Leaving the River Tamar (slowly)

[Kyle]Leaving Launceston, instead of the calms and fog we had on the way in, we motored into strong headwinds. As we made our way down the river, its color changed from that of chocolate milk to murky gray.

On the advice of Gratton, whom we had met in Devonport, we decided to stop in at the Rosevears Hotel for a little treat. There is a public dock right across the street, where we could tie Begonia up without having to go through all of the trouble of anchoring and then taking the dinghy to shore. My plan was to have dinner in their restaurant and then maybe get a room for the night where Maryanne especially could enjoy the luxuries of a long, hot bath and a bed big enough to really sprawl out. We could sit out on the balcony and enjoy a bottle of wine while overlooking the river with Begonia docked below.

Why oh why, you must be wondering, does a guy who will gladly walk three miles to save a two dollar bus fare suddenly want to stay in a fancy hotel within sight of his own bed? Well, it was kind of a special occasion. Maryanne and my 18th wedding anniversary was in a couple of days and we generally like to do something a little special to mark the occasion. The stop at Rosevears Hotel seemed just like the thing.

When I revealed my plan to her after tying up Begonia to the dock, she was not as excited about the hot bath, big bed, wine-on-the-balcony thing as I had hoped. She wondered out loud what the point was of spending a bunch of money to sleep 100 meters from the boat with a view of the same river we can see from Begonia for free. Plus, she said, she would spend the whole time worrying about leaving the boat unattended on an unsecured public dock for the night. Double plus, we would have to pack for our night away, would probably forget something and end up going back and forth to the boat anyway. That would not be much fun because it was supposed to rain all night, versus already being tucked in at home.

Okay, then, what to do? I was already prepared to fork out the dough without giving it a second thought. She offered a compromise of really enjoying our dinner. We would order a bottle of wine, appetizers, dessert, aperitivos, the works. In the end, I think we only saved about twenty bucks from booking a room. It was nice to be able to sleep in the next day without worrying about checkout time.

Rosevears Hotel, an easy stop with a lovely restaurant for an evening meal out, and then a bakery to fortify us for the morning departure

In the morning, Maryanne remembered that the hotel has a bakery. We ran up between rain showers to get a nice, warm breakfast, right out of the oven. There went that other twenty bucks.

While we didn't have to worry about checkout time, we did have to worry about the current, which started to ebb at about 2pm. That is also, coincidentally, when it started to really rain in earnest. It did that for the whole two hours we were going down the river and stopped just before we got back to Supply Bay. This time, instead of anchoring way out in the middle of the mud flat, we dropped the hook right off of Marion's Vineyard.

The rain was all gone the next morning, replaced by bright blue skies. Today was our actual anniversary. We rowed ashore to the big pier at Marion's and then walked up the hill to see what they had on offer. For some reason, we had expected the place to be pretty quiet. There were only two boats anchored off of the pier and we were the only ones that went ashore. At the pier, it was clear that we were the first people to have used it for a while. At the top of the stairs, we had to squeeze past an orange construction fence to get through. It was there that we first saw the sign warning that the pier and stairs were condemned due to unsafe conditions. Hmmm...

Walking up the steep drive, it looked like many of the vineyard's buildings were in disuse, although the vines were all in good shape. At the top, we came upon the tasting room, which was beautiful and made of hand-hewn wood, golden with fresh varnish. We were met by the American son of Marion, who recently had his fifteen minutes of fame on the Australian TV show, The Farmer Wants a Wife. He was in the process of slowly making improvements to the property building by building. He's about 25% of the way through now.

Unlike its access from the river, Marion's is right off of the main road on this bank, so they had an almost constant stream of road visitors messing with our expected solitude. Once we had made it to the front of the tasting line, we were able to take our glasses to a lovely table overlooking the vines, the river and Begonia below. Marion is originally from Cyprus and the place had the very Mediterranean feel of a Greek Taverna. One especially nice touch was the trellised grape vines hanging from the ceiling. If you wanted a break from your cheese plate, you could always reach up and grab a couple of Pinot Noir grapes to clear your palate.

Marion's Winery, River Tamar

We had a leisurely game of backgammon, which I lost. Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, Maryanne beat me one more time. She's so competitive. At least she refrained from jumping up, pumping her fists and yelling, “In Your Face!”

On the way back to Begonia, we swung by the other boat anchored off of the pier, Jonathan (named after the bird, you know, from the '70s), and met Mark and Caro. They were busy, but we invited them over for tea later. At some point, we must have also mentioned we were leaving early the next day, so they made a point of coming right over.

Wow, what interesting adventures they have had! We knew something was up when Mark said he had cleared into Australia at Hobart. This was as far north as they have been this year. They were trying to go to New Zealand when Covid hit, so they have spent their whole year in Tasmania. They weren't trying to go to the normal parts of New Zealand. They were heading to the Auckland Islands, well south of our furthest south at Stewart Island.

Where did they come from? They cleared in from Antarctica. They spent four years doing charters there out of their base in Puerto Williams, Chile. They have been to the tropics, but it seems like it was only long enough to get through to the higher latitudes. Before that, Mark, who is Dutch, sailed out of Spitsbergen to the Arctic. He is one of only three people we have met who have cleared into the United States at Point Barrow, Alaska after having sailed in from the north. He had just sailed from Greenland via the Northwest Passage. He met Caro in Vancouver, B.C. On his way south from there to Patagonia. They have been to some amazing, beautiful places, but I'm afraid I like my t-shirt weather a little too much to be doing very much of that. It was good to have met them in our narrow zone of overlap, although we still seem to be miles away from them on what constitutes an acceptable water temperature for swimming. We will definitely not be snorkeling in the kelp forests of Tasmania.