Hi! Had my second last Cruise Ship Market Saturday… busy day with great sales… boy oh boy was I tired! Today was slow… with some half hearted housework. Anyway, to continue! This little creek crossing I was hanging out for! It was pretty hot so dipping my head into the water was super refreshing!
We started getting to the point of seeing ‘views’ too!
Totoro had a few photo shoots…
Then into the mossy forests we went.
Yuri, being the author of several Japanese Moss Garden books was so amazed at this area… even in the hot weather when its not at its best… its still beautiful!
Jeff was usually up ahead… and we kept finding Totoro in various places!!
Time for a quick posed snap!
We were getting a little tired and looking forward to a lunch stop
Hello Yuri!
Even in summer its a bit dark in the tangled mossy areas. Nice to get back out into the brighter light
More picture taking! Picture taking of pictures being taken??
And here we are at the lake – ready for some cheese and relish sandwiches and a bit of a sit down
The sangers were SO good (Yuri is in love with my relish haha) and I did a bit of a paddle in the lake to cool off
Unfortunately there were no shady trees at this spot so we didn’t linger excessively… just enough time to eat, drink and recharge the energy batteries!
From here the track still goes a long way but it meanders more in an across and downwards fashion.
And the views are lovely!
We started walking through different bush areas
Open scrubby areas and a few more mossy tree areas!
It really never gets boring thats for sure!
Some bright berries!
And sweet paper daisies
How great does the bark on these trees look!!??
At this point the track just seems to go a bit too long! We know Pelion Hut isn’t too far… but it takes its sweet time appearing!
By this stage poor Yuri was like ‘dead man walking’ and just stumbling along on automatic, bless her cotton socks! She did an amazing job! We were all fairly tired by the time we reached Pelion and set up our tents! After a bit of rest and relaxation and food we were quite fine but very much enjoyed getting to sleep that night! Anyway, I shall try to attend to a few more photos soon to continue the story! xxx
Hi! Wow… two days in a row! I’ve been working on some of the photos from when our friend Yuri came to stay. So I thought I’d start sharing the Main Event… a hike up into the Cradle NP to see what the rangers dub ‘The Japanese Gardens’
When I was in Japan last year I spent a fabulous day with Yuri and convinced her to make plans to come and see us. The hike was a big goal – the area falls right in the middle of the Overland Track, which wasn’t really a practical option. Happily, there is a kinda short cut into the track via the Arm River Track. Its a fair way from our place to the start, so we opted to go the day before and camp closer so we were on the track earlier without having to wake at dawn and do a super long drive first.
We camped at the base of Mt Roland, ate a picnic dinner and Yuri and I took a short local walk just to get into the swing of the thing.
Actually where we camped was literally across the creek and down from where Maureen and I stayed for Steamfest and in future, we will use those cabins for these adventures.
Haha… off we go. Nothing too difficult or long. It was just nice to stretch the legs after the drive.
Lots of little signs and other bigger signs with local information
I think Yuri was nervous, and I was also anxious (wanting things to go smoothly) So easing into our adventure was a nice thing to do with a relaxing walk.
And it was such a pretty area!
We were mostly all ready for the next days walk. Jeff was taking our tent and I had Yuri’s tent. We were trying to reduce her pack weight as she is only small and wasn’t used to crazy hiking. My friend Nardia was kind enough to give us a loan of a pack and sleeping bag and a few other handy things for the hike.
The main hike we planned to do over three days. First day in – a long haul with a mean climb for the first half… hence wanting to start early before the sun cooked us. Second day to go up to the Japanese Gardens and third day to hike out.
I worded Yuri up about the lack of showers – a shock to the system for a Japanese person I am sure, since bathing is such a cultural thing! I also said dont worry about the makeup – you just have to carry it and the wildlife and other hikers dont care!! hee hee… I am pretty sure she snuck some in.
So here we are looking all Genki (Japanese word) ready to tackle day one!
We brought the Triton this time as the road in is a bit rough and I think Jeff was crying when we brought the nice little Mazda last time.
Jeff also brought Totoro along for the hike! (If you are not familiar with the movie, do yourself a favour and go check out ‘Totoro’ and some other Ghibli Studio Movies while you are at it! – My favourite is Spirited Away)
Easy start…
Followed by a bit of log balancing
Yuri looking like a pro and non of us fell off! Bonus!
Finally a sign to tell us we aren’t lost!
