Devonport Jazz and coastride - July 2014

Barb, Di and Robert had tickets for the Devonport Jazz Festival.  Barb was travelling separately, and we set off with Wanda on Friday afternoon.  It was a pleasant drive up north, with the only fly in the ointment being the predicted northern rains that started falling onto our bikes on the back.  Just before 5pm closing time we found the hardware shop in Longford and purchased a small tarpaulin which we could use to protect the bikes both from the weather and from unwanted local interest when Wanda was parked in the city of Devonport.

We arrived in Devonport at about 5.30pm and parked in an almost empty council carpark just around the corner from the Devonport Entertainment Centre.  A great location.  We wrapped the tarp around the bikes, and got changed for the theatre.  Next we needed dinner, and we found a new Asian restaurant (well, new to us) right next door to the theatre.  Barb located us and shared a wine.  We told the manager that we needed to be out of there within the hour, but somehow that message didn't get through to the chef, and we had to leave most of our main course on the plate when we left for the start of the show at 7pm.

First up was Vince Jones and his excellent band.  This was a fantastic performance from a great talent who also shared his concerns about the planet.    After the show we had wine and cheese with Barb in Wanda.

On Saturday morning we rode our bikes out to the Devonport Bluff to the Drift Cafe.

We had a table booked for a gourmet breakfast and to enjoy a jazz duo.  Barb walked back into town and Robert and I rode to the Saturday market at the Showground.  This was a fairly small affair, with only one organic producer that we could see.  This lovely art and craft building hinted at past glories:

On the other side of the showground we were delighted to find a chook show.

Next up was lunch at the Tapas Cafe, where we heard the Pete Cornelius' band, King Cake.  Unfortunately the sound was too loud and the food nothing to write home about.

Barb drove us out to the Ghost Rock Winery but we found that it was booked out.  Back at the DECC we caught the Adelaide band tribute to John Coltrane, which was excellent, and probably more enjoyable than what we had missed out on at Ghost Rock.

Next on our program was Melissa Oliveira and her band from Amsterdam, with Portuguese influences.

Back to Drift Cafe with Barb for dinner.  If there was somewhere else worth eating out at in Devonport, we hadn't found it yet.  And next morning, Robert and I had breakfast there again, after stopping to check out the view from the bluff.

While Barb headed back south, we drove to Shearwater for a bike ride organised by the Bicycle Tasmania NW group. It was great to put faces to some familiar names and to get to know Keith, Richard, Roger and Graham a bit better.  Richard took us on a 25km circuit of Shearwater. It was a very enjoyable ride, the first section on offroad coastal trail, and the middle section on fairly quiet country roads.

Farewelling our new friends, we headed Wanda towards Launceston, stopping for a picnic lunch at the Batman Hill Lookout.  The last stop was for fuel in Campbelltown.