Bothwell

Wednesday March 14th saw us saying goodbye to "Onions" and the Pumphouse Campground. We retraced our steps South and East past the Waddamana Road. Road conditions were good but as usual winding and hilly. Warning signs for steep hills or sharp turns seem to be on rations in Tasmania as we came upon a few that pushed our brakes a bit. Generally we were on a slow descent until we reached our destination at Bothwell. The rocky landscape also reduced to a more usable agricultural area, not that they didn't use some of the really rough areas for sheep and cattle!

The Bothwell Caravan park is run by the local council. It is really more of a parking area behind the Information Centre although there are a number of power/water sites. The sites themselves are a decent size but access into the area and getting the vans on the site is cramped. We were there very early so had to wait for some guests to leave. We did get a couple of nice sites backing on to the Tennis court which is attached. The amenities are very clean although some are shared with the public. A bonus is the laundry facilities are locked and completely free to paying customers. The girls got some value out of that as the washing machine was large and the weather wasn't completely conducive to drying. They got all their regular washing done plus larger items like comforters. All in all a good place to catch up on cleaning, water, communications, etc.

The town itself is very old but nicely looked after. So many lovely old buildings to enjoy, many of them still in use as private homes, accommodations, or retail store/cafes. A nice return to the old beautiful Tasmanian villages/towns we were expecting. Houses are in general small and old, but
well maintained with lovely gardens.

Thursday we were on the road early as we had the Jeep booked in at Launceston to have the warranty work completed from our earlier problems. Luckily the Jeep has performed without any issues as long as we ignore the Quadra Lift/Air Suspension system. We took the main Midland Highway up to Launceston. This way was a bit longer by distance but we thought being the main North/South highway would be easier going. The route was fairly direct but not two lanes in each direction for much of it. A lot of construction work as well made it much slower. We went through a couple of interesting old towns along the way that we will return to when we have more time.

Arrived in Launceston just before 10am to drop off the car and catch the courtesy bus downtown. We all enjoyed a bit of retail therapy before the Jeep dealership let us know the car was ready for pickup. Given it was lunch hour schedule for the courtesy bus we enjoyed the short walk back to the dealership. Luckily the earlier rain clouds had cleared off by then, We picked up the car and found a Bakery that did gluten free pies. Turned out most of the baking was gluten free as well so we ended up buying vanilla slices, caramel slices, pecan slice, lemon slice, and a couple of different biscuits. Wonderful find and all were very delicious.

We then made a series of shopping stops at Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings, and Dan Murphy's before heading back towards are caravan park. We stopped at a caravan park in Longford for Rans to check out accommodations for friends coming over at the end of April. We then took the backroads home through Poatina. We did a very steep, winding climb to the top of the mountain/ridge. Great views but so glad we didn't take the caravan this route! Arrived home near 5PM and had a quiet night and light dinners.

Friday we enjoyed an easy day around the caravan park. We did a bit more laundry and I did quite a bit of catch up work on the blog and the computer. We had a power failure in the morning at our location which they failed to fix all day. Luckily we were able to run our cord to another outlet and no one used that spot during the day/night. Has been a fairly good spot but it was disappointing that this issue occurred and more importantly was not resolved. We had a lovely BBQ and a bit of a walk this afternoon. We had a few showers of rain but it cleared off in the evening which was good for cooking and getting our outside stuff packed away.