And then came the tough part… up and up with the switchbacks. I get ridiculously anxious about the start of a trek… esp the going up thing. I am talking throwing up anxious… which is annoying as I’ve done these things so many times. There is no need for it, but – huh. Body says nope – Drama Queen Time! I did take some medication to calm the farm and let Jeff do his pace heading off ahead and I planned to stop at every switchback and inch my way up.
The overall combo seemed to work well and we just took our time overcoming the days challenge.
And stopping to take a snap or two!
The switchbacks stop eventually but the up continues for a fair way.
The track got a bit more interesting with the bush closing in
It has been so dry over summer… more than we would usually expect here in Tassie, so the moss and lichen weren’t as spongy fresh as we are used to seeing.
We’ve dubbed this rock, ‘Nectarine Rock’ in honour of stopping here to down packs and enjoy some fresh fruit! I cannot describe HOW GOOD that nectarine tasted! We were in heaven! Sometimes you have to do stupid things to enjoy your fruit more…
Clearly revived… Yuri looks like she has lots of energy left!
I always enjoy coming back out into the open spaces after spending a while in the scrubby bush areas.
I forgot to ask Yuri how many photos she took on this hike! She outdid me by a long shot!!
And I love just stopping to take in the views, catching my breath and generally trying not to break land speed records when doing these hikes so I enjoy hiking buddies like this!
Anyway, I am going to leave you on the track here as I have an early (ish) night. Plan to head up to Jude’s in the morning for some gardening and in the afternoon attend a talk about fossils in Tasmania (is that nerdy?)(I am totally there for it!)
Hello! OK… I am officially making my 2024 goal of blogging at a regular pace. I am yet to sort out that pace.
But I just renewed the site for another 12 months so I better get my act together! (Above and below: Mulled wine, Japanese Honeysuckle and some Aloe Vera Soap)(I was adding to stock to make sure I could cover the last lot of cruise ship markets and some local ones)
Stacked boxes of soaps! All ready for Steamfest, held at Sheffield for three days.
I even went as far as labelling the boxes. Back to good old scribbled notes and tape as the little label holder didn’t really work. I think there is around 600 soaps in here
Soap sock/soap saver! New design – I just made it up and its quick to do and… importantly… fits the soap in. Just a couple of granny squares crocheted together
These will be nice to do over winter when I am trying not to do much but sloth in front of the fire.
Travel sized shampoo bars – I like the little bags. Got to stir my butt and get more shampoo bars made.
This year we cancelled the campsite and was lucky enough to find a place not far south of Sheffield to lay our heads. Maureen decided she was just a bit on in years to be crawling in and out of tents… esp in the middle of the night when one might want a wee!! This spot at Gowrie park was only about 15 minutes drive and the part we stayed in was essentially a backpackers with private rooms, shared bathrooms and a kitchen! Perfect for what we needed. Here is a pic of the room I artfully decorated in my rubbish.
We will definitely take advantage of this location again.
Anyway, down to Sheffield we go… Maureen and I! Her husband Gerry also drove up to help us put up a backdrop as we decided last year that the grotty old shed walls weren’t aesthetically pleasing enough.
Just in the throes of covering our stall up for the night. I love setting up and walking away! But its a dusty shed and the condensation means a bit of cover is a smart move.
The ladies from the Cruise Ship Markets also packed up from one market and drove the hour and a half to set up here!! Exhausting!
This time Maureen convinced Gerry to let her bring up his baskets to pop onto a table! Mostly willow and flax – what a variety he has! Not bad for starting a new hobby in your 80’s!!
I’d kept a number of full batches to use at Steamfest so I wasn’t left with half filled baskets So good to see them all out on display
I made use of the back wall to display Mums scarves and the cosy cuffs my friend Nozomi’s Mum made.
Here we go! All set up! Carpet and all!
Maureen in fine form! Mind you the hat lasted about 4 minutes as we were dying from heat! It was madly hot over the weekend. Humid too! Hilarious watching people though. The ones walking by in various stages of Melted Puddle were the Tasmanians who seem allergic to any sort of humidity. I could instantly tell the Queenslanders though… they looked quite comfortable in an ‘you call this humidity??’ kind of way!!!
Lovely aprons and wall hangings.
Maureen certainly has been busy since returning from Japan. She did have things on her stall that weren’t hers – besides Gerry’s baskets – and next year that wont be happening. Cutting down all the extras to just display her own work, (and the baskets of course!) so she can keep all the loot for herself!
