Sarah and Becky’s Story!

Port Arthur was our destination today! We spent the morning exploring the historical site – I think the cruise around the harbour was the highlight for the children :) Sarah and Gabi were also very interested in the “castle” – the ruins of a church.

On the way home from Port Arthur we stopped in at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Centre where we also saw a free flight bird show with some very clever “birdies!”. There was a corella who had been trained to fly to the audience to pick up coins and drop them in his trainer’s pocket – and then take the money back again. There was also a very friendly Tawny Frogmouth that the children were allowed to pat.  We saw birds of prey being trained to go after baits and to fly under people’s legs – precision flight :) These birds are rescue animals, they can never be returned to the wild – but I think they have a pretty cushy life where they are now.

Or final stop was to see the “blowhole” and “devil’s kitchen” along the coast. Now admittedly they’d probably be more impressive when the tide was coming in… but it was still a spectacular view. Heights don’t bother me, but even I was feeling a touch of vertigo peering over the edge of the cliffs.

This morning we joined Gabriel on his weekly outing to Story Time at the local library. Sarah loved the singing and loved the “ssssssssnake” colouring in picture she got.

After library we went to explore the city botanic gardens. There’s an exhibit of Antarctic plants in a building that’s chilled to 8 degrees and 95% humidity! Sarah loved all the bridges and paths of the Japanese Gardens.

The wind had picked up something fierce this afternoon, but we might still brave an outing to the playground!

Here are some photos from today :)

It was an early EARLY start this morning… we had to be at Sydney Airport by 5am, which meant leaving at 4am, which meant getting up at some hour I don’t even want to think about anymore. ugh. Very very special thanks has to go to our lovely friend and taxi driver, Jo, who also had to get up in the dark to ferry a family of crazy QLDers back to the airport.

Becky was not exactly thrilled with life at the airport, but she did cheer up on the plane a little. She had lots of smiles for the air hostesses! The plane was all but empty so they had lots of spare time for cuddles.

This afternoon Becky and I rugged up and went out with Lucy to pick up Gabriel from school. Becky was very pleased with her mittens and beanie :)

In the evening Gabriel and Sarah helped to do some  baking – they did a beautiful job of sharing the pouring and mixing :)

So without further ado, here are the photos from Day One in Tasmania!

I took this yesterday when ‘Cole, Sarah, Becky and I made our annual trip to see Jack the Accountant . His partners and staff are always so obliging as we turn the place into a temporary creche… while the girls were well behaved yesterday I still suspect that the poor office ladies will be finding cereal in unusual places this morning.

Sarah sat herself on the other side of Jack’s desk while she filled out Nic’s tax return recipt, explaining as she went to Jack about just how exactly it should be done. He was suitably impressed with her counting skills too!

…. guess how you can tell ;)

There’s a few pictures of my band in there too, scattered between gratuitous cute shots of my girls ;) It was a really, really nice day to be outside. And I FINALLY was able to give widdle baby Eva a great big cuddle! Six weeks late is better than never, hey?

Click!

At least this time I was able to get her into bed afterwards – even wiping the chocolate drool off on the way. Of course the girl’s brand new aprons (as in BRAND new 30 minutes old!) had to go for a trip to ‘Wet n Wild’ straight after.