We lined for the ferry at Port Melbourne and it was a nutty, crowded and honking car filled traffic nightmare but we made it on board after nearly 2 hours in line and the sacrifice of the last of our frozen peas and berries.

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We had a cabin with two double bunks and not quite enough room to put the ladders up to them. The kids slept okay but adults only had a patchy snooze. It was interesting but I wouldn’t do it for fun. There was 2 metre seas but it was only a little rocky.

After disembarking (a much quicker process) at Devonport we went 20 minutes west to Ulverstone and I had the Glen Campbell song Galverstone in my head the whole time (ahh Glenn you can really worm your way in there). The beach was just across a road and a railway line (?) Fairy penguins land on the beach at night so we stayed there after sunset one night but it was freezing and quite dark by the time we saw one of the little beggars arrive- still quite thrill to see these little fellas in the wild.

We did a day trip the first day and started at a place called Penguin (you can guess why).

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Then we went for a drive inland and ended up at a zoo called Wings Wildlife Park and did something way too extravagant. We paid a fortune – but got have a hands experience with a tassie devil pup, a wombat named Roxy and a gang of meerkats. It was a day that will be up there and relived in family legend for centuries. It was such a great little out of the way, family run place. There’s no way we could afford it but there you go I guess we did.

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We followed that incredible day up with a family fun day at Tasmazia and the town of Lower Crackpot, a spot with more mazes than you could poke a labyrinth with. We had another funtastic day and the kids loved it.

Tassie has a really different feel from the rest of Australia. The houses are different, the landscape is different (and a lot greener) and the people are a real step up on the friendly scale.