Jeff dropped in to visit on the Sunday – to check out Steamfest and kiss his wife of exactly 17 years! Unconventional anniversaries are the name of our game it seems Yet to do something like have a dinner out to celebrate!
We loved the look of our little shop and had a fabulous weekend away, eating pizza and various other junky food!! We had a lot of laughs! Mind you, sales were down a lot compared to the previous year, but we still went home happy.
My friend Jackie makes these absolutely gorgeous reversible bucket hats! She has sold well over the cruise ship season. Actually we were all meant to be there today, but the boat cancelled so we all packed up and came home. Its raining now… and finally being at loose ends (yes yes, still a million projects to be worked on but…) so I wanted to sit and blog and photoshop travel photos from Yuri’s visit!
There are two more cruise ship markets and then the season is done. Hopefully the weather and seas are good as they are pretty big boats. I’ve done well out of them – I’ve been madly saving it all and I am planning on funding a return to Japan… this time with Jeff!! (Nice wife haha) After the cruise markets there are three more local markets – two in April and one in May and a potential soap workshop in April. So things have slowed up markedly and I am beginning to catch up on other things – helping Jeff a little in wood restocking. We emptied the tanks and swooshed them out. The bottom was getting a little manky in the main tank so it was time. And wow! Rain. So decent timing on that. Its been super dry. Also made my beloved pesto and another batch of relish as the tomatoes have been so much better this season than last! The house is still a wreck. Lets not talk about that! Hope everyone is doing well! Halfway though March already! Insane!
Wow… March! Thanks for sticking with me! I clearly haven’t gotten any better at time management. I am thinking once this month is done, cruise ship markets done, everything should settle back to something more sensible. I did a quick stroll around the shabby garden yesterday to get some updated pics to be able to write a quick blog Tomatoes – Magnificent!
Hothouse? Not so magnificent haha Oh dear
I have an insane Black Russian Cherry Tomato plant that has grown all over the place and the fruit is gorgeous
I’ve squeezed in some time to make a couple of relish batches
Our visitor, Yuri got totally addicted to the relish! She wanted it on every meal!
The potato patch is probably ready for a full harvest… When I have time
All looking a bit shabby but boy oh boy are the new potatoes tasty!
And a slightly hilarious meal photo… not restaurant worthy, but home made rissoles and some salad and eggs and damn its good! (and relish)(and yes, erm… tinned pineapple because I love it)
And another less than artistic meal photo… potato bake and the first of the corn which is soooo sweet and amazing. And a lame salad because I was too lazy to do anything else.
So many meals in the above pic! Below, my butternut pumpkins have happily taken over this space and I’ve got 4 or 5 of them growing that I’ve spotted so far. (The other rampant plant in there are a multitude of cape gooseberry bushes!)(I am never going to get rid of those!)
Hiding in the oregano and lemon balm!
Cousin Jeff has dropped off a couple of loads of wood and Husband Jeff has been collecting wood as well on his hikes – and he cut/stacked it all! Usually thats my job so I am pretty happy about that!
We will do some more collecting soon. I want to be over stocked this year!
The outside tomatoes that I grew from laterals have just started to ripen. Most are yellow. The bamboo trellis has worked pretty well
What a mess tho! Oh well… I’ll get to it eventually!
Fat bottomed mutant zucchini…
Golden nugget pumpkins…
Um… random egg? Weird chickens
Coco. All these are tablet photos… so not exactly the usual quality but… thought you’d like to say hello to the chooks! I’ve not made time to get back to photoshop to go through all our adventure hiking photos that we did with Yuri. We had a fantastic time and I am looking forward to sorting the pictures.
Might get some sunflowers soon!!
I did plan a day of slothing finally on tuesday… then it turned out I needed a tooth extracted!! (Back molar) So it really wasnt the relaxing day I was aiming at!!! I’ve tried to take it at a bit less of a frantic pace. I’ve booked in to the last three cruise ship markets which is in the latter part of March. I made up some extra soap batches that should be cured to use by then. It gives me a bit of a break from those – but I have Steamfest on the 9th, 10th and 11th March which Maureen and I go up to Sheffield and stay. We plan to set up our space on Friday. The lovely thing being that we dont have to take it down every day… they just lock the big shed. So the cruise ship markets have been a fabulous success as far as I am concerned! Saving all the $$ to get Jeff and I back to Japan later in the year (goals) I really am looking forward to winter though! Some long evenings in front of the fire – movies and basket weaving!! Crochet? Anyway, I have a list I need to work through today so I better get my butt moving! Hope everyone is doing fabulously well xxx
