Spirit of Tasmania!

From Winchelsea we made our way past Geelong to a Freeway service station which offered free camping.  It was located 40 minutes to Port Phillip Bay where we had to catch the Ferry the next morning.  It was really windy and the road noise was quite loud so we stayed in the van most of the afternoon.

Early in the morning (4:30am) we woke to drive to the ferry. We loaded the kids into the car and they all gradually woke up on the way.  We stopped about 5 minutes before the ferry and had our breakfast on the side of the road.  We then lined up for quite some time before being told to come back in 10 minutes due to the ship docking late and cars were still unloading.

After about an hour we went through to Quarantine where we handed over garlic and oranges which we couldn't take to Tasmania.  The kids had already eaten carrots at 5:30am and tomatoes a bit later!

So we drove onto the ferry.  We were all pretty excited! We parked the car and made our way to our cabin to drop off our school books and backpacks so we could go explore the ship. 

We found the kids corner with a small jungle gym and kids tv.  They were pretty happy with that until they explored further and found a gaming station with 4 screens and 8 seats!

Karli found the face painting lady who later painted Chad, Brenton, Rowan and Axels faces too! She was very talented!  The kids also made some postcards.

Once the ship had left Port we went to our cabin to do some schoolwork AND have a shower!  A real shower was so nice after the camping showers we'd been having!

As the boat headed out of 'The Heads' and into open water we started to experience the 4-5m swells and 30knot winds! Walking through the corridors got a bit tricky as did walking across the top deck!  None of us actually became ill but we were glad to use the beds for regular naps to keep on top of the queasy feeling!  Chad, however, never noticed - he spent most of the day at the gaming station!

After a relatively uneventful day we docked in Devonport about 7:15pm. We went down to the car and waited to be able to leave the boat.  From there we made our way about 5 minutes to a showground where we met The Ritchies again - who had made us DINNER!  As we stood and chatted the sun was beautiful... the minute it set, the wind became icy! Brrrr!