Three Amigos...

The Routeburn and Caples Tracks

Well, we survived our 5 days in the bush and both trails were beautiful!

We started our hike around 10 am on January 17 and finished by 11:45 am on January 21. We saw some beautiful sights, hiked our butts off, ate our butts off and got eaten alive by sandflies...but, it was amazing! The best part about these hikes is that, if you book early enough, you get to stay in these huts along the way that have flush toilets, gas stoves, lights and beds with mattresses. It was like fancy camping! It was awesome and I may never want to camp and sleep in a tent for more than a couple of days ever again because of how spoiled we were!

Our first day on the Routeburn was actually pretty easy. We only had to hike in about 2 hours to our first stop. We were staying at the Routeburn Flats Hut. It was a pretty easy hike, with a well groomed path and lots of pretty scenery along the way, but the highlight was definitely the view from the hut! We were in a valley surrounded by rolling hills and some snow capped mountains in the distance - very nice way to start the trip. Oh, I have to mention Dirty Randy. Within 5 minutes of being on the trail, Dave was already searching the fallen wood for a good walking stick. He was very successful and managed to find a great moss-covered stick that we nicknamed Dirty Randy. Our trip wouldn't have been the same without DR! Since our first day was so short and easy we retraced our steps a little on the path and ended up at a beautiful little river, where we spent a couple of hours skipping rocks and enjoying the nice weather. Dave capped off the first day with a swim (or quick dip) in the river in the valley.

Dave and Dirty Randy

 

The next day was probably the hardest and longest day of the hike, but, in my opinion, it was also the most rewarding with the views. We hiked for about 5.5 hours to the Lake Mackenzie Hut and in the process we had to climb over the Harris Saddle. This is where the stunning views were. We were basically surrounded 360 degrees by gorgeous mountains - you felt like you were walking on the top of the world. And the best part was that we actually had fantastic weather. It was a little cool but other than that there wasn't that much wind and no rain on that day. We even managed to get to the hut early enough for a swim in Lake Mackenzie. It was FREEZING! I think it may have even been a little colder than the swim at Lake Marian. But we were rewarded with clear blue skies and sunshine for almost the rest of the afternoon, so we got to sit outside and enjoy the weather for a while.

Harris Saddle

 

The rain, unfortunately, came the next day when we hiked from Mackenzie to Lake Howden Hut. We woke up to rain and it pretty much rained consistently for the rest of the day. Luckily, the hike was only 3-4 hours that day and when we got to the hut, the warden had the wood stove going so it was nice and warm and dry for the rest of the afternoon and night.

Most people who do the Routeburn either skip this last hut and hike all the way out to the road (it's only another hour of walking) or they stay at Howden and hike out the next day. Dave and I, on the recommendation of Ashley and Chad, decided to hike the Caples Track back towards Glenorchy where we started the Routeburn. It only adds one night on your trip, but it saves you a 4 hour bus ride back to your car.

The first day on the Caples was definitely the better of the two. We got to pass another saddle (the McKellar Saddle) and the views from here did not disappoint! It was beautiful! We stayed at the Upper Caples Hut, which wasn't as fancy as the Routeburn huts because the Caples Track isn't one of New Zealands "Great Walks", but it still had beds, wood fire place, water and a drop toilet. Again, it was in a valley surrounded by mountains with a clear river running by it. We managed to get there pretty early in the day and since the weather had cleared up and it was sunny we spent the afternoon swimming in the river and hanging out outside. That is, until the sandflies came out in full force!

Upper Caples Hut

 

If you have never experienced sandflies, you are lucky. They SUCK! I think they may even be worse than mosquitos because they are much smaller and quieter, but their bites itch way more and there seems to be so many more of them. There must have been hundreds of them at this hut and they went to town on our feet and legs mostly. It is 3-4 days since we finished the hike now and I am still itching because of them!

We finished our trek walking out from the Upper Caples Hut the next day. Most of the trek was flat, through a valley along a stream. It was an easy day to finish but we were definitely under a bit of a time crunch since our pick up was at 12 noon. We made it in time and we were happy to finish the trek with loads of great memories and photos, and Dave was especially happy that he got to swim in glacial rivers/lakes on each day of the trail!

 

We are now making our way up the west coast of the south island for the next week or so...and we're excited for the next adventures!

Thanks for reading,

xoxo 

Hello Queenstown!

