The end of Two long weeks.

Beginning of September was exam time - the first week was study week, and the second week (week of my birthday!) was exam week. Ollie had 6 exams in 5 days. Not so fun, with a few sleepless nights, and stress levels high.

Ollie managed to take a short break from studying to go out for lunch with me on my birthday. The girls at work gave me treats which was lovely. Friday night, while the boys gathered for Beer & a BBQ to celebrate the exams being over, the girls got together for Wine & Pizza - to also celebrate exams being over!!! The girls made cupcakes for me, and gathered all the kids together to sing Happy Birthday to me, so despite the exams it felt like my birthday after all :)

Later that night Ollie's friend Graham arrived, and we had a weekend of adventures planned - just what we needed after exam week!

Saturday started bright and early as Ollie was taking a classmate to the airport - this meant that we had his car for the next 10days, so great for us. We were on the road just after 7am heading for Hobart and arrived in time for breakfast at a lovely cafe called Jam Packed (in the old Jam factory). We then had a look round the Salamanca Markets before hopping on  a boat for a river cruise - as always it was so good to be back on a boat!

 A few of the sites seen from the trip - the Tasman Bridge, the Governors House, and cute little boat shed's (prime real estate apparently!)

And a Sea Eagle.

Last time Ollie and I went up Mt Wellington (out the back of Hobart, not in Auckland that is), a big cloud was sitting over the top, so the promised view of about 1/3 of Tasmania was not on show for us. So we decided to give it another shot. We'd heard the road had been closed a day or two before so weren't 100% sure we'd make it to the top. Turned out the road was open, so to the top we went. Only a few passing clouds so could see a reasonable amount....boy was it cold though with all the snow that was up there and the wind chill too.

  

Snow had frozen on the plants up there.

  

  

  

  

After we were all frozen we headed off home, heading up the Tasman Highway, up the east coast so we could enjoy the scenery on the way home....and that is another story waiting to be told!!!

Sustainable House Day

September 11th was Sustainable House Day in Tassie so when Ruth suggested we head out and look at these houses, I was all for it. Not everyday you get to look through other peoples homes, and its always nice to get out of town - also being the day before exams started for Ollie it was time to get out of the house as much as possible so he could study uninterrupted!!!

One of the houses we went to had the Maori flag flying in the garden - didn't get a chance to find out the story for it being there, but was nice to see it.

Kim Clark's house was very cool to look through - with interesting bathrooms and windows! Kim likes making things with curved wood and practices making things around his home as well as for the neighbours. Kim has his own water wheel generating electricity as well as solar panels - he said that for about 2 weeks of the year he has to watch his usage and occasionally use the petrol generator.

Forest Lodge is a very new building - set up as accommodation for people to go walking in one of Tassie's national parks, and providing guided walks as well. They are also in the process of setting up a festival grounds - with a stage (wood work done by Kim Clark) and wood fired pizza oven, along with a camping area. Lots of the rugs in the Lodge are made by a local artist who uses natural dyes.

Nice to see some of the things people are doing here.

A Travellors Stopoff.

Saturday 28th August, our second visitor arrived - my good friend Leanne. She has been travelling through Africa and visiting relatives in Perth and decided to add Tasmania to her list of places visited!

It was great to have a friend around and to get so much catch up time with Leanne - in the past we have had to cram our catch ups in to a couple of lunch dates while she's been back in NZ (from the UK), so a whole week was lovely!

Cupcakes of course were required to welcome Leanne. We had a walk up Cataract Gorge one day, saw some cool wooden sculptures up there.

                                                 

Afternoons (once I had finished work) were spent going for walks in the sun, and to different cafes for coffee & cake.

I took Friday off work so that we could have a long weekend together, we rented a car and were off on a little road trip :) Of course there was the obligatory visit to the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm for breakfast before driving up to Cradle Mountain.

There were a couple of Pademelon's (small relatives of the Wallaby) grazing near the Visitors Centre, and as we were on the bus into the National Park, we saw a Wombat!

There had been some snow a few days before we got there, so the mountain was looking very picturesque, and there was some snow across the path around Dove Lake (at the bottom of the mountain) that we had to walk through.

From Cradle Mountain we drove to Strahan, where we stayed the night. Was funny checking into the motel - there was no one there, but a message saying "pick up the white phone by the laundry" - the person on the other end then told us that we were in Room 2 and the key was in the door!! Obviously more of a summer town, we were pretty much pushed out the door of the restaurant we had dinner in - at 9pm on a Friday night!

Saturday morning (4th Sept) woke to lots of rain - its the west coast of Tassie after all! And by chance we turned the TV on and caught the news - big earthquake in Christchurch, NZ. Of course I had no cell phone reception, but the owner of the motel let me use the computer to get in touch with family.

As the weather didn't improve, we spent the day driving back along the coast. Stopping at the Gingerbread house in Devonport for lunch - we were adventurous and tried the Gingercino (cappuccino with ginger) but wouldn't recommend it!

On Sunday we headed down to Hobart, stopping in Evandale to have a look through the market there. We went via Richmond and saw the oldest bridge in Australia.

When we arrived in Hobart we were greeted with a flat tyre!!! In between sorting that out we managed to have a walk round the water front, and some more coffee & cake before Leanne checked in to the backpackers for the night (her flight left from Hobart the next day) and I drove back to Launceston.

Was a lovely time with a lovely friend :)



Floods

Compared to a winter in Wellington, we haven't had much rain in Launceston. However other parts of Tassie have, and all this water turned up in Cataract Gorge last week.

Cataract Gorge is one of the first places (outside the centre of Lonnie) that we visited during our first week here, and we often walk up there to the Basin at the top - its a nice walk even on a dull day, and a great way to clear the head when someones been studying all day!!

We've heard many stories about and seen photos of historic floods in Cataract Gorge, and of course we see the flood banks every time we walk along by the river, but we hadn't seen a flood. So when one of the guys I make coffee for said the flood was going to reach the gorge, we were up there as soon as we could.

The Gorge, and the Basin are normally very slow moving quiet pieces of water.

  

We went up on Thursday, and were impressed with the noise and amount of water...but there was more to come. On Saturday (14/08) we walked up again, this time you could see the river level was high before we were even near the Gorge. Helped a bit by High Tide, the water was less than a foot away from the boardwalk we walk along. And the river was covered in foam - it looked like ice!!

As soon as we got to the bridge at the bottom of the gorge we could hear the river, it was roaring down the few rapids at the top of the gorge and flowing very swiftly down the gorge.

The path round the bottom of the Basin was totally covered in water...we'd normally walk over that, but definitely not today!!!! (water was a bit muddy for swimming!)

 And then we got up to the Basin and saw how much bigger it had become!!! The swimming pool had disappeared, and the playground which is right up at the base of the cafe there, was now a water park. The whole Basin now looked just like it was a wider part of the river, flowing as swiftly as the rest of the river. Right up at the edge of the water (near the play ground) was a whole line of foam, kids were playing in it just as if it was snow!

The river flowing into the basin was a lot more rapid than normal too.

It was dusk as we got there - a great time for wildlife to come out. We got to see lots of Pademelons (like Wallabies but smaller - though you can't see it in the photo, just its eyes!) and Kookaburras - which we hadn't seen this close before.

 The peacocks were all roosting in a tree.