A week on the Apple Isle....

.....is just not enough time to see all that this beautiful island has to offer! Sound like a tourism promotion? Well, it's not meant to - but I mean it. It's such a beautiful place and we had to keep driving past roads with signposts to interesting places that we just didn't have time to see. So, I'll just have to put on my Bucket List - back to Tassie with more time to take time to see it all.

I spent the whole time with two very good friends from New Zealand. We were all in Tassie to attend the national conference of POWERtalk International Australia. It was held this weekend in Hobart - a great event.

We met at the airport on Tuesday, picked up a rental car and headed north to Launceston. We stopped at small towns and wineries along the way - tasting, trying, buying, enjoying the scenery - rather brown in the south and then becoming greener the further north we drove. Our first night was in Launceston and we managed to stumble across the restaurant that had won Tasmania's Restaurant of the Year award at the 2010 Toursim Awards. Delicious food and wine, warm friendly atmosphere ................. and you would like to know its name, wouldn't you! Well, we forgot to look or ask. We just saw the award announcement on the sandwich board outside, checked the menu and bowled right on in when we saw it had hare and duck. And when we checked the bill the next day, the name was not on it. It's in Brisbane Street - if anyone's going that way. :)

Then on to Devonport, via Cradle Mountain. Weather was terrible at Cradle Mtn, so we weren't able to see much - that's definitely a place to go back to. Spent 2 nights in Devonport at a brilliant 4 star B&B called Cameo Cottage - recommend it highly. From there we traveled along the north west coast visiting cute little towns like Penguin and Burnie and stopping at beaches, great scenic spots, galleries, papermaking workshop and tour, cheese factory - with tasting....... a generally lovely sunny - relatively warm - girls' day out.

Our last day on the road was spent driving from Devonport back to Hobart via a cherry ice- cream parlour, a chocolate factory, a beautiful felt gallery - where we all dropped a few $$ and gained a few gms :) Oh - and there was lovely scenery as well.

Back to the Old Woolstore Apartment Hotel in Hobart late Friday to attend the conference. It was great to catch up with old friends from around the country who had all gathered for the annual conference. And it was great to be there and to play an integral role in the business of the organisation that has been such an integral part of my life for the past 26 years.

And now to more urgent matters - needle biopsy on Thursday, visit to surgeon next Wednesday - and then I'll have the lowdown on the next major step in this ongoing health battle.