Public holidays in Tasmania

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Sarah

The other day I was filling in the beautiful 2012 calendar and diary that Tim’s sister gave me for Christmas and it occurred to me that I should write a post about public holidays in Tasmania. There are actually more public holidays in Tasmania than the rest of Australia. Additionally, there are regional public holidays, which are only applicable to certain parts of Tassie.

After going through my calendar, I counted 12 public holidays for all of Tasmania plus 9 funny little regional public holidays. If you’re living in southern Tasmania from Oatlands down you get 13 public holidays. If you’re living near Launceston you get 14 public holidays (though one of those public holidays it looks like you only get a half day public holiday – how complicated!!), and similarly for Devonport they also get 14 public holidays though one of those days is a half day as well.  I think New South Wales as a whole has just 10 public holidays. It just goes to show you that Tassie people enjoy their time off!

There are generally pretty good opening hours for shops down here on public holidays, although in the city on any ordinary Sunday not every shop is open and some only open at 10 or 11. The larger shops are usually open on Sundays and on public holidays except for Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday (there is the usual last minute frenzy in Woolworths of panic buying before the shops close up for the long weekend). Even on New Year’s Day our local Woolworths was open and our local IGA was open until 9pm (Woolworths closed on the dot at 8pm – I was there at 8 and they wouldn’t let me buy some oyster sauce for our Christmas Eve san choy bow – boo to them!). Considering Tasmania is generally said to be about 20 years behind the rest of Australia I think these are pretty good shop opening hours. I think Western Australia has the most backward shop opening hours – I’m not even sure if they even have Sunday trading there yet (poor WA)!

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Guest post: Jo and Dale Reardon

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Guest Post

This is a guest post written by Jo and Dale Reardon, the owners and operators of Settled In, a home search and relocation services company in Tasmania.
________________________________

Moving Back To Tassie – Our Experience
We have moved to Tassie! My husband Dale and I are both born and bred Tasmanians. I grew up in Hobart but left twenty years ago to move to Melbourne, and Dale grew up in Launceston and later studied and lived in Hobart before leaving Tassie in 2004. We met in Melbourne in 2006 and never really thought too much about coming home until about a year ago. It just felt like the time was right and the decision was more or less made over a couple of glasses of bubbly last New Year’s Eve.

Why Move Back?
The catalyst for our move was Dale wanting to return to study to commence his PhD in Law and Hobart became the best option for that. Of course it then became clear that there were many other advantages in making the move and it became about wanting to achieve other things as well. Being close to family once again, reducing our mortgage by buying for less, the great Tassie lifestyle and the joys of less traffic and travel times were all big reasons for the move.

Also after making the decision and thinking about what I might do for work I started thinking about the idea of a new business. So after lots of research and ground work, Settled In – Home Search and Relocation Services Tasmania was created. This is most definitely something that we could only achieve in a smaller market like Tasmania.

Mount Wellington, Tourism Tasmania and Nick Osborne

Deciding where to live
Even though we both knew Hobart well, it still took us a little while to decide where exactly to live.

We set a budget and looked at properties online in a wide variety of suburbs that appealed to us. We thought about the facilities in each suburb and travel time to Uni for Dale. For us, there was no point being two buses and 45 minutes travel time away if we wanted this new relaxed lifestyle. Plus Dale is vision impaired, so it made sense to make the journey as straight forward as possible for him and Charlie his seeing eye dog.

We visited Hobart for a long weekend in January and saw 13 properties in five suburbs in one day. Exhausting! At the end of this trip we had decided on a location – Kingston Beach. We loved the idea of living right near the beach. I grew up in Taroona just up the road. We ended up signing a contract for some land the following week.

We had a second trip to Hobart in May. Our house in Melbourne was still not sold and the contract on the land lapsed. We looked again at established houses. A house in Kingston Beach we liked in January was still on the market. We also started looking seriously at Sandy Bay. This meant giving up the beach (as Sandy Bay near beach was out of budget), but being in a great location closer to the city and to Uni.

On this trip we looked at nine properties. The big decision was choosing between the two fave suburbs and Sandy Bay won. After being back a couple of times the distance from Kingston Beach to the city started to feel too far (yes a whole 12 minutes!).

