550kms

That was the sum of what I achieved today.

I went for an early morning swim in Hobart then got in my car and headed North (well sort of North West really).

To go from Hobart to Devonport on the North coast, where I'm staying tonight, is probably about 300kms taking the most direct route. I decided that I'd 'maximise' my Tasmania experience and go via Strahan on the West coast.

Well Hobart to Strahan is about 300kms, but because of the twisty turny nature of much of the route, it took me about 4 hours to make the trip. I can't even say that I was able to admire the scenery on the way because I had to concentrate fully on the driving, and also because it lashed it down with rain for much of the trip so I could barely see what was in front of me.

Strahan itself was a bit of a non-event. Not a great deal to see, and when I turned up at just before 2pm, there weren't that many places that I could get a bite to eat. In the end I sort of settled for Banjos Bakery where I had a chicken baguette (oh, and a small sausage roll – I'd only had fruit for breakfast).

I didn't linger too long, but long enough to see a mother duck with her tiny ducklings trying to brave the water of Strahan Unfortunately I didn't have any bread to feed the 'quack quacks'!

I now had about 250kms to go before I got to Devonport. Thankfully the roads didn't have quite so many bends in them and were more what I expect in Australia – nice and straight.

As I approached the North coast the weather was transformed completely and it was now a fantastically sunny late afternoon/early evening.

I arrived in Devonport and found my motel easily enough. Rather than check-in straight away my first task was to find a bottle shop and get some James Boag's beer. I had made the significant transition from Cascade Beer country in the South to James Boag's beer territory in the North!

Once I's got my beer I checked-in, had a couple of bottles and then went out for dinner. About the only place open at 7.45pm was Danneborg (named in honour of the crown princess of Denmark who is from Tassie). I had a monster sized steak which looked fantastic, but took a bit more effort to eat than I would've liked!

After dinner I had a quick look around town (which was dead) and then walked back to my motel.

The temperature here is a little bit weird. It doesn't get heatwave hot during the day, but at night it never really gets below 15 degrees. Walking back tonight it really felt quite mild. In fact I put the air conditioning on when I got to my room. This didn't last long as it made an a terrible noise!