This city is so beautiful! It is nestled between huge mountains, one range is even called "The Remarkables" (that's how remarkable the scenery is) and it is on this beautiful crystal blue water. So gorgeous! We spent our first afternoon just cruising around the town and checking out the sights. Then we made our way to a Department Of Conservation campground to spend the night. It was right on the water and we were able to get in a little TRX workout followed by a swim before dinner.

The next day we decided to take a day trip up to Wanaka. They say it is an up and coming town with tons of mountain biking and that it is very similar to Queenstown. The drive there was awesome. We passed a ton of wineries and fruit stands, as well as beautiful hills and mountains in the background. Wanaka is very similar to Queenstown - there are a ton of extreme sports to do, it is right on the water and it is nestled in between a bunch of beautiful snow capped mountains. We didn't do any extreme sports here, but we did have lunch by the beach and then went and saw a movie. We had run into a couple from Edmonton the night before at the DOC site and they lived in Wanaka for 3 weeks and highly recommended this Paradiso movie theatre. Since it was a windy, cool day we decided to see The Book Thief. Great movie (the book was better) but the theatre was awesome! You can get coffee, tea, booze, snacks, meals, popcorn, ice cream, etc to take into the theatre with you. And when you get inside you get to sit on couches and cool chairs instead of your standard movie chairs. The most hilarious (and brilliant) part of the theatre is that they stop the movie half way through for an "intermission". Everyone goes back into the lobby and buys more food. And they even have fresh, huge, home made cookies for sale. I couldn't pass up that smell so Dave and I indulged in a double chocolate cookie for the second half of the movie and it was hot out of the oven! It was the coolest movie theatre I've ever been to!

We spent that night back in Queenstown and had big plans for the next day. We started the day out with Dave doing the Shotover Canyon Swing. You are in a harness that lets you jump off the canyon platform in as many ways as you can think of. You fall 60m before the swing kicks in, then you swing over 200m out over a canyon. Dave did a back tuck off the edge of the cliff for his jump. We got some pretty cool pictures and he really enjoyed it. I decided to save all my courage for when we sky dive later in the trip.

Eeeek!

 

That afternoon we had lunch in Queenstown at a place called Fergburger. We had never heard of it, but everytime we passed the restaurant there were huge crowds so we decided to try it. They were pretty awesome burgers!

From there we stumbled upon a local travel agency that books trips and activities throughout NZ, Australia and Fiji. We were chatting with a girl named Emma and we told her what our plans were for the rest of NZ and she was able to set us up with open ended vouchers for a lot of the activities we wanted to do in the North Island, at a pretty sweet discount. So, we have sky diving, white water rafting, a Maori Hangi and Hobbiton (the Lord of the Rings tour) booked for the north island already. I guess that means I have to sky dive now......

We also signed up for a pub crawl that evening. So, after dinner we made our way down to the Vinyl Underground bar and started our 6 bar tour of Queenstown with a crazy group of people. One chick decided to show everyone her boobs every 5 mins or so and everyone just proceeded to get really wasted! It was a fun night though. And I have decided that every bar should have a dress up area in it. We were at one bar that had tons of different animal onsies in it and everyone loved them. It was awesome!

Random but hilarious

Our 3rd and last day in Queenstown we spent getting ready for our trek and taking in the spectacular views of the city. We started the day off at the DOC centre picking up our tickets for the Routeburn and Caples tracks that we start in 2 days. Then we made our way up the gondola to the top of the mountain in town and did some luging. It was really fun! You get your own little luge to sit in and they have 2 different tracks that you can ride down as fast (or as controlled in my case) as you can. We had a blast and had to do it a few times before we were able to leave. We went back up to the top of the mountain that night for dinner. We treated ourselves to a nice dinner out on the town. It was a fantastic buffet with the best views of Queenstown. The food was amazing - tons of seafood (mussles, shrimp, scallops, etc), soup, a carving station, salad bar, dessert bar, and tons more food. We stuffed our faces and got to stare at the mountains and the city while we ate. It was such a nice way to cap off our time in Queenstown.

Not a bad view for dinner

 

We head out to Glenorchy tomorrow to start the Routeburn track followed by the Caples track for 5 days of hiking. Fingers crossed for good weather!

Thanks for reading

xoxo

Hello New Zealand!

