Moooo - or possibly baaaa. Same difference.

I'm beginning to loathe Melbourne airport. I've been through here six times in the last few months and every time there have been long, long queues for everything. (Nothing, by the way, fosters xenophobia like having the 'Australian/NZ passports only' queue invaded by hordes of jet-lagged, befuddled people from China and Indonesia.)

Immigration, baggage claim, customs - shuffle, shuffle, yawn. And the same the other way: check-in, security, passport control, with the added spice of passenger anxiety and staff indifference. The airlines fuss over their onboard experience down to the tiniest detail - if only the airport authorities would try to do the same.

In the meantime, there's plenty of opportunity to wish yet again that I had invented - no, patented - this ubiquitous barrier system. I'd be able to afford my own plane then and bypass the whole tedious business.

Y'know that hill, Trev?

No, it wasn't Mt Arthur that I climbed today, it was Ben Lomond, at 1572m Tasmania's second-highest peak. But fortunately we started from well up, so in our 2 1/2 hour walk we climbed about 180 metres, Janine from Pepper Bush Adventures naming all the parts for me. At the top, the ascent was wind-assisted: blustery and billowing, exciting stuff.

It was a really good walk with terrific dolerite rocks in pencil-shaped columns above tumbles of boulders, neat marsupial lawns scattered with cubic wombat poo, alpine meadows bright with white and yellow flowers against the vivid green moss, and long blue views over the Northwest's mountains and hidden valleys.

Then it was white-knuckle time: onto the mountain bike with Ian and off with little ado to descend Jacobs Ladder: 7 switchbacks down about 250 vertical metres of gravel road with sheer drop-offs. I came down very tamely, gripping the handlebars and brakes so hard that my fingers had seized up by the bottom. Ian's young sons shamed me, pedalling at great speed, skidding round the corners and coming back up for a second go in the time it took me to teeter down. What a wuss.

Then Craig took over, taking me for a drive through the bush and explaining some of its secrets while we looked for echidna (elusive), ending up at a pretty little lake to spot platypus (private) and have a BBQ. It was a lovely end to the day and I didn't really mind that the platypus were a no-show. Poor Craig and Janine were so sorry to disappoint me, but I felt very special to be the first person in three years to have been taken there and not see one. See, a week in this beautiful place and I turn into Pollyanna.

Full of colour and interest

What a lovely day today! A blue and green and gold and lavender day. But not just pretty - interesting too.

First off, Brickendon Farm Village, freshly World Heritage listed because of its convict association: they were assigned to the landowner as free labour in exchange for their keep until their penal period was up. Poor John Welch from Fiddington in Gloucestershire was there for life, however, thanks to his liking for cheese and bacon. I was very taken myself by all the hens wandering around with their chicks, and all the other animals, including a friendly cat that fell asleep in the chapel, his whiskers painted purple by the sun through the stained glass.

Then yummy scallops and sparkling rose at Josef Chromy's vineyard with swans and ducks on the lake and happy hen parties at the tables under the trees.

And finally Bridestowe Lavender Farm, where the bees were busy and the oil is second to none. The rows of plants curved off towards Mt Arthur. I wonder if that's the one I'm climbing and then biking back down tomorrow?

From this side now

Who knew the Tasman could look like this? Blue, yes, sparkling, even occasionally calm (so I'm told) - but TURQUOISE? I've never seen the like, not on our side, anyway. And certainly never swum in it before, in my life.

If the rocks were limestone instead of granite, this could be Phang Nga Bay in Thailand, easily. (Maybe add a few coconut palms. And some sea gypsies selling shell elephants. But otherwise, just the same.)

We had fabulous weather for our 4-day walk along the squeaky(-clean) white quartz sand of the Bay of Fires in north-east Tasmania. That was lucky: it isn't always so, despite what the guides say. (They also said "Will at the Lodge does foot massages!" and got me out of a sound sleep with "Breakfast! And dolphins!" All bare-faced cheerful lies.)

It wasn't an epic walk: 9km then 14km then a bit of a kayak and maybe 5km, and some other bits and pieces, mostly flat, some of it on soft sand but mostly easy-walking hard, quite a bit barefoot. Nothing nearly strenuous enough to earn the food they kept giving us. Presenting us with, rather - it's the first time I've been tramping and sat down to vertical dinners. "BoF belly" is a hazard of the walk, we discovered.

And now I'm in Launceston, back in civilisation with email and TV and flushing loos. Sigh. It's always a disappointment.

Can't be blowed

It always amuses me to see these signs here on the fences where vast fields of opium poppies are growing. It's a big crop: Tassie supplies about 40% of the world's morphine.

It's not easy to extract the opium from the seed-heads, which is what they mainly rely on to protect the crop, I'm guessing: that the people who'd be interested in using it are just too laid back, man, to be bothered. It's kind of a neat little cause-and-effect thing going on.

What the Dickens?

Now I'm in Tasmania, just an hour's flight from Melbourne, and it's warm and dry and sunny, and I'm in the country staying tonight at Quamby Estate in relaxed and historic luxury.

Quamby, though. Doesn't it sound like a Dickens character? Mr Quamby, perhaps: an elderly gent with a crooked eye and a dodgy past. Or Quamby the groom with bandy legs and a heart of gold. But it's an Aboriginal word meaning a place to camp and rest.

Anyway, it's lovely here, pushing 200 years old, white-painted brick with shady verandas, a walled rose garden, surrounded by huge old oaks and elms, and lawns rolling away towards the surrounding fields. And all the rooms are different, some with sloping ceilings or stand-alone baths or french doors, and all inviting. Mine has sunshine and a view of the rose garden. Nice. I don't mind that it was built by convicts.

Sparing alms

These huge glass globes at Auckland Airport fascinate me, especially since I read recently in the paper that last year departing passengers dropped $140,000 into them, which was distributed to a variety of local charities. Great stuff.

But look! There are $20 notes in there! Coins yes, even $5 notes - but $10 and $20 notes? Who are these people, who can almost literally throw away enough money to buy a ... magazine, bag of crisps, kiwi sticker? Yes, I see, not much available airside that's very tempting. But still. Sheer profligacy!

Or generosity, of course.