Things Happen for a Reason

On January 23, 2010 we headed up the east coast of Tasmania.....hmmmmm......deja vu! We were headed for Mount William National Park - "undiscovered" as stated in the Lonely Planet - great beaches, quiet and let the wildlife come to you....yup, just they way we like it. Not really knowing what to expect; weather wise or what the park was like, we decided to stay outside of the Park for 1 night, get details of the park and get our supplies for camping. We tried for a place in St Helen's, but due to the last minute planning, we missed out as they were full. We were a bit disappointed, but we continued to look. As it turned out, it was to our benefit that the place in St. Helen's was full, we found a place in Weldborough; a local hotel, the only hotel, and it was fantastic! Better than fantastic - it was like visiting family - no exaggeration! Weldborough is a small town, but in a beautiful area and it was close to the National Park. We found it through the Lonely Planet book, which has not let us down yet. We arrived and went to the reception desk/bar =) to check in. There was an older gentleman; Mark, and and a younger girl; Sue, that helped us. We chatted and it was instantly apparent that Sue was from Newfoundland - that accent is not hard to distinguish, even thousands of miles away! It was a breath of fresh air to hear her. I mean we loved Tassie and we were ecstatic to be there, but it is always nice to get a taste of home and the Newfie accent was just that. We checked in and Sue walked us to our room and showed us around - that just doesn't happen much anymore; that personal touch - I just love it! The room was small and quaint and perfect for us. Once we put our things away, we went back to the reception desk/bar =) to have a little wee beverage. We got our drinks from Mark and headed out to the back garden. Here Sue introduced us to her partner; Martin, and their friends, Alistair and Adel from the mainland Australia, Martin's mother (I am sorry, I just can't remember her name) as well as another guest; Simon. We chatted, laughed, played cards and had a great time - it was instant - we hung out like we were all close friends and family - a cool feeling - a feeling that you don't get very often. We found out later that Sue and Martin met when they were teaching overseas in England (Sue from NFLD and Martin from Weldborough) and when the opportunity arose, Martin and Sue moved to Weldborough (this is where Martin's parents live) to take on the challenge of owning and running the hotel/restaurant in town. Wow, that is a challenge, but based on our experience, they are going to do great. Alistair and Martin were childhood buddies (Alistair's and Martin's families were originally from Melbourne, Australia). That weekend that we were there, Alistair was celebrating his 30th birthday and it was his request for his birthday, to come visit Martin and Sue and help them out with their new business. Starting a business is always hard so having friends there for support is always a good thing.

Just to give you one last story about this visit. Close to the hotel there is a river where a platypus had been spotted. Being such a rare and unique animal living in NZ, it is sought after to see; by both tourists and locals. So just before dinner, Mark asked us if we wanted to take a walk to the river to see the platypus - well that was a no brainer, of course we did. But it was dinner time and Martin was going to be starting dinner. "That's okay", Mark said, "just give Martin your order and he will get it ready for when we get back." So here we were, standing in the lounge area, with Mark stating what our choices were for dinner (no written menu) and Martin taking our order. It was so casual that I probably could have said that, "I will have a bit of everything please", and they would take it as my order. We took everything in stride, but I have to tell you that the type of service and how they treated us was something that I just was never expecting. It truly was like going to an out-of-town relative's place, for dinner - that's the only way that I can describe it! After our orders were taken, Mark, his wife, Delia, myself, Alistair, Adel and Simon all headed out to the river to see the platypus. Platypus are quite shy and timid, so you have to be quiet when trying to search for one. So when we got to the river, we all started tip toeing around the river's edge, very quietly, trying to spot the platypus. After a half hour or so, we were getting hungry and we decided that it wasn't going to happen and it was time to go back to have dinner. No worries, it was a nice walk and we got to know each other better. It was as we were walking back; stopping, laughing and chatting loudly, crossing the bridge, when Delia started waving her arms frantically and pointing in the river - "Platypus, Platypus, there is the Platypus!!!" And there it was, swimming and turning and just playing around no worries at all. We all started clicking away on our cameras, but with the dark river and the dark platypus - yea, it just looked like ripples in the water. It will have to be good enough that we told you that we saw it. He (or she) was so damn cute! We watched for a few minutes until it finally made it's way up the river beyond our site and then we headed home for dinner. We arrived back at the hotel and Martin and Sue started cooking our meals. There were 5 of us for dinner and we sat on the couches visiting until our meals came out. Sue served our meals and then we went to any table to eat. Again, it was so casual that we were welcome to eat off our laps on the couch, but we felt there were limits. The casual atmosphere did not follow suit with the meals - they were top notch outstanding that could have been served to the most sophisticated and picky palate. We had Trevalla (local sea fish) for our main and for dessert I had ice cream with raspberry sauce (still not as good as Sonia's homemade ice cream, but pretty darn good) and Delia had cherry crapes - seriously delicious. The dessert was so good we were all tempted to lick our plates, but of course we didn't. By the end of our meal, it was fairly late. Martin, Sue and Martin's parents had finished their duties and cleaning up. To relax, Martin, Sue and a student that was working for room and board, sat down at our table (with Alistair, Adel, Delia and I) and ate their dessert. The funny thing is that after Martin finished his dessert he didn't lick his plate, but he took his finger to lap up the rest of the cherry juice from the plate. We all laughed and admitted that was exactly what we wanted to do. We sat and socialized more, said our good-byes and then it was off to bed. Although Delia and I have seen alot and have done alot and have seen some spectacular scenery, this experience was a highlight for us, for many reasons, but mainly for the people and how we were treated. As we headed for bed, we looked at each other and said, that if the place in St. Helen's was not full, we would have missed this and that would have been a real shame. Before we left home for this trip, we certainly planned some things, but wanted to keep open times to take advantage of those spontaneous events that may happen. So, with last minute planning, you often don't always get your first or second choices, but this is when we agreed that if something did not work out, it was probably meant to be and something better will come along - good or bad - most often these are the best stories!