Dave and I arrived in Christchurch on January 1, 2014 - new year, new country! Our main goal for the first few days in Christchurch was to set up a cell phone, internet and buy a camper van. Of course we did some sightseeing also, but we had our priorities. We were a little worried about finding a camper van to purchase. The Backpackers Car Market didn't have any for sale and there were only 5-6 online that we were interested in also. So, we started phoning around and setting up times to view vans. We saw 5 in total - some were a bit dirty, some were a little scary looking and one was just right. On our 3rd day in Christchurch we were the proud owners of a 1994 Mitsubishi L300 - we named her Wanda! It is such a small world. We bought her from a Canadian. His name is Toby, he is from Vancouver, and (get this) he is a Queen's grad from 2006! So crazy when we put that together! He majored in Psych...can any Queen's people place him??

Wanda the great!

We were also very successful in setting up our phone and internet quickly, so after 3 full days in Christchurch we were ready for our adventures. We did see some pretty interesting stuff around Christchurch though. It is amazing how much devastation from the 2 most recent earthquakes is still obvious in the city. There are buildings still falling down, abandoned buildings, one's being held up by scaffolding and cranes everywhere! I'm sure the city would have been amazing a few years ago, but now, it is sad to see. One of the worst sights was the state of the Christchurch Cathedral. It was a beautiful, iconic church in the middle of the city. Unfortunately the 2011 earthquake caused a significant amount of damage to it. The main spire was reduced to rubble and so was a majority of the cathedral itself. The city hasn't decided what they are going to do with it yet, but they do know that they want to keep the square that the cathedral is part of as a main gathering space in the downtown. Along with that, there seems to be tons of plans on how to rebuild the downtown core, but so many people are worried if it's worth it. In the meantime, they have set up a ton of business in make-shift locations. We spent an afternoon at something called the "Restart Mall", which is an outdoor shopping mall made entirely of stores in shipping containers. It is pretty ingenious how they've set it all up! We also went to Quake City, which was a museum set up to honour the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes that devastated the city. It was very interesting to learn all about it - and they even had video of some first hand accounts, which were just heartbreaking!

Christchurch Cathedral :(

After our 3 days in Christchurch we were on our way. We had decided on driving south first and circling the south island clockwise. Our first stop was Banks Peninsula. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we got to see some lovely sights. Our first plan was to drive along the summit road for a more scenic route, however, we never managed to find the beginning of the road. We did dip onto it later in the day for a short while, but the start was impossible to find! We drove into a little town called Akaroa and spent the day there. It was a cute little town right on the water with lots of shops, great fudge, a few walks around the town, a lighthouse and lots of restaurants. We really enjoyed our time there and did a little window shopping and some walks to the lighthouse, etc. We spent our first night in Wanda on the north side of the peninsula in Okains Bay. It was a large and busy campsite, but it was right on the water with a beach. We even did a little swimming!

From Banks Peninsula we drove further down the east coast through a few other towns stopping at nice sights and cute towns along the way. We spent that evening in Oamaru. It was a very cute little town with a maintained old Victorian downtown. There were some hilarious little shops there - lots of pottery, costume shops, soap shops and old book stores. We also went to the beach that night to see some yellow-eyed penguins. We weren't able to get too close to the beach because if the penguins see you they get scared and they won't come on shore to feed their chicks. We saw about 4-5 in the distance, as well as some sea lions lounging on the beach. The best part of Oamaru was actually just south of the town - the Moeraki boulders. These are large limestone boulders formed in the cliff side. As the land has eroded the boulders have been exposed and they are pretty cool!

Moeraki Boulders

South of Oamaru we spent some time in and around Dunedin. It was here that we got our best glimpse of the yellow-eyed penguin. We went to the Speight's brewery tour in the city one night. It was a very thorough tour into the history of beer, as well as the history of Dunedin. But the best part was that at the end of the tour, you had about 30-45 mins in the tasting room with 5 different beers on tap and you got to work the taps yourself - as much as you wanted!. While we were there we met an American who lived in Dunedin for a semester in University. He was on his honeymoon with his new wife, so we picked his brain about good places to see while we were in Dunedin. He recommended a few sights to see, especially Sandfly Beach and Tunnel Beach. We spent the next day exploring both those spots, as well as the Otago Peninsula. It was on Sandfly Beach that we got up close and personal with a single yellow-eyed penguin. We had just arrived on the beach, it was a cold and rainy day so it wasn't too busy, and we saw a single penguin in the middle of the beach cleaning itself. We watched it for a while and then saw it make it's way to the nest - up a huge, steep sand dune. It was so cute to watch it struggle up the sand dune and then slide down a little when the sand gave way. We also saw tons of fur seals hanging out on the rocks at the other end of the beach. Tunnel beach was also pretty spectacular, as was the Otago peninsula. Beautiful scenery, but a cold and rainy day so we weren't able to enjoy it too much. We did try to go see some albatross at Taiaros Head, but we were out of luck.

