Tasmania

We headed down to Tasmania on Thursday morning and the flight, whilst short, was a gong show!  Elly was all over the place and just being crazy. David kept telling everyone throughout our stay in Tassie that on the flight over to Perth they wanted to sit as far away from us as possible so they didn't have to listen to Elly cry!  We were picked up at the airport by Keith and Dawn (who Jill has known for ages!) and their granddaughter Isla, and we went and picked up our rental van.  Charlie was thrilled to have a little friend to play with while we were there!  The next morning we headed off bright and early to Wineglass Bay.  Little did we know the only way to get there was to hike in.... well we weren't prepared nearly enough and didn't get there early enough, so we ended up just going to the lookout and then back down to a different beach.  Travelling with kids is hard!  Charlie and Elly didn't even make it up to the lookout, they stopped just short and we took shifts going up!

A little bathroom break on our way

The wildlife was friendly 

Charlie loved exploring on the rock

Rock wallaby up at the Wineglass Bay lookout

The famous Wineglass Bay - one of the top 10 beaches in the world (or so I've heard...) 

After the hike we stopped off at this cool lighthouse!  Andrew, David and I were the only ones who made the little trek but it was so worth it!  GREAT views

We stopped and got fish & chips on the way home and ate them at a little park near this beach, it was so nice!

These two love to have fun!!

Saturday we headed to the famous Salamanca Markets, which didn't take ay pictures at!  I was too busy looking at all the stalls...  Then Saturday afternoon Andrew stayed at home with the kids while the rest of us went to a musical of Pride and Prejudice - it was entertaining!  Sunday we went to church then went to a Christmas concert in the evening.  Monday was a fun day - we drove out to Richmond, where there is the second oldest bridge in Australia, and underneath?  Lots of ducks to feed!  Charlie loved it!  It was a quaint old town and very touristy with lots of little shops to look in.  I found some Australian animal finger puppets which I was SO excited about!  I'm trying to make sure we have lots of aussie things for our kids to remember our time here when we eventually move back to Canada, and finger puppets are nice and small!!

                              

                                            Painting cookies - Andrew's favourite Christmas tradition from his childhood 

Feeding the ducks - the big white one was Charlie's favourite! (Although I don't think that's a duck...!)

The view from the peoples house we were staying at - Spectacular!

We left Tuesday evening so we had the morning to play!  We went to a beach 5 mins away from the Sayers house and it was so nice!  Not busy at all with nice gentle waves for the kids to chase (it was too cold for swimming!) and lots of sand to dig in.  There was a guy fishing down the beach which Charlie was just fascinated with!  Every time he'd cast Charlie would run around saying "he's casting! He's casting!" It was such a nice relaxing way to end our stay in Tassie!