Early closures

We found many places closed early while we were in Tassie. Our first experience of this was with fuel. We drove into Burnie, it was the only time we has booked ahead and we were looking for the caravan park where we had a motel room booked.

We did have dinner with us, a couple of microwave meals but as we were at a seaside town, we thought fish and chip would be the thing. Warren said that we should get fuel as well because the car's red light had been on for a few kilometres. We had passed a service station a few kms back and so we drove there, it looked deserted even though an hour earlier it had been doing a roaring trade. Sign on the door, closed at 6pm. Damn! so we headed into town and saw two more with the same, luckily there was a woollies servo open just across from the fish and chip place. I hadn't realised that the need was quite so desperate but apparently Warren was a bit concerned that we wouldn't have made it back to the caravan park.

On Sunday we drove out of Hobart to Richmond and then across to the East Coast before heading north and decided to take a break and thought that coffee overlooking the sea would be nice. We parked and walked across the road to a cafe, door was locked! It was 3.30 in the afternoon but they closed at 3 o'clock! It was a tourist town surely. Luckily for us there was a tavern and bakery a couple of blocks away that was open until 4pm, we just made it for coffee and a welcome break.

Finding a motel at Bicheno, we saw a sign advertising the motels with sea views from all rooms and only $79, sounded good so we drove in and found the reception. Warren walked over , it was locked and boxes etc were in the reception area. Again there was a sign advising bookings could be made at a caravan park but we decided to pass as it looked a though no-one had stayed there for awhile. We headed to another caravan park and got a cabin. Venturing across to the local shops for something to cook or heat for dinner as the cabin had a microwave as well as a stove and cooking facilities.  Yep, it was closed at 5.45pm!

I guess we are just so used to places being open and accessible for much longer hours. There was a Chinese restaurant next door and we got a meal and took it back to the cabin, there was enough for the next night as well.

Dockets

Warren has a habit of putting his shopping dockets on the table. I was picking up things for the rubbish and noticed one was for fuel and was interested to see how much to fuel the jeep. Reading it I saw that it also had a loaf of bread, we were out of bread so thought wow he remembered to get bread. Later I was going to make some toast as we now had bread. I had to ask him where he put it, usually bread goes straight in the freezer but it wasn't there.

 He was a bit non- plussed as apparently he hadn't bought any, feeling like I was talking to a child, I said yes you did, its on the docket. No no no he says, just put diesel in, he looked at the docket and said that definitely he had not bought bread. Today after tennis, he dropped in and told the servo that he didn't buy bread but had been charged for it.

They checked the CC video and saw that he had not in actual fact bought bread and they gave him the money back for it, only $2.70 but wrongly charged, a win win.

Fuel prices!!!!

Oh my. I headed off to work this morning (yes, work!) and one f the petrol places that I drove past was advertising fuel (the kind I get )for only $1.77 a litre. Good grief and I just about need fuel too.

The next station which is about five kms away and on the other side of the road had posted $1.61, phew thats better! The second has alwys been a little cheaper which seems weird as they are the same fuel company.

Tonight while driving home, I was stopped for  breath test, quite happy to answer "No" to the question "Have you had anything to drink tonight?" it was about 5.10pm, two minutes later i was on my way again after the copper advised me to be careful of oncoming traffic.  Cant remember the last time i was breath tested, possibly fifteen years ago.