Tasmania

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What a wild week. We left Perth at 6AM last monday morning and arrived in Hobart late afternoon via a 4 hour wait in Melbourne. Spent the night in another Big 4 Holiday park and then bright and early the next morning drove off to Freycinet National Park. It is much colder here. Larry and Bonnie hiked up the mountain to get a glance of Wineglass Bay. Supposed to be 1 of the Top 10 Beaches in the world. It was a 45 minutes walk straight up so Ross and I opted to take the boat to Wineglass but the next morning the weather was blowing so we opted to stay home. It was nice to see Freycinet park but with no sun it was not at its best.

Bonnie's nephew Brett was getting married in Hobart, Tasmania on Saturday, April 5th so this was an opportune time to be in Hobart. Bonnie's sister Tana married an Ozzie 35 years ago and has lived in Sydney ever since. All of their 4 children at one time or another have attended school in BC and stayed with one relative or another. It is nice because all the cousins know each other very well even though they live so far apart. On Wednesday night there was a 'stag' and a 'hen' party. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner with the girls, played some games and the oldsters left and youngsters carried on and on and on until 4 AM. There is a large Canadian contingent here for this event. About 25 canadians in all. We are all staying in the same hotel and it has been party central. Our wine we had shipped from Perth arrived as scheduled so we have all enjoyed Larry's choices. The guys had a great time. They went to a local pub where there was a guitar player and singer and sang their hearts out. Larry and Ross left about 11PM and the young guys carried until all hours. Sound familiar.

On Friday all 25 of us took off for Port Arthur for a jet boat ride. It was super. On Wednesday we had the tail end of a cyclone come through Hobart with winds up to 180kms. Consequently, we had pretty rough water on our boat ride. Left over rollers from the storm. The boat held 40 people on it. They geared us up with ponchos and ginger pills and seat belts for the front 3 rows and we were off. It was wild. The 2 crew were very young but very experienced and worked hard to make sure everyone was safe and comfortable. We then went off to see the Port Arthur Penal Colony. Apparently if you were a bad guy in England they put you on a boat and sent you to Port Arthur for your sentenced time. It was very interesting. Lots of guides around to fill us in on the details of the time.

The wedding was yesterday. Larry and I were not invited to the wedding because we don't even know the bride and groom. It gave us a chance to go to the Wildlife park and see some Kangaroos with joeys in their pouches, Tasmanian devils, wombats and koala bears. It was just great.

Today was an Ozzie sausage sizzle at the brides mom and dads. Lots of salads, white bread and tomatoe sauce. Tons of mites of Bretts were there so the guys all went across the road to the beach and played cricket on the beach. It was fun for the ones that played and fun for the ones watching.

Back to our room now to pack, do some laundry and the last 6:30pm happy hour together before tomorrow when we fly to Adelaide.

Our home exchange folks are picking us up so off to another adventure.

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