George Town, Low Head and Batman Bridge, Northern Tasmania

These three places are all great, but sometimes it’s nice to condense things a bit, given my over-elaborate posts on here from time to time.

So here they are on one post. Basically they are places near the Tamar River and north of Launceston in Tasmania. I went on a mini road trip to check them out, while I was working on broccoli farms in Cressy, south of Launceston.

First up was Georgetown, which is a small port area, on the north of Tasmania. It is known for being “Australia’s Oldest Town”, a proud sign at the entrance to the town makes you aware of this.

Georgetown, I happened to know is also the capital of the Scilly Isles, a place we had planned to go to as part of the South of England Northern Ireland Supporters Club. That would have been some adventure and would have involved watching a match in the world’s smallest football league. The most popular attraction in the town seemed to be the Bass and Flinder’s centre. That was at Hospital Point by the seafront and basically a museum dedicated to boating and life at sea. I gave it a miss because I’d already been in 2 Maritime Museums in Australia (Sydney and Devonport) and had seen enough of that.

So I had a walk round the town. The main shopping street was quiet, with everything you need. Very basic and all the buildings were one storey high.

There was a nice wee War Memorial there for Vietnam and Malay Wars.

I parked right by the seafront.

There were a few birds lurking by.

This hotel was called The Pier Hotel and claimed to be the “Best Pub Style Hotel in Australia”

A few locals drank outside as it began to rain.

I watched some nice boats come down the Tamar River.

They were cargo ships bringing in and transporting goods to the Australian Mainland.

Further up the coast is a small area known as Low Head.

There we see Low Head Lighthouse.

Important and impressive this lighthouse has unfortunately not prevented some shipwrecks.

Off this coast has been dangerous waters over the years and a fair few ships have sunk at Low Head.

That didn’t really surprise me as it was very windy.

Probably the windiest I’d been since working last year on cross channel ferry boats.

On the way back down the road, I stopped off at the “Penguin Colony” area. It would be really nice to see some penguins, but actually I’m heading to Antarctica at the end of 2010 so I’ll see them for real there, in the wild. And wont have to pay $16, which was the cost of the George Town penguin tour, from 6 pm at night (Penguins are nocturnal)

Actually as it happened I saw penguins twice after that before I left Tasmania. The first time was at Stanley (home of “The Nut”) and then later on, in my last week at Lillico (near Forth and Devonport).

It was nice to say I’d seen George Town actually, as not only is it the oldest town in Australia, but it’s the third oldest settlement. After the cities of Sydney and Hobart. Europeans first arrived and made it into a town back in 1804. Sydney was 1778. Hobart was 1803. I’ve been to all three places now.