Spirit of Tasmania

Barb's sister Donna and her new husband John stayed with us for a few days on their way to set up home in Devonport, Tasmania. Part of the process of moving involved taking their two cars there, and that meant taking the ferry, the Spirit of Tasmania.

Because Bass Strait was blowing a gale that day and the departure time was reset to closer to midnight rather than the usual 9 pm. Donna and John stayed on with us conscious that they might receive further 'delay' notices on their mobiles.

So we saw them off quite late. We had to watch at a distance as both Donna and John, each in their own car, had to queue up behind the hundreds of other vehicles all waiting to drive on. The driving on took ages but we got the idea that the closer to the front of the queue you were the sooner you were to driving off at Devonport.

We took note of all the arrangements because Barb is intending having her 50th birthday party at Donna and John's new home, and we might want to take our car over so that we can do some scenic drives while we are in Tasmania. This will be the first time we have ever visited the island.

The picture shows the entrances in the bow of the ship. The lower entrance was reserved for 'truck loads' of goods, and there seemed to be hundreds of those. The ramp above that entrance led to another opening. This was to an upper deck, for all other vehicles. The whole loading process from start to finish seemed to take hours.

It was a huge ship, doing the crossing to Tasmania from the mainland a number of times each week, effectively Australian's 'highway 1' to Hobart.