We decided to zig zag our way towards our next destination – Ross.

When we read that Ross is a village located on the Macquarie River, Mick and I were very interested. Having spent 30+ years living in and around Dubbo, NSW, which is also located on a Macquarie River, we wanted to make some comparisons.

Mick had selected the roads, which were mostly perfect, until we hit a dirt road, which of course we could not take with our rental car, so we had to drive on a little further than we expected to.

This central part of Tasmania is called the Heartlands. And we saw quite a bit of it today.

Our first stop was Deloraine, an historic little village on the Meander River. This town was very proud of its heritage and had many well preserved buildings and beautiful gardens.

We drove through conservation forests, and caught glimpses of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area near Quamby Bluff, Central Plateau and the Great Western Tiers.

We were heading for the Great Lake, a natural lake that has been expanded by a man-made reservoir. I hopped out to take a photo and froze. The car dial said the outside temperature was 5°C, but it felt colder

This lake is more than 1000m above sea level and has the reputation of being one of the coldest locations in Tasmania. I could believe that.

One thing that interested us was the large number of shacks that are clumped along the lower edges of the lake near Miena and Liawenee. Apparently they are used as fishing shacks, and are mostly empty during the colder months. I can understand why.

When we arrived in Ross, we were surprised by how many people were wandering the historic streets. Later we saw a huge coach collect about 60 people to take them back to Launceston.

This small town is historically famous for a few things. This bridge is one of them.

The sandstone bridge was completed in 1836 using convict labour. It took more than five years to complete. I read that one of the reasons for that was despite lots of work being carried out cutting and carving the rocks, many of the stones finished up in the homes of the gentry and in the buildings in the centre of Ross. That actually explained some of the very majestic buildings and churches in the small village.

Another important piece of history was that Ross was once the location of a convict female factory.

Although very little of it remains today, we did visit a small building on it site that had a very interesting summary of the female convict history.

Many of the women convicts were ‘hired’ from here to be domestic servants (house maids, nurse maids, laundresses), but would be sent back if they were disobedient towards their new master or mistress. In other words, they were slaves.

We spent a very pleasant half hour wandering the main street. Mick decided he would come back later in the afternoon to check out this large second hand shop. But he found out the hard way that all the shops in the town closed about 10 minutes after the buses left.

It wasn’t only old buildings to be observed in the town. We also got up close to this old Ford Deluxe that had been restored to its original glory. We did wonder how it was able to tow the caravan though.

Dinner tonight will be at the local pub: Man-O-Ross Hotel, which is located in the main street, like everything else.

We called in to see if we needed to book a table and were told it was advisable. We were told they were very busy for the 6pm sitting (not that was when we wanted to book), but we were able to book a table for 6.45pm!

We were taken by the sign advertising an upcoming Deer Hunt. Thinking it was an interesting local game at first, we found out that it is in fact a deer hunt!

This photo of previous contestants and their ‘trophies’ was proudly displayed on the front bar’s wall.

An interesting little place.