Tunnel Beach

 

We spent the next few days exploring the Catlins Coast. We went to Nugget Point, Roaring Bay, Curio Bay, Purakaunui Falls, Maclean Falls, Porpoise and Slope Point. There were so many gorgeous sights of rugged coastline, and beautiful farmland. We were also able to see more yellow-eyed penguins, sea lions, fur seals and tons of bird life. It was a nice few days with not a ton of other tourists around!

Slope Point (most southern point on the South Island... very windy)

From the Catlins we made our way up to Milford Sound and Te Anau, but we had to make a stop in Invercargil. Wanda needed a new tire and the window on the drivers side didn't roll down anymore, so we figured we better stop in a large-ish city to see if we could get her fixed. Within 2 hours we were the proud owners of a new tire and a fixed window. It was so cheap also, which was the best part!

Let me tell you, the drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound is maybe one of the most beautiful in the world! You are surrounded by big green rolling hills and tons of large snow covered mountains in the background, with clear blue lakes, rivers and waterfalls all around. It was amazing. We must have stopped about 10 times in the 2 hour drive to check out the scenery. While we were in Milford we did a few days hikes - one to Lake Marian and another to Key Summit at the Divide. The day we did the hike to Lake Marian was beautiful and warm. We even took a very brief dip in Lake Marian, which is a glacial lake nestled in a bunch of mountains. It was freezing but the scenery was just amazing and it was totally worth it. We did the Key Summit the next day and unfortunately the weather wasn't very good - foggy and cloudy - so we didn't get to see the (apparently) amazing panoramic views from the top.

Lake Marian

 

From Te Anau we are making our way to Queenstown and we are really excited to see what it has to offer. From what we hear, it's a pretty exciting and beautiful place and we are ready to spend a few days there before we head off to do the Routeburn track.

Happy January every one!

xoxo

Even a little more Brisbane

We got back to Brisbane on December 16, 2013 and we tried hard to get ourselves into the Christmas spirit. It just doesn't feel like Christmas when it is 30+ degrees outside and you are constantly sweating from the humidity! It also didn't help that Woody is basically Scrooge and doesn't like Christmas at all, hahaha.

Since Woody had just started his summer holidays he had a big "to do" list so we spend a few days helping him around his house, checking things off his list. Basically, we helped him prep and paint one of his spare rooms. We also took some time to catch up on our Blockbuster movie watching. We went to see both Catching Fire and The Hobbit 2. Both were very good movies.

One weekend while we were in Brisbane, Jeff had his cousins staying with him, so we hit up an airBnB apartment in a different part of Brisbane called New Farm. It was such a nice area - right on the Brisbane river, with tons of parks, interesting restaurants and shops around. We had such a good weekend exploring the area. One day we went to South Bank to a man made beach they have there and spent the day lying in the sand and swimming in the water. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was nice and hot. Perfect for a few swims! We also decided to try stand up paddle boarding for the first time. It was a little scary because we did it on the Brisbane river on a day when it was really windy and the water was pretty choppy, but neither of us fell in and we actually really liked it. It was pretty easy and relaxing for the most part, and a really nice way to see the city.

Once we were back at Woody's place it was pretty much Christmas. His family was nice enough to invite us to their Christmas luncheon. Both of his brothers, parents and a few others were there celebrating together. Lunch was amazing - it started out with fresh crab, shrimp and oysters and was followed up with a full turkey meal. And if that wasn't enough, there was 3-4 different desserts too and to booze just kept on flowing! We ate our faces off and got a little day drunk and had a great Christmas!

 

Since Christmas we have done a bit of relaxing, a bit of prepping for our trip to New Zealand and a few other exciting things. We went to the Brisbane International Tennis Tournament the other day and saw Maria Sharapova play. She is totally OCD when she plays tennis. She has all these funny things that she does like when she is receiving a serve she has to slap her left thigh twice before she's ready and when she walks on and off the court, or around the court, she never steps on any of the painted lines. It's hilarious! But it was cool to see her and a few other people play.

