ICONS AND ODDITIES...

During the recent road trip to Tassie and back, I was amused (and sometimes amazed) by several statues, letterboxes, icons and, well, just plain oddities, we saw.  Couldn't manage to stop for all of them but here are some that made the grade.... starting with the monument above we found in Hobart (near the Salamanca Markets) which appears to have a nautical bent; quite fitting, given that we went there for a Wrans reunion.

On our way to Port Arthur, we stopped for morning tea at a little roadside cafe and museum at Copping and were greeted by these delightful young ladies sitting on their ride. For some unfathomable reason I only took photos using my tablet so I apologise for the quality but I'm sure you get the idea.

[edit: Dec 2018 - just back from a short trip and have to report that these beautiful mermaids have gone and now there is an ugly dinosaur or something in their place]

I think our trip around Port Arthur would be enough for another post on its own.  During the walk with a guide, she mentioned the dogs which were kept to stop convicts escaping the peninsula via the Eaglehawk isthmus and asked if anyone had seen the statue on the way in.  Blank looks all round.  So we made sure we stopped on the way out and still managed to bypass it completely at first.  This shot was taken from about 100m up the road because we were not turning back!  Overall, very pleased with the quality though, given the distance.  Poor puppies must have had as miserable a life as the convicts.

No idea now where this was taken, except that it was on the way to Launceston from St Helen's (I think).  We did see a few carvings in the area and this was the biggest we saw and of course would have been a massive tree.

A lady in Derby told us this rock was originally called Shark Rock but somewhere along the line someone, somehow, managed to change it to Fish Rock on any of the souvenirs you get around town now.  I must say I think it looks more like a fish than a shark.

Still in Derby, couldn't resist this quaint little bank building. 

We stopped at one winery during our travels through Tasmania (a lot seemed to be closed) and I was quite taken with this corrugated iron merino sheep we found at the Leaning Church Winery (we weren't leaning, the Church was!).  

After leaving the winery,we came across a small town, the name of which escapes me now (but let's call it Painted Poletown), where most of the light poles in the main street are painted with murals.  Not sure how big the place is but I blinked and missed most of it.

What a great letter box.  Saw this beauty on the road between Launceston and Strahan. 

Painting seems to be quite popular in Tasmania.  Sheffield  (near Cradle Mountain) is well known for its murals.  This is a small selection of the the many we saw (and photographed). Top right you can see a couple of ladies preparing to paint another one.

Also in Sheffield, this furry chap and his furry pet alpaca charged us to take their photo and pat the lovely beastie.  We did not pat the tall one with the white fur.  File under "oddity"...

On our way to the Western Plains Zoo (another blog post there one day), we stopped at The Dish in Parkes.  A great Aussie icon.

After the Zoo we headed for home but not before spotting more interesting letterboxes.  I want to make one of my own now and have been giving some thought to building myself a... No, you'll have to wait and see.

Another oddity but a great one.  Any regular reader probably knows of my sci-fi bent, so you can imagine how quickly I screeched to a halt when I spotted this dalek!  Eeeeeek! Fortunately for us, it had been rendered harmless.

Another icon, captured in Stanthorpe, but I thought it was a fitting end to this iconic post because, although we started in the Apple Isle, we didn't see anything like it there. Of course, we couldn't see everything in a week.  Thank you, Tasmania and, like MacArthur, "I shall return".  Oh, wait. Did he actually return????