Well, we did see the penguins last night, but only by getting very cold and wet. The rain was hammering down by the time we reached the place where the penguins are to be found. There were a couple of Burnie residents there, and they had dimmed torches so as not to disturb the birds too much. They found us a penguin quite quickly, he was hiding under the boardwalk where we were standing. One of the women greeted him, and he shuffled out to look at us with the air of one who is completely amazed that anybody would be sufficiently mad to stand outside in that weather, then he quickly ducked back under the shelter of the boardwalk. The next penguin they found for us decided that the sea was less wet than where he was standing, and turned to go back in. At that point there was a particularly vicious gust of wind, and Paul said surely I was satisfied with seeing two penguins, and did we have to stand out in the cold and wet any longer. So we went back to the hotel.
It was an earlier start this morning - breakfast at 7 - and we set off for Devonport at 8 a.m. It is another port, but not as big, busy or important as Burnie. It was a prettier place though.
It was on the river Tamar, and had not been the site of the original settlement, which had been some distance up-river at Latrobe, which was our next stop. We were unable to appreciate the historic significance of the town, or its Sunday Market, because it was raining again, and we spent much of our visit in a cafe, staring moodily through the window at the rain. We rushed outside as soon as the rain stopped, but almost everywhere was shut - it IS Sunday, after all.
Our next visit was to a cheese factory, where we had an interesting talk and slides, but no demonstrations because it is Sunday... Anyway, we tasted the cheese and argued about what we liked, and bought some for our lunch. Our lunch visit was to Deloraine, which is noted for being a craft centre. It has a famous Craft Fair in November, and there are lots of craft shops in the town. All of which were shut. They have a real steam engine which you can climb inside though - Paul liked that. And fortunately, it had at last stopped raining.
We drove on to Launceston ( pronounced Lawn-cess- tn) and straight to The Cataract Gorge, which is a river gorge right in the centre of the city. There are two cataracts - sets of rapids really - with a suspension bridge over them.
The river flows into a calm basin, then there is a weir to let the water out. There is a chair lift over the basin, which we used to go over, then we climbed the hill to the lookout.
The hill is very steep, and I didn't really enjoy the path at all, but there are views right over the town.
When we came down the hill, we took a walk over the suspension bridge, which is very wobbly if the people on it have heavy feet. The park itself was very beautiful, with rhododendrons and azaleas just coming into flower, paths winding up and down the hillside, and peacocks.
We were then taken to our hotel in Launceston, and went for a walk round. It is the second largest city in Tasmania, and has many fine old Georgian and Victorian buildings - not to mention this rather French looking one.
Once again, everywhere was shut, including restaurants. This was rather trying, because this was an evening on which there was no organised dinner. We ended up going back to the hotel and calling room service.
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