It’s not clear at this point whether The Little House of Concrete Hits the Road (Tasmania) is going to be a three, four or five-plus episode saga, but on the verge of Chapter Two it makes sense to look, as we tend to do, at the whys and wherefores that shaped the itinerary this time around.
Chapter One was the result of a very particular set of circumstances.
It was 2007. I had recently left the workforce, the financial arrangements that had been made needed a bit of tweaking and Madam was on Leave of Absence while she figured out her own options.
We’d just lost my Mum, and needed something in the way of a brief escape from routine when the Tiger Airways announced their arrival, operating out of Melbourne with a service to Mackay.
Madam investigated and found we could fly Mackay to Melbourne for $10 each. Both ways. So it became a matter of where you go from there. Where else could you catch a $10 flight? Perth? Adelaide?
The issues there, as I recall them, were the availability of el cheapo fares there and back again. We could do Melbourne to Launceston, so that’s where we went.
Fares, flight schedules and a lack of cash to splash around had us flying to Melbourne Friday, Melbourne to Launceston Saturday and back to Melbourne Wednesday for a Thursday return home. There’s not a lot of time in that schedule, so we were basically out for a bit of a look.
Madam had been to Tasmania before (twice), so she had an idea of where to start and what to do. Hughesy was happy to limit his call to a day on the Tamar Valley wine tasting trail and, basically, leave the rest to the driver.
As it turned out, we spent the Sunday having a drive around, ending up in George Town (here), Monday took us around the wineries (here), and Tuesday was downtown Launceston and The Gorge day. Wednesday produced a drive along the west bank of the Tamar before we handed the car back and headed to Melbourne.
Obviously, this time around we were going to start in Hobart, so the question was where we were going to go from there. Consultation with the regulation on-line services and a couple of tour guides in the local Library produced a couple of suggestions from Yours Truly, but final decisions, as always, rest with The Driver.
Given the angle of approach (from the south rather than the north) and the twists and turns in the road that takes you there, Strahan and Queenstown were ruled out. Having been there twice, Madam wasn’t keen on a third go at Port Arthur.
So, with the options gradually narrowing, we focussed our attention on Hobart and surrounds, particularly the Huon Valley, which looks like getting a reasonably thorough going over. It’s not really on the way to anywhere else so we might not be back.
So this is Chapter Two.