melbourne.

George on his bunk in our cabin, and lets just say that George was not the only one who was left a little green. Four to five metre waves, that 12 to 15 feet, lots of awful wind, then they had to have a second attempt at getting into the river at Devonport. We were supposed to disembark at 6.30am, and we got off the boat at 7.45am. Here's hoping the trip home will be smoother.

We had breakfast with friends in Morierty, before going into Latrobe to the Chocolate Festival. I must say we were terribly disappointed, it was not at all like we expected and we had been so looking forward to going, but it got us out on solid ground and we walked off some of that 15 hours of driving time, getting the kinks out to the legs.

So here I am in our motel in Launceston, bone tired, with George hogging the bed, Mum sound asleep, I am about to follow her, doing a long overdue blog update, watching the Tour de France, and all things considered enjoying the start of our holiday. Better day tomorrow :-)

Will keep you all posted, and sorry I won't have much time to check up on blogs…. I am on holidays… HOLIDAYS!!!

LiBBiE in Oz (way downunder in Oz)