After the usual packing and last minute panicking, the O-mobile was fully loaded with gear, and our sights set on Tasmania. Well, Station Pier at least. Via the pizza shop. We pulled up at the terminal in good time to join the queue. The security checker quizzed us about orienteering – “are you carrying flares in case you get lost?” (note: any orienteer who needs flares to be found needs to seriously reconsider their sport of choice). Soon enough we were on board and settling into our 4 berth cabin – Dipidydoo reunited for another overseas adventure, plus regular travel companions Vic and Tina. Yes, Bass Strait counts as overseas!

We’d just settled down for a good night’s sleep, as the ferry gently chugged its way down the bay. It had been very windy all day, with some very strong gusts around lunchtime, but we thought it had eased off. Till – BANG! The boat was pitching and yawing in some serious swells. This was our fifth crossing, and the previous four had all been like sailing on glass, so the odds were against us. With no idea of how I’d cope with being rolled around in six directions at once, I lay in the dark, anticipating the reappearance of the pizza. Happily that didn’t happen, but any chance of sleep was lost. Being near the bow, we were being slammed loudly into the waves. It was just like being inside a spinning washing machine (or at least how I imagine that to be). Once through the heads things subsided, but every so often we’d hit another rough patch; just as we were nodding off, we’d be swirled round again for another few minutes.

Finally we hit the calm Mersey Channel as we approached Devonport. By 6am we were up and dressed, and befuddledly trying to remember where the car was. A quick exit for a change had us on the road by 7am.

With several hours to kill before needing to be in Launceston, we decided to have a look around. We drove into and through the town centre, to the parklands beside the Mersey estuary. We explored happily for a couple of hours enjoying gardens, seaside sculptures, a wind-buffeted lighthouse, and ocean waves spraying against dolomite cliffs at Mersey Bluff. There’s nothing like being thoroughly windswept to wake you up properly.

An easy drive brought us to Launceston, where we are settled comfortably into our hillside house, admiring expansive views over the rose garden to the hills beyond. Launceston is not a town to ride a bike in. Unless you like plummeting down sheer hills. And climbing back up them. StreetO here would require a degree of fitness that I don’t possess.