We could have paused for lunch at the Cafe that operates in conjunction with the railway, but opted to start moving back towards Hobart. If we’d arrived while the train was out on the track we may well have sailed straight past, though the unsealed road would have had us turning back before we’d gone too much further.
As it was, with the two hour chunk taken out of the middle of the day we were able to take a reasonably leisurely journey back, stopping off along the way wherever the photographic possibilities justified a break in the journey.
That took us back into Dover since we hadn’t captured an image of the accommodation, and we parked in Geeveston to check out the Forest and Heritage Centre. We took a further wander towards Makers on Church Street, which wasn’t quite my cup of tea in the arty crafty line (take a look here
and you’ll see what I mean) but had a shelf of interesting historical titles on sale.
We made a second stop at Franklin, giving The Driver a chance to catch up on photographic action that hadn’t quite been feasible the day before and a third just north of Huonville, where Madam had intentions towards apples and honey, so we stopped at The Honey Pot, which operates as an adjunct to the Huon Valley Visitor Centre. Some honey for the driver, some Tasmanian pepper berries for Hughesy and we were back on our way.
The plan had been to stop at the Huon Valley Apple and Heritage Museum, but it seemed to be closed for renovations. Maybe for more than just renovations, since when I went looking for a website http://applemuseum.huonvalley.biz turned out to have expired. I would have been interested in the 386 different varieties of apple that have been grown in the Apple Isle, more particularly in some of the heritage varieties that go into cider, but I guess some things just aren’t meant to be.
One thing that was meant to be was an ascent of Mount Wellington, though it was a question of when rather than if. Conditions earlier in the piece, on the previous Saturday hadn’t suited, but we had time, the wind had dropped, and there was no threat of falling white flakes. It seemed a good idea to tackle the ascent sooner rather than later.