Beautiful, Bountiful, Bookless, Bothwell

The bakery is just to the right of this building. This is the local servo. 

Got up this bright sunny, if breezy morning, hopped on the bike and rode north out of town.  Met my mate Chris. We both had our cameras so decided to ride up to Bothwell which is a very old country town and quite pretty with a good deal of history. (At least as much history as Tasmania is capable of since white settlement.)

We're both studying photography at the moment so thought we'd go try to find some interesting shutter speeds, depth of field and play with our apertures.  Had a great day.

Arrived at Bothwell in about 40 minutes time, once I got to New Norfolk to pick up Chris with her Suzuki Boulevard cruiser. It takes about 40 minutes to get to her place.

Always enjoy a good plaque. The best way in the world to learn little bits of trivia. 

Had some lunch at the local bakery, sat outside at the picnic tables and talked to other bikers that were also out there enjoying the day.  Find a good bakery in Tassie and you find bikers. It is a golden rule.

After lunch and a coffee we walked around the little town. There is really only a couple of intersections but there are a couple of lovely looking churches and a very interesting graveyard at the back.

In fact the first recorded burial in Tasmania was at Bothwell in 1829 and the oldest existing headstone belonged to a young fellow, aged 25 who died in 1834. His name was James Dean.  We quite liked his name.  It wasn't Easy Rider's Peter Fonda but close.

Caught you out Chris. 

We enjoyed the scenery and took about 300 photos each, probably both of us deleting about 200 of them once home. The joy of digital cameras. We could never have afforded to do this had we still been stuck in the age of film. No comments from purists, we're not that developed....whoops-- bad pun.

Some of the old wrought iron work around one of the graves.

A very old porcelain rose decorated one of the graves. Sadly it has been broken in several places 

but I think it is still beautiful. the colours are lovely.

Looking across the old section to the countryside in the distance. 

This little dog stood on the grave of an elderly man who died earlier in the 1900's. I would love to have
known the story of this little terrier. I thought he was beautiful and it appears he's been guarding the grave now for several years. 

Our wonderful bikes that take us all over this great countryside.  I finished up today with another 200+ kms on the dial.