Tasmania

With not a small amount of sorrow, we packed our bags and left Melbourne. We wished we could spend more time there and maybe even sneak in another bar crawl with Josh and Elisa...

However... Tasmania. In Melbourne, we booked on a 3 day tour of the east coast of Tassie. This took up a week's budget, so we were a bit nervous because if it was rubbish, it was a lot of cash...fortunately it was great. Mostly down to an excellent guide and an interesting, friendly bunch of people. There were 13 of us on the tour (3 men, 10 women!), a mixture of English, Irish, Canadian, Mexican, Spanish, Czech, Japanese, and Chinese. We won't go on about it, but they were a top group and we spent our evenings together (after we'd cooked and prepared dinner) talking, laughing and playing a great game (yes, another one to introduce to you all!).

So, highlights of our tour to the East Coast of this beautiful island:

- The Bay of Fires. Our first Aussie beach! In our tour guide's words "You can swim if you want to, but there's a very strong current, sea lice that might bite you, and a girl got taken by a great white here last year". We did go for a little dip though as who can resist a beach with crashing waves from 3 different directions, turquoise sea, and white sand? Note to the nervous: Kara stayed in the little lagoon area, while Martin went off to challenge Poseidon and his underlings.

- driving around seeing the country side (you can smell eucalyptus from the trees wherever you are) and then having Jon, the guide, screech to a halt and shout "Echidna!". This is a relative of the hedgehog (in appearance but is actually a monotrean, which is the same family as the Duck Billed Platypus) with impressive white spikes and the same crap defense mechanism..."Arggghhh, if I roll into a ball they will never find me..."

- Wine Glass Bay - hiking to view points and in Martin's case up the mountain, while being unoffical sheep dog to the rest of the group. It looks as its name says - like a wine glass

- We saw Tasmanian Devils!! They look nothing like Taz. They are kind of cute until they make a noise. Or start eating. Or start fighting. They can crunch through bones and they do run around like nutters. We went to a wildlife park to see them (noturnal black animals are always going to be tricky for your average tourist), as they are hard to see in the wild, and watched them being fed. Well, chucked large chunks of dead animal. Then they fight over it. Then they devour it. Much extremely unpleasant cracking noises as they break up bones the size of your femur

- as if this wasn't cool enough, we then went to the next feeding session...feeding kangaroos and wallabies! We were in the pen with them. With food in our hand. We're told that by the time we leave Oz we'll be utterly sick of the sight of kangaroos but at the moment it is still very exciting.Feeding a mother kangaroo with one hand while feeding with the other hand her baby whose head is sticking out of her pouch is a priceless experience.

- Port Arthur. The prison site were convicts too bad for mainland Australia were sent... now the whole town is a museum and you can wander round the old buildings and learn about the individual prisoners who lived there. Very very good museum\park place. In summary: penal colony at bottom end of Tasmania + British Victorian overseers = not fun.

- We also saw amazing rock formations, arches, cliff faces and other things.

- Martin is very proud at having given 2 Japanese and 1 Chinese woman their first experience of "the pub". Complete with lessons on how to go to the bar, order your drink, pay, then come back to the table we were all sat round and chat. Perfect night out.

We hope to keep in touch with the people we met, as they were a nice bunch, and maybe even meet one or two of them in our travels (eg Japan. Having introduced them to the pub, we have been promised to be introduced to the ways of Japan...)

Other good news:
- all of the babies that were due to be born when we left have been born happy and healthy. Congrats to everyone. And the bun factory is still in action as we will be back in August in time for another birth... keep up the good work folks, and maybe consider watching tv next time you're bored...it's cheaper in the long run...