Tasmania in 2006

The idea was all C’s. She had written a small project about Tasmania at school and it had always been in her mind to go - when she asked me to accompany her there was no pause for breath before my affirmative answer.
It turned out to be the best holiday ever! No hesitation in that, no fine print - just the best.
We worked out the itinerary ourselves - mostly C - and had to make sure everything dovetailed together. Hence we owned the trip, not a travel company.

We had wide open spaces, tramping in the outback, beautiful scenery, unbelievable trees, deserted beaches with white sand, pink rocks…..

We loved laid back Launceston - maybe a lot is stuck in the 50’s but so what? Everyone is friendly - you can’t buy petrol without admiring the owner’s rock collection! Visit Salamander market in Hobart and drive up Mount Washington for a spectacular view.

The Overland Track is one of the very best walks in the world. We did it the luxury way, although you still have to walk the walk and carry everything you need on the trip with you. Rain gear is essential but we never saw a drop. One overnight rain made the gum trees look as though someone had varnished them for us. We had excellent cabins to stay in, amazing knowledgeable guides who worked so hard cleaning and cooking for us and Ninth Island Pinot Noir 2003 - the best red wine around! Stunning scenery and truly wild life wandering through our camps. Nothing could improve this walk.

Then there are the beaches of the Bay of Fires - pure white sand in some glorious bays and no crowds even though we were in peak season. You think why aren’t there a thousand people on this beach, because it is as beautiful as anything I have ever seen- but then there is another beach a mile away just as desirable.

Stanley with its nut is quaint and you can see platypus and penguins.
Strahan is a must although as touristy as it gets in Tasmania. The Gordon Rive Cruise was just wonderful and one of the real highlights. The railway, now restored, from Strahan to Quennstown is amazing - even more so when you realise it was dug out by hand. At least that is something good left behind from the mining activity as the area around Queenstown is devastated.

So much of Tasmania was penal colonies - Sarah Island, Maria Island. Enjoy the accompanying dolphins on the trip to Maria Island. One convict wrote that such atrocities (by warders on convicts) should be committed in a place as beautiful as God has ever created.
Stay at the Norfolk Bay convict station B&B.
Go to Bruny Island and see Adventure Bay (it has changed a bit since Captain Cook’s visit) and Cape Bruny Lighthouse to be put off sailing close to that shore, and stay in Angel Retreat.
Stay at Peter and Diane’s B&B in St Mary’s and eat at the Escape café. You can now move down the coast to Freycinet National Park - the most beautiful place I have ever seen. The coastline, the pink rocks turning red in the low sun. I hope you see a sunset as glorious as we saw - a finale to the perfect holiday.

Reflections on 2006

The year started with 5 weeks in Tasmania with my travel companion C. That was so good that it deserves its own post.

The latter holidays have been detailed but there is a lot left to summarise here!

Two great dance holidays, one with Jive Addiction in La Pineda near Tarragona (where incidentally I met L and R and have enjoyed trips to Newcastle following their invitations) and one with Club Dance Holidays in Granada, learning a little about tango. A week of tango is just enough to whet the appetite and I really need some regular lessons near Nottingham to achieve an ambition of dancing in the streets of Buenos Aires.

Walking holidays were a weekend in Yorkshire with my local Ramblers, the Hereford walking week, trips up Snowdon and Cader Idris and the fateful Introduction to Hutting from the Waymark brochure with my friend T. The principle of this holiday is that you stay high up in the Austrian Alps. Wonderful scenery if the sun shines as it did for half the week. Some huts are great, a bunk to yourself, good food and great camaraderie. Others involve bedding down on a large communal mattress - I don’t like somebody else’s breath on my back when I am trying to go to sleep - at least not a man’s! Basically I was out of my depth up in those mountains. T is stronger and fitter than me (he is younger - that could be an excuse for a lot of things in the future!) and easily kept up with the other five on the trip. I was the slow one although I did manage the walks in the times on the signposts. Also nothing to do with the weather or any other factor, I did manage somehow to pitch of the trail roll 20 yards and drop six feet off a rocky shelf before coming to rest with just one bruise to show. Incredibly lucky not to have serious injury. After a day off I resumed with the group in pouring rain which turned into heavy snow. There was a lot of scrambling before we reached the coll in 6 inches depth of snow and then the descent involved hanging onto this wire for about 30 yards before we settled into a steady walk down. So much for Austria in August!

There were many weekends away; with T and friends in Scarborough for jazz and cricket, with J (who is so wise - why don’t I take her advice?) in Ipswich, to relatives in Brightlingsea and to C, sometimes to work in her garden which she loves. Also a short break in Barcelona which I am willing to visit time and time again.

Finally a week in Samos with C. The first time we had not been on a holiday that had a detailed itinerary. Would we be bored? It turned out to be a lovely chilling out week. We relaxed, found wonderful beaches, good restaurants and rated Samos as perhaps our number one Greek Island.

Modern Jive in Gran Canaria (2 - 9 Dec)

Jive Addiction (www.jiveaddiction.com) are spreading their wings and giving us dance holidays in new locations. After several successful events at La Pineda near Tarragona in Spain, I went with them to Hotel Taurito Princess in Gran Canaria. It’s located between the lovely atmospheric Puerto de Mogan and Puerto Rico (the less said about modern Puerto Rico the better). The hotel gave us everything we could need - spacious rooms, good food and drink on an all-inclusive basis, a couple of pools to lounge around and most important from our point of view, a good area in which to dance. We had a room set aside exclusive to us for the entire week. Lessons were at 11am and 5pm and freestyle dancing from 10pm onwards - generally until 3am - making it a fairly long day. Plenty of adrenalin needed for 7 days of that! Our room had a smaller room separating us from a first floor communal area with table tennis and pool tables available. Drinks were on tap - beer, a range of fizzy soft drinks and water.
This turned out to be the best of 8 dance holidays I have been on - difficult to say exactly why. The company, the ambience just fitted my, and many other people’s, mood. We all seem relaxed, enjoyed every aspect of dancing, and made new friends or were delighted to reacquaint with old ones.
Teaching was by Mark and Rachel who have become so popular with us over the last few years. They are even better in the holiday situation than in regular venues. They can teach better, longer, more advanced routines and explain more aspects of style. Rachel has a mike as well as Mark and she can give as good as she gets in the banter that goes on! The ladies certainly appreciate her going through their steps. However it seems as though Ceroc, as an organisation, is setting up contracts which will prevent Mark and Rachel from working for other groups that present Modern Jive. Wouldn’t it be good if Ceroc tried to do better things for us dancers, rather than trying to undermine the independent groups.
Adam and Tania were the other teachers (also at Scarborough) and gave us some fun routines and dips and drops.
I really enjoyed my dancing especially with J also C, C, C, K, K, F, H and many more lovely dancers. To my surprise I kept going until 2.30 ish most nights, only briefly passing through ‘grumpy old man’ syndrome stages when the music was not quite to my taste!
I never listened to my ipod, read only 3 pages of my book and only needed an afternoon nap once, so my time was fully occupied.
Yes, the best yet, except perhaps for the next one.