We also spent about 3 hours one night just watching this wicked lightening storm that hit Brisbane. Woody lives in a house with a big balcony on the front and not much blocking his view from northern Brisbane so we had a pretty spectacular view for the lightening storm and it was amazing to watch. Dave even managed to get a few cool pictures of the lightening.

 

We didn't plan on doing much for New Years Eve because we had to be at the airport at 6:30 am on Jan 1 to catch our flight to Christchurch. We got some food and made a delicious meal - mussels, steak, corn, mashed potatoes, cheesecake and lots of wine and beer. Then we decided to go downtown to watch the fireworks display over the river. It was a great show and we weren't ready for our night to end so we headed over to the casino and spent a few hours there. Dave and Woody played roulette (both won some money too!) while I did a lot of people watching...the crowd was amazing and I could have stayed for hours. But we were all getting a bit tipsy (or a lot tipsy in my case) and we had to be up early so we headed home just after we rang in 2014.

We have really enjoyed our time in Brisbane and we are so thankful to Jeff for letting us stay at his house. We always felt so welcomed and it was a great home away from home. But, now we are on to our next adventure...New Zealand here we come!

Tassie

On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 we flew from Brisbane to Hobart, Tasmania. We had 13 days there, and they were amazing! We got to do and see so much in such a short time...Tassie is definitely a must for people visiting Australia!

We started in Hobart and were there for 2 days. Our first day there we just walked around and got acquainted with the city and instantly fell in love with it. It reminded us both of Kingston. It was right on the water, with a downtown market, cool little shops and restaurants and lots to see and do. Our next day we took a shuttle bus through our hostel (The Pickled Frog...and it was painted bright green!) up Mt Wellington. It looked like a beautiful day to start out, but the weather quickly turned on us! For those of you who were jealous that we were missing winter and snow, we weren't. It was snowing by the time we got to the top of Mt Wellington and it was freezing! The worst part was that you couldn't see a thing because of all the clouds. By the time we made it back down the mountain it was just raining - cold rain, but no snow. We walked to the local Brewery, the Cascade Brewery for a tour and a tasting that afternoon. It was a pretty cool brewery - a beautiful old building that they converted into the brewery, and the beer was pretty tasty too!

The next day we picked up our new home for the rest of our trip. We had rented a camper van from Tassie Motor Shacks. It was small, but it was very convenient to have your house and your car with you all the time (it made napping in the day very easy:). We started our drive to the south east to a town called Port Arthur. Well, we thought it was a town until we got there. It is a former penitentiary/town that they have turned into a historic tourist attraction. This is where they shipped most of the worst convicts because of how secluded the community was. The grounds were surprisingly beautiful and they have upkept some of the cottages and buildings for tourism purposes. It was a neat place but definitely not what we were expecting.

The next day we made our way back into Hobart for the morning because every Saturday morning there is a huge market in Salamanca Square. It was highly recommended to us so we thought we would check it out. I am really glad we did because there was a booth there for the Tannery in Australia and I was able to buy a sheep skin rug. I grew up with a rug exactly like it on the back of the rocking chair in my living room and I have always wanted one of my own. Success!

(Our actual van - worse outside, better inside)

 

From there we started to make our way up the east coast to our first hiking destination, Freycinet National Park. We did a quick hike that afternoon to one of the main attractions there, Wineglass Bay. It is a beautiful bay and beach that is shaped like a large wineglass. We spent the night in the national park and we were able to walk on the beach and have some wine with the ocean in the background.

The next day we did a bit of a bigger hike through more of the national park. It took us by Wineglass Bay again, through to Hazards Bay and then we looped around to the beginning again. We got to see lots of wallabies and different kinds of birds. The only unfortunate part, in true Dave and Steph style, was it rain, windy and cool for most of the hike. It did clear up and warm up a bit later that day while we checked out some of the other sites around the area. We found ourselves in a little town called Bicheno by the afternoon and stumbled upon "the blowhole". We didn't think much of it at first, but we ended up spending about 3 hours there just watching the water. The waves in the area are huge and when they hit the shore at this one particular place their is a gap in the rock that creates a blowhole effect causing huge bursts of water up into the air. It was a really cool spot actually. Once we were all blowholed-out we made our way to the Bicheno penguin tours. It leaves after dark and takes you to a nearby penguin rookery where you can watch the fairy penguins (the smallest known species of penguin) return back to shore with food for their babies. They are so cute and tiny! And there were so many of them....hundreds of penguins all coming back to their homes for a quick sleep before the next days journey.

