28th April 09

woke up freezing this morning. The grass was crunchy and the fire hose was slowly leaking and the water formed a stalagmite. You can see some of it in the grass. At least the sun was shining but there was no heat in it at all. The temerature was -2 degrees.

After breakfast we decided to move the van out of the caravan park and then walk around the town of Ross to the women's prison. There was not a lot left of the actual prison except the walls and a few small ruins barely visible under the grass. The superintendant's house was still standing so we went in there for a little while to read about prison life.

we then walked back into town and looked at the other historical buildings, the pub, gaol, town hall and the church on the top of the hill. This is still being used today and looks quite impressive. There was also a Wool centre that showed quite a bit of the history of the industry in Ross. There are plenty of sheep, green pastures and rolling hills around Ross. It was an interesting display. We then moved back to the Ross bridge and I took some more photos of the carvings on the bridge.

We then headed down the street to the Post Office. still the original building with a horse mounting step still there out the front. Across the road is the bakery and tea house that sells the famous Tassie scallop pie so we had to try one. They are certainly delicious with around 5 or 6 large scallops in them with a small amount of curry.

We then headed back towards Launceston to Ellendale and Longford to see some of the historical buildings. We then drove to Westbury to get some more beautiful gelato ice-cream. Can't really think why we would need cold ice-cream as it has been really cold all day with an icy wind blowing but with the van pointing towards the sun it was warm enough to enjoy the beautiful ice-cream.

We the headed to a large steam engine museum. Alex is really interested in steam engines so I tagged along just for him. At least we were out of the wind for a while.

We stopped tonight at Hadspen and prepared ourselves for another really cold night. They are predicting -2-3 degrees again and heaps of frost on the roads in the morning.

tomorrow morning we will take the van back to the airport and then pick up the car and head over to Sheffield and surrounds as there was a couple of places we missed out on seeing. The trouble being that most places only open at 10:00am and we are often on the road before then.

We have to be in Devonport by around 5:00pm for boarding and sadly (but not missing the freezing weather) we will have to say goodbye to Tassie.