Our short lists were reasonably long on both visits, but that is often part of the process if your search area crosses a few suburbs. We found that a lot of properties that looked and sounded great on the internet listing eliminated themselves pretty swiftly once inspected. This was either due to odd layout, poor maintenance, average location, poor access, limited local facilities or size and functionality of the rooms.

Our new life in Tassie
We are really enjoying being back in Tassie, and happy that we made the right choice for us on the house and location. We lived outside of Melbourne so the off peak drive to the city was 35 minutes, but to work in the mornings it was most commonly an hour or more. Now, we are five minutes from the city and I can’t remember when I last put petrol in the car. That in itself has made a huge difference to each day.

We are also enjoying the weather. On a sunny day it always feels so much warmer than the official temperature. In reality it is mostly only a few degrees less than Melbourne, but so far with less rain and storms. I never loved the super hot days in Melbourne in late summer, so I think it will suit me just fine here.

Overall the lifestyle seems more relaxing than before and just easier to get out and do things.

Fishing on the beach at St Helens Point, Tourism Tasmania & Glenn Gibson

Tips for relocating
Our main frustration in the whole process – which had nothing to do with where we were moving to – was the time it took to sell our house. We just had to learn to be flexible and accept this long lead time.

We were lucky that the only aspect of our move that was difficult to do from afar was the house search, but it still required two visits and quick decisions and was aided by our existing knowledge of the location. Given our plans for study and a new business we didn’t also need to be job hunting, and not having children meant instead of hunting for schools we just booked the cat’s accommodation.

The main advice we have for anyone planning to relocate is to be organised. There is so much to plan and you can’t do it all at once. Work out what can be done months in advance (like buying a house) and what can only be done closer to your move (like renting a house). There is no point stressing about the aspects of your move that can’t yet be actioned.

Of course relocating is about much more than just the house you plan to live in. It takes time and effort to relocate the other parts of your life too. Depending on your circumstances you may need to consider schooling and childcare, sports clubs, your pets and other recreational needs. You need to think about how you will immerse yourself into a new community, and this takes time.

If you make the move to Tassie, I hope you love it as much as we do.

________________________________

This is a guest post written by Jo and Dale Reardon, the owners and operators of Settled In, a home search and relocation services company in Tasmania.

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Happy New Year!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Sarah

Hope everyone had a lovely relaxing Christmas. I had a nice break doing nothing at all over in Perth, just sitting on the couch and watching the cricket. (There is nothing more that I love [other than being at the SCG on the second day of the New Year test - a sort of tradition that Tim and I had] than watching the cricket.)  Now I’m back and into the daily grind again, but this year I’m not going to place quite as much pressure on myself.

While I was away I had time to think about how abnormally frantic I have been each day to get everything done, particularly with making things for my market stall. I also had time to think about the best way to lay out the kitchen (which hopefully will get done within the next 12 months) and about the process for decorating the sunroom, lounge and dining room in March. I have a lot more clarity now and my New Year’s resolution is not to lose that clarity.

I also had the thought that I may actually need an assistant to help me with some of the things that I have to do (well, a duplicate of myself would be ideal but an assistant would suffice!) The last few months have been out of control trying to keep up with making things for the stall, trying to keep up with the house work and the garden, trying to keep up with fixing the house up, trying to keep up with answering questions on the blog and writing new posts for the blog. It’s so easy to get caught up amongst everything, while still thinking about what needs to be done and what should be done and what’s going to be done. I’m not going to put that pressure on myself this year! I know that others are in very similar positions to me trying to cope with the daily grind but you shouldn’t pressure yourself or beat yourself up if things start to fall by the wayside. You can’t do everything and when it comes down to it, you’re only one person.

Before I went away for Christmas I bought this little beauty, which goes about a billion times faster than my domestic sewing machines.

My industrial sewing machine.

