Feb 18, 2005

Hello from Maydena, Tasmania. We are enjoying the hospitality of the Maydena Online Center as we try to catch up with some business things online. As we are moving around a bit more computer time has been harder to come by. So we had a long but uneventful drive from the Meumann's house in Stawell, Victoria to the Wilson's Prom. It took us most of the day but we kept ourselves entertained. We stopped to buy some supplies in the last big town and then headed to the Yanakie Beach Caravan Park where we had booked into one of their on-site cabins. The owners there were great and the place is right on the beach. We enjoyed a walk along the beach after we arrived to work out the driving kinks. The beach is on the east side of the peninsula so no sunset but the sky did turn a beautiful pink in the evening light. On the water we could see many sea birds and some black swans finding themselves some dinner. The caravan park was home for a large flock of Gullahs (not sure if that is the correct spelling). They are gray and pink parrots and make quite a racket in the morning and evening! The next day we went to explore the park and spent some time in the visitors center before setting off to walk to Oberon Bay. What a beautiful spot - very wild mountainous seaside! The wind was brisk but the sun was out so it was pretty warm. We had come to the most southern point in Australia upon the advice of our friends Peter and Maxine Cory as they had gotten engaged to be married here a while back. It is a pretty inspiring place so I can see why Peter chose it for that special moment. We got back fairly late in the day and drove up to the Mt. Oberon car park area to check out a possible walk for the next day. To our surprise we ran into an English couple that we had met back in Kunming China - Paul and Mary! We had a great time catching up with them - funny how things happen. They will be in New Zealand when we are there so who knows we may see them again. We made it back to the caravan park after dark and cooked up a good meal before getting some shut eye. The next day we hiked up Mt. Oberon for an absolutely spectacular view of the whole peninsula - it really is unlike any other place in the world. After that we walked down to Squeaky Beach for lunch - the beach really does make noise as the sand is made up of small particles of quartz that squeak when rubbed together by your feet. The last walk of the day was to Cotters Beach to see if we could catch some wild life in the evening glow. We were in luck and saw a number of Kangaroos - one very near the path. This one did not seem to care the least that we were a few feet away and continued to munch away happily as we watched and then walked on by. We saw the same one on the way back from the beach as well and it had the same attitude despite being even closer to the path that time. The beach was wonderful - very long and covered in flotsam and jetsam as the trail guide said - lots to beach comb but we did not have much light left.....as we got back to the parking area I heard a crashing in the bush and went to look closer and almost came nose to nose with a startled pair of Emus who took off in the other direction pretty quickly. It is amazing how these big ungainly looking creatures can move so quickly even in dense brush. We were up pretty early the next day and decided to drive into Melbourne before meeting Peter Cory's mom later in the day. Joy Cory had very graciously invited us to stay with her in Caulfield North - a suburb of Melbourne. We drove to Praham Market and left the car in the lot and jumped on a tram into the city. We enjoyed visiting the remembrance memorial and the Botanic Gardens first and then went further into the city and walked a bit around the China town area as it was Chinese New Years before making our way back by tram to the car. We arrived at 13 Orrong Crescent just a bit after six and were greeted with the smells of home cooking which was great. Joy was wonderful and had cooked us up a yummy supper - we lingered over it with some wine as we got to know each other. The next day we went into the city early and visited the National Gallery before meeting Joy, Peter's brother David and his daughter Louise for lunch. We met at a lovely place near the river and enjoyed an hour or so before they all went to a concert. Tom and I then walked along the river, visiting some more of the Chinese New Year festival before heading to the St Kilda music festival at the beach. The festival was interesting...we were in the older bracket of people there....the dress of many of the young people was often interesting - lots of tattoos, cleavage and other interesting bits of clothing. We did not find any music venue that was all that great so we went down to the shore and watched some excellent kite boarding - these guys were really good and in amazing shape as the wind was whipping around the harbour at St. Kilda. We made our way back to Orrong Crescent afterwards and enjoyed another evening with Joy. We were very sad to have to get up and leave the next day - Joy was a wonderful host and we would have enjoyed spending more time with her....always the way - wishing we had more time! But we had a flight to catch and got to the airport, turned in the car and checked in for our flight to Tasmania. We arrived without any trouble and decided on a backpackers in town. We caught the airport bus in and enjoyed a bit of a tour as the bus dropped most others off before us. It was a good orientation. It was a holiday in Hobart - something we did not know so we decided to investigate. We walked into town to look around the wooden boat regatta. We did not know that Hobart and Tas have a history and tradition of wooden boat building. There were some beautiful boats on display - we had a great time wandering around the docks and chatting to a few people. That night there were fireworks and we decided to take an evening boat tour to view them - it was beautiful to see the lights of the city come up and while the fireworks were brief they were still fun. We took a down day the following day to do some planning - not much exciting happened but we did make some progress on what to do in Tasmania. One fun thing was making contact with another Servas host and learning that we could spend the following two nights with them. So the next day we rented a car and took off for Mt. Field to do some hiking. It is about an hour from Hobart. We had a great afternoon there and made it back to meet Pam and Kevin Findlay for supper - a great salmon dish that Pam had cooked up at their lovely home in Old Beach - just up the river from Hobart. The next day was a beautiful sunny day - we did a bit of shopping for equipment and then Kevin and Pam dropped us at the base of Mt. Wellington for a long but rewarding climb to the summit - it is a bit tough though when you come panting over the rise to see a car park full of vehicles but oh well - we still enjoyed the walk. We made it back to Fern Gully about 6:20pm and made a bee line for the pub and a pint of Guinness! Ahh that tasted good and we had time before Pam and Kev picked us up to take us into Hobart for supper - what a great day! Today we were up early and out as Pam and Kevin had to get into town for a meeting and we were off to Mt. Field again. We had met a great lady on our first visit there and she had put us in touch with someone that had a house to rent for tourists near the park - a great place for $30. It is owned by the Catholic Church and is a great deal! We plan to spend the next few days here before moving on to visit another servas host in the west of the island. Then some hiking in the Cradle Mountain area before getting back to Hobart and moving onto New Zealand!

Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry that I haven't been able to put many photos up lately. I'll try as soon as I can.

Pam