I am so pleased I began this blog. Even though I ditched it and went to my FaceBook page “Travelling with the Hopes”, I still have a wonderful recording of my travels.

One looks back on the last twelve months and feels that it has gone so quickly, but then again, so much has happened that it seems to have gone on forever!

They have been wonderful months, but heart-wrenching too. We have tragically lost family members and friends, I have lost Aunties and Uncles and I have seen another beautiful Aunty succumb to that wretched disease of Alzheimer’s and I have watched loved ones decline in health. This is what we call life!

If only I could go back in time by a couple of decades! Would I do anything different? Hmm! Maybe! I know I would spend more time visiting family and friends. I would have bought a caravan a decade ago, instead of waiting ‘for the right time’.

I don’t really have regrets, life is like a map. There are so many roads to take. If you take the wrong one you can always turn left or right. The irony is that you don’t know which is the right direction until you have gone down that path! I guess that is ‘fate’ and if we don’t take risks we will stagnate!

So, I have started a new beginning here in Tasmania. I feel as though I am meant to be here.

Every time I go into Launceston I ‘ooh & ah’ at all the beautiful buildings that grace the footpaths of the city, and the parks are just picturesque!  City Park has its own troop of monkies…..yes, right in the heart of the city! Gracing the street of City Park is the glorious building – Albert Hall.

I never tire of the view of Custom House as I drive over the bridge approaching Launceston CBD. Built in 1885 on the North Esk River it’s elegant protico and Corinthian colums  boast the beauty of the precision of architeture of the 19th century.

More photographs to follow in the coming weeks of the preserved buildings of Tasmania.