Tassie Tales

Our speed boat cruise right down to the southernmost point on Bruny Is off Tasmania was amazing. Here's the wonderful seal colony where all the bull seals and the adolescent males sit around and swim and fish all day. The boat went right up close to them!

Here's two guys having a swim and a splash. Look at the kelp seaweed.

The breathing rock sucks the air in with every wave and blows it out in a huge big splash.

What astounding cliffs! These are 276m high off Bruny Is.

Our guide told us to take a photo here. There's nowhere to stop between here in the Southern Ocean to Antarctica.

So many amazing sights. Here's one of the caves in the cliffs carved out by the ocean. The boat is so manouverable it can go right up close and almost inside.

Geeveston in Tasmania is a beautiful old town founded on timber. Around all the streets are old townspeople carved out of timber and polished up beautifully. David loved the village smithy because his great-grandfather on the McPherson side was a blacksmith in Nundah.

The landlady of our cottage in Castle Forbes Bay is an amazing quilter. She helped with this community quilt displayed at Tahune Airwalk. Our cottage had beautiful hand sewn quilts on the beds.

Our walk around the Tahune Forest track crossed the Picton River and the Huon River on these scary swinging bridges.

Here's Cameron, our guide on the Tahune Airwalk, a stunning steel walkway through the treetops of the temperate rainforest.

Here's a treat. We met the former mayor of Toowoomba, Di Thorley. She's lovely and she has bought the Lady Franklin pub at Franklin in Tasmania. Her son is doing it up and they have put on a beautiful deck overlooking the Huon River. Di is working as the cook in the kitchen and our dinner was fantastic. I had grilled John Dory fish and salad and David had crispy skin salmon. It was cooked to perfection. We had a lovely chat to Di about her origins in Stanthorpe and memories of her German grandmother cooking for the whole family.

Birch's Bay in Tasmania had treat after treat. Here's David about to tuck into his bush tucker ice-cream - pepperberry - at Fleurty's Cafe near the pepperberry plantation.

We both had the haloumi salad at Fleurty's. The dressing on the salad was pomegranate and cumquat and was beautiful. They had huge picture windows overlooking the bay. Our lunch was delicious.

This mother-daughter team from Tasmania is quickly becoming very famous. They raise and milk Friesland sheep and then make the most amazing sheep cheese at Grandvewe at Birch's Bay. Nicole looks after every aspect of the welfare and milking of the sheep and Mum, Dianne, makes the cheese. Today, they were up at 4.30 with a vet and other staff (including a real human nurse) doing embryo transfers from the Mum sheep to improve the breed. They're exhausted!

Our tour through Hastings caves in Tasmania was wonderful. These dolomite caves have the most amazing stalictites and stalimites. Here's David waiting for the tour to begin. There's a constant 9degrees inside, so us Queenslanders were a little underdressed.

Our walk around the tracks of Mt Wellington overlooking Hobart was so enjoyable.

We caught up with old friends who used to live in Brisbane but went home to Tassie. Here's an old journo and a not so old journo, Stuart Gillies, catching up on the News Ltd gossip at Maldino's restaurant in lovely Salamanca Place in Hobart.

Stuart and Fiona's girls have grown so much. Here's very pretty Louise and Georgia at the restaurant.

Our cottage landlords at Castle Forbes Bay in Tasmania, Liz and Geoff Francis, keep a few Suffolk sheep to keep the grass down in their paddock.

Here's another photo of me at Geeveston in Tasmania with Jessica Hanbury, one of the old townspeople whose likeness has been carved out of timber and polished up and put on the street. Jessica was a do-gooder who helped out in so many areas. There's a plaque about each person as you walk around the streets.

We visited Bill Dowling at Longford in Tasmania. Bill makes the most delicious chutneys made out of capsicums and beetroots. Here's Bill showing us his automatic beetroot peeler. The beetroots are then shredded and made into the most amazing marmalade to serve with meats and salads.

Here's the lovely Pauline, a helper at Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen, run by Bill Dowling. Pauline chatted to us while Bill was off tracking down his family's escaped labrador puppy. Pauline is roasting yellow capsicums and putting them in huge pots to steam so the skins come off easily. Then the peppers are slowly cooked with apricots, onions, and secret spices to make a yellow pepper and apricot chutney.

We found out about Republica ground coffee from our friends in Penguin, Tasmania. It is organically and free trade grown in East Timor. It tastes great, and you can get it at Woolies.

Here's our friend and keen gardener, Mary Ann, in Penguin, setting up her new worm farm. Their new house overlooks the town of Penguin and Bass Strait. They took us to see the fairy penguins one night and we were amazed. The Mum and Dad fairy penguins go out swimming and fishing all day and then come home to their chicks hidden in the dunes on the beach. The chicks then make a lot of noise and peck at Mum and Dad's mouth and throat to make them regurgitate the fish from their stomachs.

Here's me on the steps of our pioneer cottage at Castle Forbes Bay called Camellia Cottage. The landlords have built their own residence close by and they have done a fabulous job of renovating the cottage and running it for visitors. We stayed a week and had the best time. The gardens around Camellia Cottage are amazing thanks to Liz and Geoff-and they brought us a loaf of freshly baked bread every day. What a dream holiday!

What a coincidence! My lovely friend Ria was holidaying in Tasmania at the same time as us with her two sisters, Donella and Kerrie. We caught up with them at Richmond and saw their lovely cottage, Geraldine Cottage.

The weather was perfect. We had a nice visit to Richmond and went out to tea with Ria and her two sisters.

Here's all the Queensland girls in Tasmania. We had so many stories to tell over dinner about our adventures! The Culloty family are never lost for words and neither are we!