Tim had previously been encouraging me urging me to get an industrial sewing machine but I couldn’t justify spending the money and I thought it could be a hassle trying to learn and get used to a new machine. It was getting a bit silly because I would alternate 10 to 15 times a day between three domestic sewing machines which are all probably due for a service and are very temperamental. One day, after an outburst directed at all three of my sewing machines and a few tears I decided to front up the money and get an industrial machine. I love it and should have done it months ago. I still need about another 6 hours in the day, but for the time being this machine will help. 

On the Moving to Tasmania website front, I have an exciting new concept that I am introducing this year – I am calling for a handful of “special guest” posters to write a post for publication on my website this year. I already have the first special guest post which I will publish in the next few days. If you would like to be a special guest poster then please view the details here. I look forward to having a really good response from special guests!

Well, let’s hope that 2012 is a happy, safe and prosperous year. I wonder how many of you will make the move down to Tasmania in 2012?

Sarah

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Christmas in Hobart

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Sarah

Wrest Point Casino lit up at Christmas time. Photo: www.hobartdaily.com

There is quite a lot to do in Hobart over the Christmas New Year break. First of all, the kids can go and meet Santa Clause at Salamanca Market – he’ll be located on the Salamanca Lawns on the 10th and the 17th of December from 9am to 12 noon. Hopefully families might take the chance to go and see Santa and see what the market has to offer in the way of unique last minute Christmas presents – if you live here in Tassie do go and check out the market, I can assure you there are lots of new stalls since the last time you visited. There will also be a gift wrapping service run by Rotary that will be in operation on the 10th, the 17th and the 24th. You can find the gift wrapping service in a marquee just inside the entrance of Kennedy Lane.

Now, if you’ve got some Christmas presents to buy, I can highly recommend these products as I’ve bought them myself!

Tasmanian Chilli Ginger Beer Company- Craig and Lidia (and little baby Ada, just a few weeks old) produce a small range of boutique ginger beers, the speciality being the organic chilli ginger beer. In the range there is also the raspberry, the lime the leatherwood and honey (special release), and plain ginger beer. I’ll be taking a 6 pack back to Perth when I visit my family over Christmas.
The House of Fudge- I’ve tried the lemon and poppy seed fudge which just melts in your mouth. Next time Penny is at the Huon Valley Good Life Market with her delicious (and extremely popular) fudges I’m getting one of each of the 17 flavours and I’ll be taking some to Perth with me for the family – Tim also wants to send half of them to Sydney for his folks but we’ll see if there are any left over after I get stuck into them ;)
Bodhi Farm Organics- Tanya moved from Adelaide to settle in Geeveston where she is running a permaculture farm. She and her hubby have 2 young boys, a farm to look after and they are running a business at the same time. She makes and sells a range of middle eastern dipping spices – dhukkas – which go down a treat with customers at Salamanca on a Saturday and at the Tas Farm Gate on a Sunday. She gets around to all the small country agricultural shows and is currently winning a heap of ribbons for her tasty dhukkas.
The lovely Marita of Loopee Designs was the very first person that I met at the market. She was so kind towards me and was really encouraging on that really horrible wet windy first day. We have been market neighbours for a couple of weeks and she was even trying to get her customers to go next door and buy my things instead of hers! She is so nice – and so are her handmade stationery items. She makes the lovliest journals, pencil cases, pouches pencil rolls and purses – all approved by her cute 7 year old daughter. I have to say that if I wasn’t next to Marita on that first day and if I hadn’t had that encouragement I wouldn’t have gone back to the market for a second time!
Mountain Pepper Pizza- We first met this really sweet couple, Isaac and Nat, about a month ago when it was their very first day at Salamanca. They have an amazing portable wood fired oven in which they cook very tasty pizza. One thing I have found really difficult to get here in Tassie is good pizza. There are lots of local pizza shops but none of them match up to our local pizza shop back in Sydney. But Isaac and Nat (and little 5 month old Elijah) make pizzas which are delicious and scrumptious and wholesome – we’re so pleased that we’ve finally found some good pizza! Mountain Pepper Pizza use only organic ingredients and they source everything as locally as possible. They even use sustainable wood off-cuts as fuel for the oven. Their menu consists of seafood, breakfast and roast pumpkin pizzas just to name a few.
Caroline of Cherry Brown Cosmetics (and the proprietor of Cherry View accommodation in Cygnet) makes a great range of vegan cosmetics including lipstick, lip balm and mineral foundation. Caroline’s cosmetics are great quality and they go on really well. I especially love the orangey-red lippy that I’m now wearing these days!
These ladies don’t have a website unfortunately but if you’re ever down at Salamanca you absolutely have to go to the Pirates Bay Jam stall and buy a jar of their rhubarb and raspberry jam. I don’t ordinarily have a thing for jam but I can say that this jam is the best I’ve ever had. Sue and Shirley (and new puppy Jet) have won ribbons for their jams and they’re very well-deserved!
Simon Pankhurst, who is a blacksmith (and former landscape designer) makes the most awesome outdoor furniture known to man. He has recently added a new item to his range at Salamanca (which I note from his website is now sold) – a huge log holder, which I love love love but after some preliminary research I realised it would be too big to fit in the spot next to our fire (and it’s far too nice and expensive to sit outside where no one will ever see it!). I’m keeping my eye on that one though, see how I go at the market in the coming months, I may just get my paws on one of those log holders!
Cygneture Chocolates- Mmmmm these choccies are to die for. I had the nougatine choccies some time back (back in spring when it was just starting to warm up) and they were so delish. You’ve got to grab a pack of those if you see Cygneture Chocolates around the place. All the chocolate making is done from the Cygneture shop on the main street of Cygnet so if you’re ever down there pop in!

