Naomi and I have been trying to do an outing every week since New Year but this week we stayed a bit closer to home.

We started our day by visiting the open air market at Wynyard and then the covered market at Penguin. There were a few people at Wynyard but at Penguin we noticed big changes. Everyone had to be masked when indoors and a lot of the stall holders had just decided to stay away as had the patrons. Usually, Penguin market is quite busy both inside the sheds and outside where there is usually a musician playing at the food court. Half the food stalls were empty and there were very few people watching “Danny the Blues Man” which was a shame because he’s very good. Still, we had a nice lunch, Naomi had a kebab and I had something called a Chicken Boat, both nice despite the fact that they had run out of cheese.

As it was still early when we left the market we decided to stop off and look at Burnie Park. We’ve driven past the entrance many times but never been into the park.

We drove through the main gates and found a parking spot. The park did not seem that large at first glance. It is on a sloping site and has green lawns, big shady trees and roses near the entrance while a little further back is the city’s War Memorial. We sat on a bench under a beautiful chestnut tree to enjoy the view before setting off for a walk. There were Galah’s and black cockatoos flying around but they were too fast for me to photograph. The only cooperative bird was a seagull.

We took a path that led us up hill. It was much steeper than it looked but we persevered and were rewarded with fine views over Bass Strait.

We could see a playground, boating pond and a sound shell below us and we thought that there would be a linking path that would take us past these places but our path just kept going with no sign of how to get back down except by retracing our steps. It was a warm afternoon so eventually we gave up, had another sit down on a convenient bench and went back the way we came. We did go and have a closer look at the roses but as it was getting on for 4pm we decided to explore the rest of the park another day as it is much bigger than we first thought.

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