Tassie - "Hiking in Freycinet"

Went for a fantastic four day hike around the Freycinet Peninsula on Tasmanias east coast, better known for Wineglass bay which appears on pretty much every ad for Tassie tourism.

Day 1- Carpark to Hazards beach. After an hour or so of tourists milling around the beginning part of the track we managed to escape to the beautiful Hazards beach. In the far yonder part of the beach is where we set up camp, couldnt ask for a better view...much better than any five star resort.
Day 2- Hazards beach to Bay. After a very nice short stroll to we set up camp in definitely the best spot on the site (you can see Marty perched on our front door step). We thought again we might be virtually alone here but in the late afternoon we were over-run by ten or so tents but I suppose it was a Saturday night. I was going to swim here but we spent all afternoon watching some stingrays swimming around so gave it a pass - even though they are pretty harmless all the recent publicity still sits in the mind. Again a stunning sunset, awe how romantik!
Day 3- 'The killer walk' - Bay to Wineglass bay via Mt Grayham. Well we knew this would be a hard day of 5-6 hours up and down hill and we were correct, but the views of the whole peninsula were stunning at the top. Marty by the way is only a small way up the first hill and looking absolutely stuffed!

Day 4 - Wineglass bay to the carpark. Waking up at wineglass bay is just amazing, go do it if you can! The end............oh and here are all the critters we saw along the way. Featured are 'Wally' the wombat, a confused wallaby, a very hungry Echidna and some very cute Penguins. I wont even bother mentioning all the birds!

Tassie - "The IC07 Conference"

Nice two week break in Tassie due to a rather convenient conference....as per usual decided to tack on a nice holiday after the work was done. Started by bringing my car along on The Spirit of Tassie where to my joy there was only a lovely 1 meter swell. Passed the day happily with Adam and Soph learning new card games and staring at endless ocean. Camping in Davenport the first night was to our surprise very nice with our own personal beachfront tent accomodation. The only problem was finding dinner where a lovely local told me "sorry love this is Davenport"....hmmm, by the way this was 8pm Saturday night, gotta love taswegians!!

The next day we drove through the middle of Tassie on route to the conference in Hobart, where we took a nice scenic drive through the Highlands, where we saw pencil pines and cushion plants, the only problem was that a great deal of the road was dirt....hmmm by the way this was the A5, only in Tasmania!!

Finally arriving at the conference, many talks were listened to and crosswords mastered, but most of all much beer was drunk in order to fullfill the young chemists role in attempting to drink the town dry and never be invited back again. Outside work time we managed to see the sites from Mt Wellington and go to the Cascade Brewery, where we almost wet ourselves laughing 'at' not 'with' the over exuberant tour guide. I think we suceeded, well at least in part...hmmm, by the way pubs shut at 11pm all week long, where are we again?

Aussie Day weekend at the Mornington

Had a lovely Australia Day weekend at the Mornington Peninsula at The Duriska's very 'European' holiday house. Great way to avoid the crowds we thought, little did we know throngs of Melbournians had the same idea....the drive took twice as long!

Mandy and Dimma came for the day and we gorged ourselves on wine and pizza at T'Gallant winery. Marty then finally had a chance to play with his new camera toys - some filters - at our favourite winery destination 'Tucks Ridge'

We spent the next day getting back to nature with a walk/ bird watch along the coast at Cape Schank. Marty found himself a very dead hawk which he is still yet to identify? Followed by some awful windy/rainy weather which didnt deter us from an amble around a very big Homestead which had some fab birds (even for a not very interested bird watcher like me).

On the way back to Rosebud I was so excited when we saw a koala feasting on some gum leaves, and in true Australia Day weekend manner stood there with all the other Aussies gawking at it while it sat there eating away not in the slightest bit interested in us...but so cute and fluffy, I wonder if they bite?