Aside from the market, there will be the usual Park & Ride shuttle bus that will operate from now until 24 December. The shuttle service will take you from the car parking at the regatta ground into the CBD for all your Christmas shopping. There will also be a special Salamanca Market shuttle bus running on Saturdays from now until 31 December. The shuttle bus will move people between the CBD and the market. Finally, while the Taste Festivalis on from 28 December to 3 January, there will also be a Taste Festival shuttle bus operating from the regatta ground and into the Salamanca precinct. Sounds like the council has everything under control! It should be a really good Taste Festival this year too. We’ve been for the last 2 years and even though it’s packed full of people in that shed we’ve always enjoyed ourselves walking around and seeing what’s on offer.

The Taste Festival. Photo: www.themercury.com.au

Well, I think this might be my last post for the year. Thanks for continuing to read my blog and thank you for your continued support and encouragement! I’m glad that people are finding my blog useful when contemplating a move down here to Tassie. Please do keep the questions and comments coming over the break. Right now it is taking me up to a couple of weeks to answer emails simply because I am so incredibly busy with making stuff for the Christmas period at the market and for the shops that stock my items, plus I’m trying to do some painting here and there and trying to once and for all finish our laundry – but I will get there and by winter it will all be back to normal! Oh no, I can’t believe I’m actually looking forward to winter!!! Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a very happy – for some of you – Tasmanian New Year! Over and out!

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I’m still here

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Sarah

I’m still here, I’ve just been incredibly busy. Salamanca Market is now starting to heat up (both in weather and the amount of business) and I have done well the last couple of weeks which is why I have had to devote most of my time to sewing up new items and why I have been absent from the blog for a while. I’ve been getting some positive feedback from people who have purchased my items so that’s always a great confidence-booster and keeps me excited and eager to make more and more items. I have a small following of locals who make special orders from time to time and I am currently working on an order for 20 purses for a lady who is giving each of her employees a purse as a Christmas gift. Lucky employees!

Customers!

It’s very difficult to get a spot at the market at this time of year. You have to ring up every Thursday morning to book a spot and the line is always engaged so you have to keep re-dialling until you eventually get through and you often miss out. I *think* there are only 80 casual spots at the market and over 100 casual stallholders in the pool. In the middle of winter (when I started) you’ll get through on the first ring. If I am lucky enough to be able to continue to get a spot at the market, I plan to change the layout of my stall from one table across the front of the stall to a walk-in U shape, it just means there will be another 75% more space to fill so I really need to keep sewing and sewing.

Sewing, sewing, sewing.

