Tasmania: Day 3

The next day was officially Australia Day (January 26th).  We started the day off at Douglas-Apsley National Park en route to Bay of Fires.

Although it is the middle of summer, Tasmania is not that warm. 

Stan, still wanted a good swim, so he hoped on in...with two kids to follow. Mary and I are sensible :-)

After our swim in the water hole, we drove up to St. Helens where we happened upon a local Rotary Club sponsored fair. They just happened to be in the middle of a log chopping contest. So, we stayed to watch!

I think this guy was the winner. Chopping a log in less than 20 strokes. 

Then we meandered on over to the carnival bit of the fair!

Thomas enjoyed the slide while the girls had a go in the haunted house

Then of course are the giant bubble balls- you should know I am jealous every time I see a kid doing this!

Each kid won a prize for picking a duck (everyone is a winner :)).

Grandpa and Thomas!

After the Australian Day fair, we drove some more to Binalong Bay at the Bay of Fires to see the beautiful beaches framed by grey boulders and orange liken. 

Tasmania is famous for some of the best scuba diving in kelp forest. I would be really afraid to dive in the long tall kelp. Often you hear stories of people becoming disorientated with what is up and what is down as they follow the kelp one way.

Each beach stop-off, had something completely unique to offer. It was weird because they were all right next to each other. We found one gorgeous beach just like squeaky beach at Wilsons Prom, Vic.

Attempting a family shot. I need to start thinking about our outfits before we sit on beautiful beaches as we always look a tad mismatched.

Apparently something is hilarious!

The kids with Grandpa

Thomas found some kelp!

Olivia loves to do this pose. She recently participated in a neo-classical ballet class where she did this position while being help up in the air by some teenage boys. She admits being small has it's perks :-)

Tasmania- Day 1&2

This year we decided to celebrate Australia day in Tasmania (which is still a part of Australia for those of you who don't know your Australian geography). We have been meaning to go for some time. In addition, now that we are living in Melbourne there is no good excuse to NOT see Tassie...It is literally a ferry boat ride away (you can drive your car up on the ferry- rent a little cabin bed and 8 hours later show up to a Tasmanian morning).  Sadly for us, there was no room on the ferry boat and we had to take a 45 minute plane ride instead.

Lucky for us, my dad was in town and he had never seen Tasmania either (last year he visited us and saw New Zealand on the way) so we invited him to come along. Since we had one extra person, we no longer fitted into a 5 seater car so we upgraded to the only thing they had...the IMAX- it was huge!

Day 1: we landed in Hobart, found our cabin at the holiday park, turned on some Aussie Open Tennis and let the kids play around.

Day 2: We headed up to Mount Wellington, which is the highest point in Hobart- Darwin tried to summit this mountain twice. The first time the weather forced his party to turn around and the second time he wrote that the guide was an idiot and took them the wrong way (more difficult way up the mountain) and it took them all day to get back :-)  I love Charles!

Sadly, by the time we made it up to the top of the mountain the weather had turned bad and it began to rain. In addition, the wind started to pick up. :-(

After Mount Wellington, we visited a very famous museum called 'The Mona'  

It is about 4 levels of modern art (which my kids got a kick out of--and while covering their eyes at times would have been appropriate, the museum had a way of placing the most shocking things in places where you could not help but run into).

As you can see, changing directions was not always easy...we had some interesting discussions afterwards :-)

 This picture below, was an olfactory (smell room)- modern art really taps on all of the senses in this museum.

Here is clip of Thomas and the word waterfall

and last of all, a couple of my favourites: (1) the bubbles coming out of the rubbish bins. I liked the stark contrast of clean and dirty and when we were there the bubbles had reached up to the ceiling and were about to topple over. My kids could blow on them...which was fun and maybe something we shouldn't have been doing...

 Here is a white library...this kind of reminded me of a sterile psychiatric unit for some reason- it creeped me out big time; but my dad thought it was hopeful- books to be written.

 Last of all the worm mural.  

Visiting the museum was perfect as we were able to miss the rest of the rain storm and when we came out the sun had come out as well!  Here are some shot of our drive up to Coles Bay, from Hobart! It was stunning, along the coast and good for anyone who is not sitting in the back. We kept having to rotate who would get to sit up in the front, and luckily there were no accidents!

Once we got to Coles Bay, we unpacked and then ran out to see some stuff! We did a short hike up to Wineglass Bay! 

Before the sun set we ran over to the beach and then went to dinner! 

It was a beautiful day-