Lanceston, Tasmania, May 08

Just outside the city of Lanceston we went on a wetlands walk. The boardwalks take you across several kms of wetlands, crossing rivers which at low tide look just like the muddy banks and flats of the Minas Basin. Except for the black swans hanging out in the muck.

You have to look closely at the last photo. Kyra and I spotted this after waiting quietly where we heard rustling. We don't know what kind of spider that is, it was the size of a large ant.

More Tasmania. May 08

Above are 2 photos from the Freycinet Penninsula where we saw the dolphins. The others are from a rainforest walk just inland from St. Helen's.

Tasmania

Tasmania is a beautiful place. We only had 6 days there and managed to see plenty, but we know there was much more to see. Arriving early in the morning we drove west and visited Wings Wildlife farm in Gunn's Plains. Here we got to see a few things we haven't seen in the wild yet: wombats (extremely cute), tasmanian devils knawing on bones (not so cute, but cool), and echidnas (again, extremely cute). A cockatoo chatted to Boppy saying 'Hello Boppy' (or Poppy?) and another pretended dramatic sneezing. An emu tried to sample Dad's camera lens, sneaking up beside him as he photographed another. A monkey growled at Kyra, and 3 donkeys were very attentive to Mercedes's singing. It was an eventful outing. We knocked an assortment of poo off our shoes and moved on.

A few days later we visited the Salamanca markets in downtown Hobart. We had a great time here, sampling, perusing, buying. The girls and I watched a busker: a very tall contortionist/sword swallower. Kyra and Mercedes found it hilarious and shocking.

On Mother's Day we got a special treat: frolicking dolphins. We watched them off the Freycinet Penninsula. We continued up the east coast and stayed at Lagoons Beach for a night, enjoying a big campfire and meal. Black swans floated on the lagoon and people fished from the beautiful beach. Fairy wrens scouted our campsite for crumbs in the morning.

The next day at a marina in St. Helen's we had delicious fish and chips. Dad and Kevin met a man with a sailboat from London, England. He's been sailing for 10 years and counting.

Melbourne, May

We made it to Melbourne a day after being in Kosciuszko national park. We like Melbourne, lots of character. We visited the aquarium after finding a parking place for 2 motorhomes, not an easy task. What a great aquarium it was, giant manta rays and huge crabs that can live for 50 years. That night, rather than trying to find a caravan park for the night, we parked together and enjoyed a night under the overpass. Surprisingly we all slept great. We had a good laugh about the country bumpkins sleeping under the bridge in Melbourne.

We took the evening ferry to Tasmania, spending a night in the on board cabins. The kids thought it was wonderful! They sqealed when they saw how big the boat was and then again when they got to sleep in bunk beds. And yet again when they got to go see the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie with Grammy at the theaterette. It was a very nice ferry, very clean and comfy.

Dad's photos

Here are a few photos courtesy of Dad (aka: Roy and Boppy). If you enlarge the middle photo it's very cute.

As you view the third photo you may be confused. Australia does have penguins but very tiny ones called 'little' or 'fairy' penguins. These are King penguins on South Georgia island in the South Atlantic Ocean, from a recent adventure enjoyed by my folks. They could walk among these 1000's of penguins and the birds would just look at them, maybe nibble a shoe. I thought I'd throw in this great picture just to shake things up, take the blog to another part of the world for a moment.

Jindabyne and Kosciuszko national park, May

These photos are courtesy of Kyra. Mine are mysteriously absent from my camera card for about a week. Kyra's are better anyway. These scenes of snow and winter hats may seem out of place. Read on.

From the east coast we drove inland to Jindabyne. Our friends Cindy and Sean have a condo in this nice little ski town. They kindly offered it to us. Thanks again you guys! Jim met us there and we stayed 2 nights enjoying food, tv, laundry and birthday cakes. These photos however are not of Jindabyne, no snow there yet. After parting with Jim (always a sad event), we headed west driving through Kosciuszko on our way towards Melbourne. Kosciuszko is really hard to spell and it is the largest national park in NSW, 675,000 hectares, with Australia's highest mountains and only ski hills. This time of year the ski hills are getting ready, Thredbo is the trendy ski town.

We passed through Dead Horse Gap and the girls enjoyed freezing their hands and making snow balls from the few patches of icy snow, delighted to see snow for the first time in 14 months. This was the only place we were able to access any snow.

The mountain roads are winding and beautiful through forests. We stopped at the Tom Groggin camp site where we watched dozens of kangaroos grazing among the trees. They allowed us to get close but kept an eye on us. A few of them had joeys peeking out of their pouches.

We spent the night at the Geehi camp sites nearby. This time of year we had our pick of spots, it's much too chilly for most campers. We had a pretty spot by a wide river. Dozens of kangaroos were in the nearby field, some were around the campsites. A particularly large lone male grazed near us for hours. We spotted much wombat poo (cube-shaped!) and a wombat den but no wombats. The stars were beautiful. A frog mouth night bird landed on our motorhome (not an owl!). It was a great place and we had a wonderful campfire but we were freezing in all our sweaters ('jumpers') and winter hats.

April continued...

As we continued down the east coast of New South Wales we stopped at several beaches to have a look (or a 'squiz', or a 'Captain Cook', just to quote a little Australian for 'having a look').

The silver gulls are quite the picnic scavengers and there's always one that's keeps the others in line, some would call it a bully. It's always head-down and chasing another. You can see a perfect example of this bad behaviour in the second picture.

In a little place called Durras we visited the beach and found wonderful aquarium-like tidal pools. Dozens of little puffer fish fluttered their tiny fins in the surf. Kyra and Grammy spotted a real treat: an octopus in a very shallow pool, just enough water for it to swim around and catch minnows. As we all watched it put on a great show for us, posing for photos then disappearing back under a rock.

It's too chilly for swimming now, unless you have a wet suit. The surfers go out all year round.