I continue to meet new people – mainly strangers who come up to my stall and tell me that they read my blog and they’re thinking about moving down here. One of those people was Jane, who is from the Blue Mountains and who is thinking of coming to live down here. She and her family drove down and were staying here for a few weeks so that they could get a feel for the place. They set up their caravan at a local caravan park and used it as their base while they were roaming around and checking things out. I thought that was a great idea. Thanks, Jane, for your purchase and thanks for coming to say hello! Hope your stay here was enjoyable!

It’s starting to get very difficult trying to cram everything into my days. While I am sewing, other things don’t get done, like the housework (I use the lounge room floor as my cutting room so there are usually lengths of fabric draped over the couch and little piles of off-cuts strewn about). Things like painting the skirting boards, painting the laundry door, maintaining the garden, etc, have all gone out the door. We are just about finished the laundry. Tim did a great job with his first ever tiling project (floors and walls). It just needs a bencthop with a drop-in sink, a cupboard underneath, a broom cupbard and a benchtop going in (probably after Christmas) and then it’ll be finished.

Tim the tiler.

In March, Tim will be having a couple of weeks off work so hopefully we can get some things around the house done then. Storage is our main problem at the moment – we still have unpacked boxes in our spare room waiting for a permanent home and waiting for the lounge room and sun room to get decorated and for bookshelves to be built. There’s so much that I need to do and want to do but not sure if I will get the chance. I’ll be in Perth (WA) visiting family over Christmas (my dad was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and is going through radiation therapy so it’ll be good to see how everything’s going over there). Hopefully there will be no industrial action taken by any of the airlines or unions over the Christmas break to ruin everyone’s Christmas holidays!

Our little staghound, collie, staffy cross puppy is growing up quickly and he is now too heavy to carry. He will be the middle-sized dog, he won’t get much bigger than he is right now. Because we now have 3 dogs, we applied to the council for a Licence to Keep Dogs (you can have 2 without having the requirement for a licence but with 3 you need a licence). The council inspector is coming around on Monday to check that the courtyard area is suitable for them. As our courtyard is currently being used as a makeshift workshop and skirting board cutting area, we somehow have to find the time to have a bit of clean up between now and then.

Tim and Henry the puppy.

As I mentioned, the weather is starting to warm up beautifully down here. The lawn is at a stage where it needs to be mowed every week because the combination of the sun beating down on it with intermittent spring rain means that the grass grows with such gusto that even a couple of days after cutting it is long again. One thing that is starting to bug me about the spring weather is the hay fever that I seem to get down here (I never got it in Sydney). Thank goodness for Claratyne. Actually, when Tim’s parents were over visiting last year Tim’s dad thought he was coming down with a cold but in fact it was just hay fever, he just didn’t know what it was as he had never experienced it before.

We have been lucky enough to avoid the storms and flooding that Sydney and Melbourne have just experienced. It’s funny down here – if there is a humid day, which it has been the last couple of days, it is rare that we get a storm in the evening. It used to be one of my favourite things about living in Sydney – a humid day followed by a thunder and lightening show in the afternoon/evening.

The good thing about the spring weather is that I have somewhat started the veggie garden up again. It is a pretty half-hearted attempt this year compared with other years – as I now have the market to do I won’t have a lot of time to weed, feed and water so this year I am just growing tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries and artichokes. The strawberries and artichokes are still in from the year before (and the year before that) so it’ll be interesting to see if they still produce the same amount of fruit.

Artichokes harvested at the beginning of spring.

Oh and here’s some dogs to end this post :)

L-R: Smokey, Henry (the puppy), Cloe.

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Would we go back?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Sarah

That is a question that we get asked a lot by other people that we meet from time to time who are also from interstate (I’m still refusing to call it “the mainland”!). My answer is, although I do miss Sydney (and the excitement of living in Sydney and the food), I wouldn’t move back there by choice (well, okay, if I won lotto I would go back to Sydney and buy a house in the area that we used to live in and I would alternate living in that house and this house – but then the poor dogs would be flying back and forth all the time so that’s probably not a very practical option!). I think I speak for Tim as well when I say that our life is generally pretty good down here and if it weren’t for one or two things (like Tim’s current travelling distance to work and also that we still have a little bit of work to do to get our house just how we want it), it would be perfect. We are quite content down here and although it’s just us two, I think we are okay with that. The good thing is that through this website and through my stall at Salamanca we are starting to meet people and connections are being made here and there.

