2/19/15. Melbourne

We drove to the airport after breakfast and turned in the rental car.  Dave and John were glad to see the end of it as it had bucket seats in the front that were extremely uncomfortable.  We got our tickets and then stood in a hugely long line to get through security.  We only had about five minutes to spare before they started the boarding.  We had a short hour and ten minute flight to the mainland, but then had to wait a half hour to get our bags - such are the joys of air travel!  We were met by our driver hired by the tour company who delivered us to the hotel in the docklands area of the city.  Our tour guide met us about 10 minutes later and we were able to catch up with the rest of the group who flew in this morning.  Louise (our guide) took us on a tram ride into the city (trams are free to ride here for everyone) and then for a walk around and through some hidden parts of the city.  Melbourne is large - about 4.2 million people.  We walked past nice shops and lots of small eateries and then across the river.  The architecture is amazing - late 1800's buildings cheek to jowl with very modern (and equally interesting) ones.  We came back to the hotel and had just enough time to throw in a load of laundry before going to our welcome meeting.  After the meeting, we had twenty minutes to get the clothes out of then dryer and back to the room.  Unfortunately, they weren't completely dry so our room looks like a Chinese laundry - clothes drying on the backs of chairs, on hangers in the closet, and on a line that Dave rigged up from the closet to the towel bar in the bathroom!  We met up again and all walked to dinner at a nice restaurant across the street.  Dave had a steak with fruit for dessert and I had wild mushroom risotto with sticky fig pudding after.  We will go to bed soon as it was a fairly long day.  Tomorrow we will have a city tour by coach and then a walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens.  I will try to put pictures on tonight, but the Internet time here is limited so I may not have enough time to get them on.

2/18/15 Launceston

We decided on a quiet day today so after a lovely breakfast at the B and B (Kurrajong House - see photo), we walked down the hill into town.  We stopped at the post office, which was housed in a lovely old building sporting a clock tower (pic).  We poked into a wood and antique jewelry and found a funny Aussie bling bikini (pic).  I hope this is meant to go over a cloth bikini, but maybe not?  We walked along the river and over a bridge to visit the Queen Victoria Museum.  We spent most of our time in the natural science and history section.  I have included a pic of an Alfa Romeo for Dan and a Tasmanian tiger for Nathaniel (they have been extinct since the 1930's).  We waked back into town and had lunch at a bakery.  We did a little window shopping and then decided to walk back up the hill to cool off before dinner.  We walked through City Park and enjoyed the antics of some Japanese Macaques.  I have included a pic of a mother and baby.  Right next door to Kurrajong House is a sports center.  The last pic is of some folks lawn bowling, which seems very popular with the senior set.  They also have croquet and tennis courts that we could

see.  We will walk down hill again later to have dinner at the Jailhouse Grill, which was reccommended by our Aussie guide in an email.  We will be taking a taxi back as walking up the hill once per day is quite enough!  We will fly to Melbourne tomorrow and join up with our tour.

Cradle Mt. And Launceston photos

The cabin, King's Bridge, the seal, a very cute wombat and the canyon walls at the gorge.

King's Bridge

Photos from Cradle Mountain

2/17/15. Launceston, Tasmania

Dave and I woke up early so took a walk around the cabins.  I was still looking for the elusive echidna and wanted another chance to take a photo of a kookaburra, but we settled for a wallaby who was out grazing.  We packed the car and went back to the cafe at the visitor center for breakfast.  We then hopped on the shuttle to show Dave the view of Cradle Mountain.  Unfortunately, it was a bit drizzly out and the mountain was concealed in the fog.  Dave will just have to look at the pictures from yesterday.  We took the shuttle back to Ronny Creek and took a lovely walk on the overland trail.  We saw another wombat beside the path.  He had a very cute face.  We walked up to Weindorfer's cabin - Weinheim.  Gustavo Weindorfer fell in love with the area and ultimately led to it being named a national park.  It is quite beautiful and we really didn't have enough time to do it justice.  We went back to the car and headed for Launceston (pronounced lawn chess ton).  Our B and B here is in the "blue chip" district according to our hostess - lots of beautiful old and stately homes.  We are located on top of a very high hill overlooking the town.  After checking in, we walked down into town for a late lunch and then continued walking over King's Bridge to the gorge.  The views were lovely and we saw a seal frolicking in the water.  We walked back into town and decided to have ice cream for dinner as we were still quite full from lunch.  Our feet were still smoking from all the walking we did today so we opted for a taxi ride up the hill.  I think I will put the pix in a separate blog.

2/16/15 Cradle Mountain

We packed up the car after breakfast and headed for Cradle Mountain.  We went along many winding roads with hairpin turns and ran into a big traffic jam at one point (about a thousand sheep)!  We were exhausted by the time we got there.  Dave stayed to take a much needed nap while the rest of us walked from our accommodations to the visitor center (enough of the car already) and grabbed the shuttle bus to see the mountain at Dove Lake.  The mountain was lovely.  Lana wanted to go back to the visitor center, but John and I opted to take a short walk through the pencil pine rain forest.  We all met up at the cabins and shortly after went down the road for dinner at Peppers.   On the way, we stopped to take pictures of a wallaby.  After dinner we walked out to the pond to see if we could see a platypus, but they were all in hiding.  On the way back to our cabins, however, we stopped to take pictures of a mother wombat and her very shy baby - very cute.  There was a kookaburra outside of our back porch, but he flew off before I could get him in focus - drats!  We heard there were echidnas around, but we didn't see any.  I will put some pix on after I write the next blog as there was no wifi at our cabins.

2/15/15 Hobart, Tasmania

We got to Tasmania and picked up our rental car at the airport.  We drove about 20 minutes to get to the hotel on the waterfront in Hobart.  Although not the most up-to-date, it is clean and convenient to the waterfront.  Our options were limited for dinner last night as it was Valentine's Day and most of the restaurants were either booked or had a set price menu (very expensive).  The manager of the hotel directed us to a fish and chips place and we had a fine meal.  We came back to the hotel and collapsed as we were all very tired.

We woke up this morning feeling so much better!  We had a lovely breakfast and then headed out to Port Arthur.  The day was a bit dreary with mist and a few sprinkles, but perfect weather for where we were headed.

It was an hour and a half drive along some pretty countryside.  Port Arthur was very interesting.  It was a prison which was used as a punishment station for repeat offenders from all the Australian colonies.  The idea was to use discipline and punishment along with religious and moral instruction and training and education to rehabilitate the men sent there.  Some of them left there as blacksmiths, shoemakers and shipbuilders, while others became broken men.  The facility was quite large (about a hundred acres) with many of the buildings open for viewing.  We got a 40 minute walking tour as an overview and then a 20 minute harbor cruise.  I will try to include some pix.  We drove back to town and Dave took a nap while John, Lana and I did some window shopping.  Unfortunately as today is Sunday, most of the shops were closed.  We came back to the hotel to pick up Dave and went to dinner.  Tomorrow we will drive to Cradle Mountain.  I don't know if there is wifi there so the blog may have to skip a day.