Tassie!

We made it! Although it was never really in the plans, we figured we really couldn't miss out on Tasmania. Paulette Wilson (a friend from Saskatoon) would be proud, she RAVED about Tassie to both me and Jennine, on separate occasions, about how gorgeous it was on the island, and how we could not go all the way to Australia and miss out on this little piece of paradise. Luckily for us, we happened to meet a couple people from Hobart at Mass in Melbourne two days before we arrived who both agreed to have us and show us around. I know, we are so blessed.

So we met up with Calvin upon arrival in Hobart, his family hosted us for 3 nights. Calvin 'sent us' up Mount Wellington on day 1. After about 4 hours of intense hiking, climbing, tumbling, sweating and shivering, we had made it from bottom to top and back (while tons of other tourists just drove to the top... lame). On our way back into the city we were waiting at the bus stop, chatting with this elderly lady, Margaret, when a car drove up and asked if we wanted a ride! We soon discovered that it was Margaret's neighbor, Rosie. Once we got in the car, Rosie mentioned she thought we were Margaret's granddaughters, then she found out we were some random girls from Canada! She ended up driving us, well, almost all the way home. I was trying to give them directions to Calvin's place, but they were sure they knew the street, but that wasn't quite the case. So we politely thanked Rosie and walked the rest of the way. What lovely ladies.

Scoping out which route to take.

Wineglass Bay!

Calvin took us on an epic hiking/camping trip! We ventured out to Freycinet National Park. Took a lovely, incredibly picturesque stroll by Hazards Beach, around to Wineglass Bay. Wowza. Just breathtaking.

The view from Mount Amos.

We definitely took time to enjoy the beaches, but crushed the hike like no other. Pounded back some protein shakes when we got back to the car. Then headed to a campsite - after scoping out the place, we found the BEST site, hidden in a bunch of bushes. We set up camp, and made some dinner! Veggie burgers! Well... they used to be... at that point it was complete MUSH. But we grilled it up nicely and served it with toast and ketchup. We may have overlooked bringing proper cooking gear,.. so we used a spoon and cardboard to flip the "burgers" over. The silent laugh was basically constant at this point. After we cleaned up we played multiple games of Catan in tent, drank tea and slammed some Tim Tams! 

Woke up bright and early to get a good start at the next adventure! We hit up Mount Amos. I felt like a mountain goat, lotsa straight up rock climbing - I was in my glory. We summitted in no time, we keep a mean pace, and before we knew it we were on our way back to Hobart.


 Part 2 of our Hobart experience was with our other friend, Petronella. What a ray of sunshine. Her goal while we were at her place was to "spoil" us, and that she did! In the mornings she would come to our suite and offered to make us a "cuppa" (a cup of tea/coffee). She made us sticky date pudding from scratch! -it's to die for, especially when homemade with love from Petro.
Her beautiful family absorbed us into their extended family reunion too! So much good. Their house is a couple minute walk from the ocean, so we made good use of the beach! During this time at Petronella's house. we were trying to figure out the next couple steps of our trip, like: booking flights back to Sydney, trying to find a place to live in Sydney, potentially staying in Tassie for a while to work and being quite unsuccessful at all of the above. Mrs. Petronella's mom was so adamant about us staying as long as we needed before we sorted things out - just another thing to add to the endless list of blessings.

Eventually we got everything sorted, and only had the pleasure of staying one extra day. Though this time heading back to Sydney wasn't quite like the rest...