As a result of living down here, I have noticed a weird change in myself – I think I have become much more open and somewhat chatty with other people as a result of living down here. I used to be a complete shrinking violet and rarely came out of my shell. I suppose it’s come about by going to Salamanca and having conversations with strangers and fellow stallholders that I’ve been forced into talking to people – shock, horror!! Also, by running this website I am sharing small parts of my life to anyone who cares to read it. Although I am still pretty quiet, if I were to go back to Sydney, I think I would be different to what I was before.

Yes, there are some things about Tasmania that I find frustrating and concerning (I think I’ll make a post about those things in the near future – so watch this space!) but really it’s all good for us. We have our 3 dogs, we have our big garden, we have our cute weatherboard house (which we are gradually making our own), we each earn money (even though there could always be more) and we each have our health. With the weather starting to warm up beautifully we are now very much looking forward to summer – I think we already have some family members booked in for a visit!

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Huon Valley Good Life Summer Markets

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Sarah

Just a quick post to let you all know that there is a new makers market starting this summer which will be run by the Huon Valley Council. It’s called the Good Life Summer Markets and it aims to attract visitors not just from other parts of Tasmania but also from interstate as well. From Council’s website:

The Good Life Summer Market will embody the ‘make it, bake it, grow it’ philosophy and will enhance the Huon Valley’s reputation as a fine food, wine and arts destination in Tasmania.

I have signed up as a stallholder but I am not yet 100% certain if I will be attending the market in the capacity of stallholder, but if not I’ll be going to have a walk around to check it out. The first market starts on Sunday, 16 October 2011 and will run on these following Sundays: 20 November 2011, 18 December 2011, 15 January 2012, 19 February 2012, 18 March 2012. The market will run from 9am to 3pm and it’s located opposite the Huonville Foreshore on the Channel Highway (which I think in layman’s terms means on the Esplanade next to Page’s Garden & Gravel), somewhere around about here:

According to my calculations I think the market is going to be held somewhere around about here! X marks the spot!

I hope it’s a good turnout (I’ve heard that there are about 60 stallholders already signed up) and going by the Council’s website there should be plenty of good quality locally grown produce, locally made food and locally made arty stuff and other goodies. There will also be a jumping castle and other entertainment so why not make it a day out down in the Huon Valley?!

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Services and utilities in Tasmania

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Sarah
Services in Tasmania
Public transport services

There are no commuter train services in Tasmania and the bus services are few if you don’t live in the suburban areas immediately surrounding Hobart. Now, having said that, I have had the need to catch the bus a couple of times into the city (when I put petrol in my diesel car and it had to go the mechanic for a couple of days) and it was a nice relaxing bus trip and the bus was quite new and very clean and comfortable.  If you’re not living in or immediately next to Hobart then I think you would really need your own transport to get around. 

Here are links to the two major Hobart bus companies: 

http://metrotas.com.au/ 

http://www.tassielink.com.au/ 

Health services 

I’ve had a few surprises recently on the Tasmanian health services front. First of all, from watching the TV news recently it appears that a large portion of the Tasmanian ambulance service staff are volunteers. Apparently they rely on the volunteers to keep the service operating. Secondly, I’ve read a few articles in The Mercury about people being on waiting lists for hip replacements and knee replacements for years and years and I get the feeling that the Tasmanian public hospital system might be in a bit of a shambles (though having said that there are nightmare hospital stories everywhere you go in Australia). At the Royal Hobart Hospital senior doctors are quitting because they’re frustrated by the growing waiting lists for people who need surgery (both elective and non-elective). One poor old fellow who featured in a recent Mercury article has been waiting 5 years for a knee replacement and basically can’t get around. Surely a knee replacement shouldn’t take 5 years? I was watching the news recently and there was concern that patients are becoming addicted to pain medication because they are on it so long while they wait for their surgeries. It all seems a little bit concerning to me, so I’m thinking about getting private health insurance. I used to have it through the company I used to work for in Sydney but I didn’t use it even once! So when I left Sydney I also left the health insurance. But perhaps health insurance is a good idea if you want to go to a private hospital where hopefully the service and the waiting lists might be a little more acceptable. 