Unfortunately, we didn't end our night on a high note that night. We had to drive about 20 minutes back to our campsite for the night after the penguin tour...and they tell you not to drive between dusk and dawn on major roads...and now we know why...we killed a wallaby!!! Neither Dave nor I have ever hit any animal with a car before, and apparently we decided to go big with our first road kill. Honestly, neither of us saw this thing coming!! We could see a bunch of wallabies and possums on the side of the road so we slowed down and we were keeping our eyes open, but then this flash of something came out from the left side and before we knew it, BANG! The only good thing was that it didn't cause any damage to our rental car because we hit it right on the license plate. But the poor wallaby....We made a promise to ourselves that we would never drive from dusk to dawn again, and that is a promise I intend to keep!

After the trauma of the wallaby we decided to take it easy the next day. We did some driving up the east coast and stopped along the way at some different lookouts. The best was probably the "Bay of FIres", which is a large bay along the east coast where algae has stained a lot of the rocks along the shore with a red/orange colour. It wasn't as exciting as I had hoped t would be, but it was neat to see the red on the rocks. But too cold to swim in the water and really enjoy the many beaches along the bay.

The next day was a much lazier and tastier day! We started it off with a trip to a lavender farm. It was beautiful to see row after row after row of lavender almost ready to be farmed. And the smell was amazing! From there we stumbled upon a dairy farm that had non-homogenized milk and cheese tasting. YUM! Of course we had to do the cheese tasting, and man was it delicious. They even have the gold medal winning cheddar cheese in all of Australia 2 years running. We bought a block and enjoyed it for the rest of our trip and we also got some milk for Dave! We continued from there and did a little wine tasting. We hit about 5 different wineries and got to sample tons of different wine. The main types of the region are sparkling, pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot gris. We found out that Dave really likes chardonnay wines! And I just love them all :)

At the caravan park we stayed at that night we met a few different couples and exchanged ideas of what to do and see while in Tassie. We had just finished the east coast and they had just come from the west coast so it was nice to hear what was in store for us. One of the things that they said was a highlight of their trip was the Beaconsfield Mining Museum, so made sure to start our next day with a trip to Beaconsfield. The town has been a mining town for hundreds of years until recently. On April 25, 2006 there was an earthquake that caused the mine to collapse. At the time, there were 17 people working the mine. 14 made it out unharmed, one was killed by the collapse and two remained trapped almost a kilometer under the surface. The were found alive 3 days after the collapse and through an amazing rescue attempt they were freed on May 9, 2006. It was wild to see video footage, newspaper articles, stories and actually memorabilia about the collapse. They even recreated the cage that they 2 men were trapped in so you could see how tiny it was and imagine how cramped they would have been for the days they were down there. It truly was a miracle that they were able to get them out of the mine alive!

From Beaconsfield we made our way over to Cradle mountain National Park. This is definitely one of the main outdoor attractions in all of Tasmania, with tons of hikes and outdoor adventure activities. We did a few short walks when we got there but saved the big hike for the next day. The Cradle Mountain Caravan Park had one of the nicest camp kitchens we have ever seen. All brick and wood with wood burning fireplaces...a great place to spend a cold, rainy and even snowy night! And, unfortunately, in true Steph and Dave style, it continued to rain all the next day on our hike. The worst part of that was we couldn't even see Cradle mountain, which is supposed to be a beautiful site, especially when it reflects onto the lake at the base of it. We have seen some beautiful pictures of it since, but sadly, not in person!


We figured we better warm ourselves up the next day with a trip to the Nant Whiskey Distillery nearby. It is a cute little place in the middle of a bunch of fields that actually distills its own single malt whiskey right on site. It is a fairly new distillery, I think it only started production in 2005, but it has started to be recognized internationally recently and even won a gold at a recent Whiskey competition in China. Neither Dave or I knew much about Whiskey and how it was made (sorry to disappoint you Dader) so it was really neat to walk around the distillery and get a tour after our tasting. It was really interesting doing a whiskey tasting also - they give you portions almost the same as wine and they expect you to drink it pretty quickly also. Needless to say I was a little tipsy by the end of it. It was cool how different whiskey could taste based on the cask it was in - bourbon, port, sherry, etc.

