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- 

Nippers- flag racing

This week for nippers grandpa got to come along and take some pictures

 Here is Olivia with her board learning the technique 

 Next--Flag racing!

 See the kid turned around? Yep- that is Olivia- she is quick and she has to be since she is so small!

 Running

 and grabbing a flag. 

Every time you do the race there is one less flag (a lot like musical chairs)

 Fast forward...down to the final two

 Olivia sliding in...

and now a tug of war which resulted in a re-do... 

Final round again...

And Olivia lost... tears were shed, I know it's just a game but she lives for the flag races each week! :-) Can't wait for a nippers carnival where we get to compete with other beach teams!

Raspberry picking!

I am so sad cherry season is SO SHORT. After having such a great time cherry picking with the family I was going to bring my dad up to do it again...plus we were out of cherries. The season was over so we hit up a raspberry patch and picked there instead. It was also nearing the end of the season for the raspberries but we were able to still fill a small bucket.

You should all know that watermelon and raspberries are my two favorite fruits, so cherry season being finished was not that devastating :-)

Thomas, Papa John and Mary

Thomas would eat anything I picked so Papa John became the designated holder of the berry bucket. 

Sharing Grandpa's sunnies (what the aussies call sunglasses out here :-)