Roger & Lorna are going back on the road

Another year,  another road trip to fill that enormous gap in our knowledge about our island continent home, this time a proper 'look see' of the Island State.

If you want to check our progress on the map there is a handy interactive map here.

We are driving down to Melbourne and taking a day sailing  on The Spirit of Tasmania car ferry, built by STX in Finland.  An excuse for a shout out to Johanna and the kids: Moi, nähdään pian!  Look out for the postcards.

After a night in Devenport we will be taking a slow drive around the Island, as much off the beaten track as we can manage, a week based in Hobart, and a  bit of river cruising and, weather permitting, aerial reconnaissance thrown in for good luck. The itinerary will unfold on these pages as it happens, Telstra permitting.

"What's the weather like in Tasmania at this time of year?"  The place we expect to be coldest is called the Overland Track, the area around Cradle Mountain, this link provides a map according to the Bureau of Meteorology, this time next week we can expect "Cloudy. Very high (95%) chance of showers. Snow falling above 800 metres. Winds west to northwesterly 25 to 40 km/h."  You'll find the forecasts  on line at the BOM's site.  Maybe that's why they bought a ferry built in Finland! (Presumably the signs are in English and I will not have to remember that varattu means occupied)
All of which reminds me that I hope Elaine and David have managed to the get the air conditioning repaired in Scottsdale where I gather the weather is unseasonably hot for the time of year, if not we will send them a snow parcel.

The only noticeable change to the FJ Cruiser for this trip is that we have removed the pod and replaced it with a basket and roof bags to make access more convenient.  The bags are allegedly snow and rain resistant!  Thank goodness we kept our warmest outerwear when we left Colorado!  There are more toys hidden away under the skin of the FJ this time, lets hope the technology all works

We have put a lot of time and effort into planning but I am not quite as ready for our departure as I would like so will keep this post brief and head straight back to my packing!  If all goes to plan I will post photographs to jAlbum pages as we progress, but that's all for now.