I know this is getting long, but bare with me, I'm almost done! From the Nant Distillery we went to Mount Fields National Park and did another hike there. We spent the night there as well because they have glow worms! It is one of the only areas in the world where glow worms live outside of a cave. So, we got all bundled up late that night and went for a walk in the forest and saw some glow worms. It was pretty neat. The next day we drove down to the south west of Tasmania. We didn't spend too much time there because we had to return the camper van the next day We picked one tourist attraction to go visit...terrible choice! It was the Tahune Airwalk and it was totally over rated and not that exciting. We spent a few more hours in Hobart and I had my first oysters ever, then we made our way to our last caravan park before we had to head home to Brisbane. We stayed at a place called 7 Mile Beach and it was actually a nice day so Dave finally got to go swimming in the ocean. The beach was also right beside the airport so you could walk down to the end of it and watch planes landing right over top of your head. That was pretty neat.

We returned our camper the next day and headed to the airport and back to Brisbane. But we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Tasmania!

Thanks for sticking it out and reading to the end :)

xoxo

A little more Brisbane

Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

 

I hope you all had a great time ringing in 2014, whether it was partying it up in style or relaxing and enjoying yourselves. Before we get too far into 2014 I need to catch up on all that Dave and I have done in the past few weeks.

So, we have to go all the way back to November to fill you in on what we've been up to. I hope I can remember it all!!! One of the coolest things we did while in Brisbane was visit the Australia Zoo, home of the great Steve Irwin. It was a really amazing zoo and we had an awesome day there. They actually let you pet and play with some of the animals in the zoo, which was the best thing ever! We got to pet a koala, a tiny alligator and a bunch of kangaroos. The highlight of my day was successfully spooning a kangaroo while he was chilling out on the grass. So hilarious! We got to see so many different animals and they put on a ton of shows too. The best show was with the salt water crocodiles. Those things are HUGE!!!! Way more scary and dangerous than alligators! Dave had two favourite parts of the day - the first was watching a small goanna eat a mouse. This was a wild goanna in one of the gardens that just happened upon a poor unsuspecting mouse! Later in the day we saw two wild goannas in a fight. It was hilarious to watch how they fight - they slam their heads to together and turn around in circles while trying to bite their opponent. There was blood and everything! There were also two baby tigers that were just born a the zoo about a month and a half before we were there. They were on display for a little bit also - so cute watching them run around and play with each other! Oh, and the day before we were there, apparently one of the workers at the zoo was mauled by one of the tigers - so that exhibit was closed while we were there. The employee was alright, but still so scary. We had no idea anything like that had happened until we saw the news that night when we got home to Jeff's place. Wild!!

We had a few more days to kill in Brisbane before our flight to Tasmania, so Dave thought it was a good thing for him to look into finishing up his scuba certification that he started back in Toronto. He signed himself up for a weekend course for 2 days. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with two days to myself, so I started throwing around the idea of taking the course with him. I have never had an urge to learn to scuba dive before. Frankly, I was terrified of the idea. But, the opportunity presented itself and, I mean, it is the year of "yes", so I thought why not?! AHHHHHH, it was so scary! The first day we spent a few hours in the pool learning all the skills, like clearing your mask under water, and buddy breathing. That was scary enough! Then we had to do one open water dive before the end of the day. I wasn't really ready for what they meant. I expected the water to be crystal clear blue water, with great visibility and tons of cool fish to look at. Instead, I could barely see my own hand when I held it up in front of me, it was freezing cold and the only things I saw were a toilet and a chair at the bottom of the ocean! I almost had a panic attack and I think I almost broke Dave's hand from squeezing it so hard! I would not let go of him the entire dive. The worst part was that we still had 3 more open water dives to do the next day in the same water. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get back into the water and do the dives, but I did. It was a very challenging, terrifying and rewarding experience. I am really happy that I stuck it out, but I think I will only ever scuba dive if the visibility is better and there are more sights to look at - I mean, that is what it's all about! But, we are both now PADI certified scuba divers!!!

A couple of days fafter the scuba course we flew out to Tasmania. To be continued...