The Tasmanian tour

So, Tasmanian Odyssey has come up trumps and Susie has managed, overnight, to organise a fantastic week-long tour for us, as you can see on the map above. She's provided amazingly detailed instructions as to how to find these various places ("The car park is on the south side of the highway to the left as you head in a westerly direction, and well signposted." or "After 9.8 km turn right onto Loongana Rd/C128. Follow this for 14.9 km until you see a left turn down the hill to Mountain Valley Retreat" to give you but a few examples); ideas of things to visit en route; descriptions of what we might see ("The homes of one of Tasmania’s yabbies border the track in wetter areas" - I've no idea what yabbies* are, I'll have to look it up) and handy hints ("You will drive through the town of Bicheno which is a good place to stop and buy provisions for your stay at Freycinet Retreat as shopping and dining amenities on the Freycinet Peninsula are limited and expensive").

So, the car is hired, the national park pass is obtained, the overnight stops are booked. All we need now is for our international driving licences to appear in the post. I applied for them in mid-December after coming across a notice on the Australian Embassy website that they were necessary if you wanted to drive in Australia with a French licence. I wasn't looking for this information, I was getting our visas and no mention of the necessity for an international licence was made in my guidebook. However, I have discovered that if they don't come through one can have a translation made of one's licence by a certified translator in Australia and that police will accept that if you present it with your national licence.

* so a yabby is an Australian freshwater crustacean in the Parastacidae family. It is listed as a vulnerable species of crayfish by the World Conservation Union and it looks like this: