Launceston to Natone

This morning it started to rain as we left our accommodation and has rained off and on for the whole day. Last night and Friday night we stayed at the Alanvale Apartments, (genuine imitation Elizabethan architecture). It was a ground floor 2 bedroom unit that suited us down to the ground.
To fill in time we drove around Launceston for a while before we went down to Evandale to see the Tasmanian Gourmet Sauce Company. They make all their own sauces and jams there. The marmalade made from Seville oranges with Tasmanian Whiskey. Really nice and so was the raspberry sauce, blackberry sauce and boysenberry sauce. The other sauces there were also very nice.

We headed back to Launceston and Phil and I visited the National Automotive Museum of Tasmania. They have a really good selection of vehicles from buggies that were pulled by horses to Roll Royces. There were two vehicles whose coach work was done by the same company in Launceston, one was a 1928 Buick whose coach work was fabricated from aluminium. I really liked the Ford GTHO and Cortina GT 500 that they had there. Deb and Pat went somewhere to have a cup of coffee while we looked around. I cannot understand why they didn't want to come with us.

From Launceston we headed towards our overnight accommodation at a B&B at Natone. It took us up towards Devonport then towards Burnie. It took us to a town Deloraine where we had lunch at another Empire Hotel. The food here had a distinct Thai flavour. Deb and Pat were very boring and had fish and chips while Phil and I were a little more adventurous with ginger fish and rice.

After lunch we travelled for about 40 km to Ashgrove Cheeses. They specialise in cheddars and harder type cheeses. Some of them were very nice. Deb bought a small piece of smoked cheddar. It didn't taste really smoky to me but Deb liked it. At the cafe/cheese tasting centre they had full sized models of cows. There was only one there that looked like a real cow, all the others had been painted. The cows are painted by school kids as a project for the class. There are some very interesting patterns on the cows.














Our destination for the day was Natone Fly Fishing B&B about 5 km from the township of Natone which is south of Burnie. It has three bedrooms a large kitchen/lounge area with a wood fire. There was butter and eggs in the fridge and after we arrived Christine (one of the owners) brought milk and bread over. There is jam, peanut butter and Vegemite as well as tea, coffee, sugar etc. There is not much we will want while we are staying here.

We may have a bit of a rest day tomorrow. I'll have to find somewhere that I can get mobile service so that I can upload the blog.

More tomorrow.

Den