Cruising on the River

It pays to look at the vouchers on the back of your supermarket docket...you never know when one of them will be handy! We got a voucher for the Tamar River Cruise - buy one get one free, which meant we could treat ourselves to a trip.

So Saturday 17th (April) saw us joining a group of other tourists (most of them from a tour bus and predominantly in their 70s!) on the MV Tamar Odessy for a 4hour river cruise. The cruise takes you down the Tamar river as it meanders its way down the Tamar Valley for about 20miles to the Batman Bridge.

Along the way there were lots of impressive homesteads to look at along the way. As Launceston is one of the 3 oldest cities in Australia there is a lot of history around - the skipper seemed to know most of the history, pointing out things like the oldest church, the first vineyard, a little town created by one of the first Dutch settlers - to mention a few.

The river has a big silt problem - with the topsoil from the surrounding farm land washing off into the river. As the river is tidal, the silt just gets washed up and down the river. We left on our cruise at low tide - when most of the river is mud, but when we came back the river was full of water.

We also saw a sea eagles nest - apparently there are lots of them along the Tamar river, unfortunately we didn't see any!

We got great refreshments on board - including tasting local wines & beer, and some of the great locally made cheeses.

Both of us loved being back on the water - even if it was only a river, and the boat had no sails!