Kingston, Bothwell & Queenstown

I’m now about 2 months behind in my blog posting, it’s amazing how quickly the time passes.

After our 2 night adventure at Trout Creek we opted for a warm bed and hot shower at an Airbnb. We stayed in Kingston, about 15 minutes out of Hobart. Our host, Sandy and her 15 year old Spaniel were absolutely amazing. We had the most wonderful few nights, cooking up feasts in the kitchen, taking the dogs for huge runs in the paddocks and relaxing by the fire with a glass of wine at night.

We also went hiking up to Pelverata Falls with the dogs. It’s so interesting, it was as if Olive and Lucy already knew the way even though they’ve never been there before. I am in constant awe of their intelligence and unconditional love!

We regretfully said goodbye to Sandy and Ollie, and continued on further inland to Bothwell. Bothwell was FREEZING!! But was also a great little village even though the camp site was literally right next to the village cemetery which was a little spooky at night when I needed to use the bathroom…The local scotch distillery was a highlight and they even let us do the scotch tasting with the doggos, so bonus points for them!! When we woke in our tent the following morning it was negative 3 degrees and there was a layer of white frost covering the tent and car. This was a new record temperature for our camping adventure….the novelty didn’t last when it took half an hour to boil the kettle in the morning on the camping stove because the gas kept basically freezing!

From the freezing morning, a beautiful day was born and we continued on to Queenstown. Such a weirdly interesting place. We got there quite late but the local caravan park were very obliging and we’re super pro-pets! They had a lovely communal kitchen to cook in and the best hot shower and bathrooms we’ve seen on this trip so far!

Hot showers and real toilets are something I will never take for granted again! After camping for days on end in the middle of the bush during winter (wearing lots of layers of clothing), there are some nights where you think maybe you can just hold off having to empty your bladder until the morning… but usually this ends up in another hour of uncomfortable tossing and turning in the tent which then leads to an urgent rush to get out of the tent, a balancing act to try and peel off the layers of clothing, a cold wake up call on your skin when you finally get the layers off before you can even ‘go’. Then you have to balance while putting all the layers back on, while trying not to jump in the wee on the ground, before you can crawl back into the tent and go back to sleep! Obviously this is only a real issue for the ladies, Dan didn’t really understand…