In case you’re wondering, there are several hospitals in Tasmania. Here’s a listing of them for you: 

Royal Hobart Hospital entrance. Photo: http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au

Utilities in Tasmania

Gas 

If you’re from suburban areas on the mainland then you probably take it for granted that you’ve got mains gas. But some parts of Tasmania have no gas lines and so if you want to have heaters or cook tops that run on gas then you will need to have a standalone gas tank to run those appliances. When we purchased our house there was a big gas heater in the lounge room (which we later had removed and replaced with a freestanding wood heater) which was run from a huge gas tank. During the 10 or so months that we used the gas heater we  had to fill it up twice (although it wasn’t full when we moved in). I can’t find the bills that I received from the gas company but I remember thinking to myself that it wasn’t cheap. We used Origin Gas and they were very proactive in ringing you every few months to find out if you need your tank filling up (which is annoying and useful at the same time) so you should never find yourself in a situation where you run out of gas with those guys. 

A recent commenter, Mary, recently shared this link,  which provides information about where the mains gas lines are located in Tasmania. Simply type in your town or suburb and the gas line will show up in blue. Basically if you don’t live within 15 or 20 minutes of Hobart then you don’t have a gas line and you will either need to use electric appliances or get gas from a standalone gas bottle. 

Water 

Most towns in Tasmania do have town water infrastructure. However, if you are not located in the town centre then you won’t have access to the town water and you will need to get your water from elsewhere. People that don’t have access to town water have large water tanks that catch the rain that lands on their roof. Alternatively you can buy water in big plastic containers (that fit onto the back of utes) or you can have a water haulage truck come to your house and fill up tanks on your property. We’re connected to town water so we don’t have to worry about where to get our water from. We do have a small 2400 litre tank connected to one of the down pipes of our house which I plan to use as a drip feeder when I eventually get a little greenhouse in the next year or two. Unfortunately because we don’t often utilize that water we often have to make sure it gets emptied when we have a lot of rain otherwise it will overflow! 

Electricity 

If you are looking to purchase a property in Tasmania make a note of whether or not there is electricity connected. For houses that already exist there should of course be electricity connected (unless you’re really rural and the power is supplied by a generator). Oftentimes blocks of land will be described as “power at the road” or “power available”. This means that if you want electricity to be connected then you will need to have it installed. In rural areas it’s not uncommon to have a very, very long driveway from the road to your house and it may not be cheap or necessarily easy to have the phone line connected from the road to your house, so keep this point in mind! Here’s a link to the Aurora website for further information about new connections: http://www.auroraenergy.com.au/electricity-network/your-supply/new-supply-connections/ 

Phone 

What I wrote about new electricity connections above also goes for new telephone connections. Oftentimes blocks of land will be described as “phone at the road” or something similar which means there is no phone line available. If you want to have a land line installed then it means digging a 30-50 cm trench from the nearest connection up to your house. 

Now to mobile services – up until just a few weeks ago Telstra was the only reliable mobile telephone company in Tasmania. No matter where you were in the state you would usually be able to get reception. Recently, Optus began heavy advertising on Tassie TV and thanks to Shan who left this comment, it appears that Optus has now entered the fray in Tasmania and is now a genuine competitor to Telstra. You can read this press release for more information. This news about Optus excites me because although Telstra’s coverage is excellent, their customer service falls short and I am always frustrated whenever I need to speak with them. It’s always good to have options and choice and this is great news for Tasmania. 

Internet 

ADSL, wireless and satellite are all available here. Satellite is only available for those that live in places where ADSL and wireless isn’t available and I believe there is a government discount for people who have satellite. There are numerous small internet service providers in Tasmania but when I was doing research about internet options 2 and a half years ago I found Telstra to have the most reasonable rates. Hmm I wonder if Optus are now doing wireless broadband in Tassie? I must check that out! 

TV 

In Tassie, Foxtel’s counterpart is Austar. It has all the same/similar channels on it as Foxtel. We also get all the usual free to air channels (but Nine is known as WIN and Channel 7 is known as Southern Cross), and we get the new digital channels such as 7mate, Go, etc. 

