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The Departure Lounge
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Bring your car for free on the Spirit of Tasmania

Spirit of Tasmania

If a trip to Tasmania on board the Spirit of Tasmania ferry is in the pipeline, you will now be able to take your car for free.

  • Spirit of Tasmania

The Federal Government has temporarily increased the Bass Strait Passenger Vehicle Equalisation Scheme making it possible for you to set sail into your dream road trip and bring your car for free.

“COVID-19 has significantly affected tourism in Tasmania and the number of passenger vehicles travelling across Bass Strait which is why we are moving to increase the rebate,” Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said.

“This is a critical and targeted boost for tourism, as visitors who travel to Tasmania by sea are among the most valuable to the industry, they spend more, stay longer and travel further into our regional areas,” he said.

This offer is available for new bookings for travel between 1 March and 30 June 2021, unless sold out prior. Availability is limited – book now so you do not miss out.

For your peace of mind, you can amend your booking online without incurring any amendment fees, and if border restrictions prevent you from travelling, cancellation fees will also be waived, giving you the confidence to book now.

 

*Conditions apply. Offer available for new bookings made between 14 January 2021 – 30 June 2021, or until the allocation of $6 million worth of tickets has been sold. Offer applies to eligible passenger vehicles for travel between 1 March 2021 – 30 June 2021. Vehicle discount only applicable when booked with a standard Spirit or Flexi passenger fare. Vehicle must be booked prior to travel. Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount offer. Free vehicle fare based on a standard car, campervan/motorhome less than 2m wide and up to 6m in length, motorbike or pushbike. Vehicle greater than 2m wide and 6m in length (i.e. caravan) will receive a discount equivalent to that of a standard car. $10 booking fee applies per person each way when booking via the Customer Contact Centre and Reservations Counter. Card payment fees may apply.

The Departure Lounge
In Featured, News, Spotlight

The Dry breaks Australian box office drought

The Dry

Australians are flocking to locally produced films as Hollywood puts the brakes on new releases.

  • The Dry

After a year of Covid-19-enforced shutdowns, the Australian film industry has entered 2021 in a strong position – with The Dry grossing almost $13m at the box office since its opening on 1 January.

The Robert Connolly film – financed though Screen Australia – had the fifth-highest Australian opening day for a local film in history and has outperformed Hollywood blockbuster Wonder Woman 1984 and animated family film The Croods: A New Age for the third weekend in a row.

Another Australian film, Penguin Bloom, directed by Glendyn Ivin and starring Naomi Watts, also recorded a strong opening result, grossing $2.5m since its release six days ago.

Screen Australia’s CEO Graeme Mason said the commercial success of The Dry was a heartening start to the year.

“It’s one of those titles that comes along where Australians see themselves and respond incredibly well,” he said.

“We have one or two of them a year and I think The Dry is definitely one of them. And it’s the first time in a very long time Australia has had the No 1 and No 2 films at the box office.”

It could outperform Australian classics such as Muriel’s Wedding, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Man from Snowy River.

Although cinemas in most states are still operating at less than full capacity, The Dry’s commercial success has not happened in spite of the pandemic, Keogh said, but partly because of it.

“It’s an excellent film, but there’s definitely not as much competition as there would generally be around January, so it’s getting more screen coverage,” he said.

“Because of Covid, Hollywood is holding back a lot of films at the moment, which is putting some pressure on our industry – so these great Australian movies are very welcome for us right now.”

Australian films took $22.6m at the local box office in 2020, with The Invisible Man, which was shot in Sydney between July and September 2019, accounting for more than one third of the total.

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In Explore, Featured, Inspire, News

$71 million each to be an International Space Station crew

Space station crew

If your travel bug has taken a vaccine in 2020 and you want to experience something beyond an international flight, here is something to consider.

  • Space station crew
  • Space Station

For $71 million, you could have been part of the first all-private International Space Station crew. The first fully private, multi-person space station crew has been introduced: three men who are each paying $US55 million ($71 million) to fly on a SpaceX rocket.

The flight will mark the first tourist flight to the ISS since 2009, when Russian Soyuz rockets carried individual passengers.

An experienced former NASA astronaut will be mission commander and pilot.

Each passenger had to pass medical tests and will get 15 weeks of training.

They will be led by a former NASA astronaut now working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.

Space tourists have taken individual flights to the ISS aboard Russian rockets, but this will be the first flight carrying multiple private astronauts, on a private rocket.

The first crew will spend eight days at the space station and will take one or two days to get there aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule following lift-off from Cape Canaveral.

Other space companies like Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin plan to take paying customers on up-and-down flights lasting just minutes. These trips — much more affordable with seats going for hundreds of thousands versus millions — could kick off this year.

Axiom’s first customers include Larry Connor, a real estate and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Canadian financier Mark Pathy and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of Israel’s first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/

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