The next best thing

The next best thing to wandering, is planning the wandering.

The son and daughter-in-law asked. The boss said yes to time off. Now I get to research and plan and book another trip to the US! YAY! WOOHOO! HAPPY DANCE!

 

 

I am somewhat shocked to realize that I am actually excited about visiting the USA - again - for the third time in three years! The US was never on my to-visit list. If you had asked me a few years ago I would have said that the US does not interest me - the culture, the crime, the commercialisation, the capitalism - no thanks. Maybe, it might be cool to see the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, but I would spend my time, and money, going other places in the world first.

My first visit was a wayward wander way off the Canadian road trip path, but we had time and it seemed like a good idea at the time. We went to Yellowstone. Good and bad.

The second trip was to San Francisco for the birth of my second grandchild.

This third trip is to the foggy city too, school holidays in June and July. But - then I am going seriously wandering in California. Hiking, mountain biking, horse riding, and whatever else I discover at Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite (the world's first national park). Maybe the USA is not so bad after all.

So - off to wander the web and plan the wanderings. So EXCITED!!!!

South - way, way south!

One year has ended and another begun. I thought it would be a good idea to mark the occasion by wandering somewhere new, so I went south - as far south as you can possibly go in Tasmania, or in Australia, for that matter. I drove to the very end of the road to a little place called Cockle Creek. Once a thriving town of whalers, farmers, and timber cutters, it now has a few holiday shacks, a campground and a National Parks office for the southern most national park in the country and lots of "southernmosts"

Southernmost public boat ramp at Catamaran

 Southernmost street at Cockle Creek

 Southernmost sawmill, operated until the 1940s by a family of women

 Southernmost walking track

 South Cape in the background, the southernmost point of land

 South Cape Bay Beach - Australia's southernmost beach

 Our lunch time log on the southernmost beach. The weather, wind and temperature were all perfect.

 Fresh crab for lunch. He wasn't sharing though.

 Remnants of what must have been Australia's southernmost fence

 The southernmost board walk on the southernmost walking track

The South Cape Bay walk takes you through a wonderful variety of vegetation types - a swamp, dry gum tree forest, wet rainforest, coastal scrub and a wide marshy valley dotted with flowering tea tree shrubs. It is a lovely mostly flat walk with a cliff top walk and steps down to the South Cape Bay beach.

 Blandfordia punicea - Christmas Bells

 Afternoon tea at Cockle Creek at the southernmost picnic tables

Southernmost campground

Southernmost bridge over Cockle Creek

Southernmost public art sculpture - a life sized bronze statue of a three month old southern right whale

 Australia's southernmost private property

The southernmost railway station, Ida Bay railway, operates the southernmost tourist train ride, and is next door to the southernmost café

 Southport has the southernmost pub, shop, petrol station and caravan park, all at the one location

New Year's eve drink and dinner at the southernmost RSL club in Dover, which has spectacular water and mountain views

Sunset at Dover to end 2014.
Wishing you all a wealth of wonder and whimsy and wisdom and wanderings in 2015.