Anything I’ve missed that you’re particularly interested in knowing about? Let me know!

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Location Location Location

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Sarah

This week I was contacted by Will at Shine Australia. Will is a producer for Shine Australia and is currently working on the Australian version of the UK TV show, “Location Location Location”. Will and his team are going to be shooting an episode of ”Location Location Location” in Tassie and they are calling for people who want to move to Tassie to apply to be a part of the show. In his email to me, Will says:

Basically we are looking for couples and families from the mainland that are searching for the perfect house in Tassie. If they wanted to participate on the show we would fly them to Tassie and pay all associated costs whilst helping them look for their house. We have a team of researchers and property experts to help the lucky couple/family find their dream home… all we need are the subjects!

So for all you who read my blog and those that have sent me emails and left comments, this is the perfect opportunity to make the first step – go to the Lifestyle Channel website and apply to be a part of the show, here: http://www.lifestyle.com.au/location/

Image: www.lifestyle.com.au/location/

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A seal of approval

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Sarah

We all know that Tasmania is full of wildlife and as I’ve mentioned previously sometimes the little critters can get a little too close for comfort. But surely this one takes the (fish) cake.

The seal in the drain behind our back fence. Photo: Kris and Isaac from the DPIPWE.

The seal in the open storm water drain behind our back fence. Photo: Kris and Isaac from the DPIPWE.

Yesterday morning I was up early finishing some bags for Salamanca on Saturday and I started hearing a bit of kerfuffle outside coming from a neighbouring property. There was lots of clapping, lots of banging and a little bit of shouting. I just thought it was just some rowdy Southern Water workers who are currently digging a lot of big holes around here (something to do with the addition of a new sewerage station thing somewhere along the river). I had a bit of a look and couldn’t see anything untoward. But the noise kept going. Eventually I started to see a couple of people gathering behind our back fence. People were looking and pointing and motioning things with their arms, so my interest was piqued. I thought I better get my boots on and walk down the yard to see what was going on.

As I got to the back fence, a guy peered over from the other side of the fence and said that he’s from Parks and Wildlife and that there’s a seal walking around in the vacant block next to us. “Look over your fence between those two trees and you’ll see him” said the other guy. Sure enough I grabbed a chair and looked over and there it was – a seal, much bigger than I had expected it to be. I don’t know why but it kind of shocked me to see it.

Apparently it had swum up from the river into that open storm water drain that lays behind our back fence (the one that floods over into our yard every now and then when there is a lot of rain coinciding with a king tide). The guys at DPIPWE said that the seal initially looked like he was going to try and squeeze himself into the narrow storm water pipe at the top of the open drain which goes underneath the road which would not have been good because he would have become stuck. Luckily the DPIPWE guys herded him away from the pipe and back down the drain a little bit (I guess that’s what all that banging and clapping was about that I had ignored previously!).

The seal in the open storm water drain behind our back fence. Photo: Kris and Isaac from the DPIPWE.

At some point, the seal got out of the drain and started walking along the fenceline of our other fence onto the vacant paddock next door. They managed to cut him off before he got too far along the fence and got him heading in the direction of the river again. I watched from over the fence (a safe distance away!) as they carefully herded him into the river.  

Apparently there’s been one or two other seals that have made their way into rivulets and drains and things because they are trying to get salmon. So, I don’t know if that means that there’s not enough salmon in the sea for the seals to eat so they have to look elsewhere or whether it means that there’s heaps of salmon everywhere at this time of year and they just get a bit salmon crazy and go off-path. [Edited to add: I found out from our next door neighbour that at this time of year the salmon go to where the fresh water is because they need to clean their gills out and they also spawn in the fresh water. So I guess the seals get a real treat when they know that there's plenty of salmon around in the rivers.]

I hope the little guy manages to find his way back out into the sea and catches up with his friends!

The seal in the grass heading towards the river. Photo: Kris and Isaac at the DPIPWE.

All pictures are kindly supplied by Isaac at the whale hotline(!) section of the DPIPWE.

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