Tuesday, July 31st .....

I’ve already had a bit of a whinge about the Tasmanian weather in a previous post but the reality is that nothing much can be done about it and life just has to accommodate it.  Certainly an effective heater, warm clothes and good soup help to mitigate the problem but, if you life in Tasmania you have to accept, at some point, scraping ice off the windscreen, cold sniffly noses and numb fingers.

The usual Tasmanian response to the first of the icy blasts is to leave and I suspect there are more Tasmanians in Surfers Paradise in July than in Hobart.  That’s not even counting the Grey Nomads who flock like seagulls to the sun.  The habit becomes so entrenched that many Tasmanians retire to the Gold Coast expecting it to be one long holiday but, of course, it’s not.  It doesn’t take long before they start to miss their friends and familiar neighbourhoods and come back with their tails between their legs.

Anyway, we’re starting to miss the sun and decided to have a cruise to charge us up with a dose of Vitamin D.  We’re on the Pacific Dawn, sailing out of Brisbane on Saturday, 25^th August for a week in the South Pacific.  Brisbane was really the only option in August as everything else was booked out but it will give us a chance to see Madeleine before we set sail.

Another idea we looked at was a week on the Sunshine Coast or in North Queensland but, by the time we paid for the accommodation, all the meals, etc, it was a much easier option to go cruising, so it’s all arranged.  We fly direct to Brisbane on August 24^th, will have dinner with Madeleine and join the cruise on the 25^th, returning on September 1^st.  It should be lots of fun.