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Having had a long term relationship break up last year I decided to take up an invitation I'd had a couple earlier from a distant cousin to go and visit him and his family in Tasmania, we worked out that we were about five times removed but that did not matter at all I was treated like family all the way, Dean and his wife Tanya are wonderful people, I met all his grown up children who lived near by, those living other places i did not meet. It was a wonderful three weeks holiday.
So I booked a four week holiday Down Under in Tasmania with some family I’d never met on my mother’s side and still have the family name Docking. Dean and Tanya are lovely people see the photo’s. They have 9 grown up children I met 7 of them with their wives husbands and children. A long journey it was taxi to Norwich bus station, bus to Heathrow and a big A380 Air Bus all the way to Australia, boy that’s a long time on an aircraft, 24 hours in all then a 2 hour flight to Tazzie on a 737 to Hobart where Dean met me in the rain and drove me to his house. I was knackered but kept up talking to Dean about all sorts of things. They had arranged for his brother Paul his wife Christine and her sister Nolene to come and we were going out to Dinner that Evening in Hobart to a fish restaurant called the “Drunken Admiral”. I then had a shock No draught Ale only some ice cold larger stuff they called beer! It had been a long day for me I went to bed and slept till 1530 the following day and also jet lag had caught up with me. Dean had planned to take me a few places but we scrubbed that and the next day we went to see the local scenery. He drove me to a wooden boat building college which was very interesting on the Huon River. The Scenery of Tazzie is breath taking mountains everywhere which suited me. On the way home he said lets go up the Mountain, I wasn’t for climbing I told him but no need to panic a road goes right to the top of Mt Wellington ,a mile up the views are breathtaking , you can see for miles from the top it was snowing on top see the photo. We went up it 3 times in all during the 3 weeks I was amazed by it. Dean took me all over the place while I was there he had 2 weeks off from work, we went to many places with English names, New Norfolk a town, Launceston, Richmond, Glenorchy, Woodbridge, Margate and even a Gretna! Many people asked me where I was from; I pointed to the ground and said UP THERE! Some didn’t get my sense of humour but I was right.
On the second week we went to see Paul and Christine at Primrose Sands, to go fishing for a day on Paul’s fast boat, we caught 40 Flatheads and good eating like Haddock they made we ate them on their balcony which looks out over the bay it’s lovely I must say it was odd seeing the sun setting to the left! I stayed with them for a couple of days and Christine drove me to see Port Arthur the place of the first Penal Colony this place shows Man’s inhumanity to Man so sad how people were treated. We then drove home, Christine took me on a House crawl for drinks at various neighbours’ houses, so we had a couple of glasses of champers at one and again at another friend’s house, I could live that life no problem. Paul took me back on the Thursday, he had work in Hobart to do, he’s a developer and had a flat to do up. Dean still had some free time so we set off to see other places up the Mount again. I could not have been treated better. On the 3rd week Dean was back to work so I had a day or three looking round Hobart a very interesting city. Time was coming to an end so I took Dean and Tanya to Dinner at a Greek Restaurant in Salamanca square, A famous street market is held there every Saturday.
Folowing the three weeks I then went on to Sydney and was met by friends who live in The Blue Mountains at a place called Wentworth Falls.
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