Some pictures from our time in Northern Tasmania

 Cradle Mountain

Hike around Dove Lake at Cradle Mountain

Port Sorell - beach day

Aussie Rules Football - Go Hawks!!

Tamoo joining the cause 

(Devils are suffering from a cancerous facial tumour that is threatening the species. Extensive research and breeding programs are underway to save the Tasmanian Devil)

The team in Penguin (town name), located in the Northwest of Tasmania

Mole Creek Caves

Update on the last 2 days

Yesterday, we had a "free day" and we all did different things.  Angil and I went with my host mom, Avis to do some shopping.  Angil needed another suitcase because her's was 21 pounds overweight when she flew into Tasmania, resulting in some unwanted extra baggage charges.  The new case should allieviate that.  We also wanted to pick up some genuine Huon Pine items.  Huon Pine is only found in the Huon Valley region in Tasmania and no longer can be cut down.  Only the fallen Huon Pine trees can be used, making it very rare.  Our wonderful tour guide Avis took us to the best spot in Tassie in our opinion.  The store we went to had everything you could imagine made out of all different types of Tasmania woods.  We both stocked up on gifts.

Then, Avis took us to the Cherry Shed for lunch. The Cherry Shed grows heaps of cherries, makes all sorts of wines, liquors, jams, sauces, etc and they also have a fabulous restaurant attached.  We tried the signature cherry ice cream and I kid you not - it was absolutely the best ice cream I have ever had in my entire life!  Then we met up with Kathryn and her host Rockie, who were all golfing with my host dad, Peter.  We sat in the clubhouse and chatted it up for a bit.  Peter and Avis took me to the historical lighthouse in Devonport for a photo op and Kathryn and Rockie showed up! 

Later than night, we had a presentation at the Devonport Rotary Club, which is an all male club, although there were several women there that evening to view our presentation.  We think it might have been our best presentation yet.  I won a bottle of wine in their raffle that I plan on saving for our mid-tour break.  However, I also got fined for not being up to par on my Australian slang terms.  All in good fun.

Today, we all had vocational days.  I went to The Advoate Newspaper.  Kathryn, Heather and Siobhan went to Mercy Hospital.  Gary went to Telstra, which is Tasmania's main tele-communications provider.  Angil went to Meercroft & Karingal Nursing Home and Harvest Moon.

Tomorrow, we're headed to an Australian Football game, which is wildly different from American football.  The best way I can decribe it is a mix between our football and soccer - no padding, just fit men wearing tight shorts running all over the field.  Should be a fun time :)  Tomorrow night we have a get-together with our team and all the hosts at Siobhan's host family's house.  It should be a another fabulous day in Tassie!

First time touching the ocean

Post from Angil: I traveled three-quarters of a way around the world to touch the ocean at Shearwater, Tasmania, on Freer Beach. Beautiful day enjoying an afternoon at the ocean with my GSE team.

Latrobe and Cradle Mountain

The team is in Latrobe still, a small town surrounded by farm land. I am staying with Malcom and Mavis who have their own farm. I have attached a view from their front patio. If you look closely you can see the Ocean. 

Today the team drove to Cradle Mountain for a 7.5km hike around Dove Lake. It was beautiful. It was great to get out and get some excursive after all the food we had yesterday! The hike was definitely one of the many highlights so far. Believe it or not it was too cold to go swimming...even for our team's standards. 

Can you find us in the photo below? 

Update from Kathryn

After a full day of food adventures, I came home to the 3500 sq ft farmhouse I am staying in at present, to enjoy snacks in the "pub"- just one of the many rooms in this sprawling residence- followed by spaghetti bologonese with the most delicious Boundary Shiraz from Clare Valley region in Southern AUS. What a lovely way to wrap up a day! My host parents are spoiling me (as all host parents do) and my host dad drove me home in the TAS police cruiser (he is a policeman).  He is taking me golfing in Davenport on Thursday with another officer and the sargent, so I will be sure to be on my best behaviour!!
I will be rising at 7 am to help tend to the cattle and sheep on the farm before heading up Cradle Mountain with the girls (and Gary!) and our local friends/ guides.
The good news is we all have plenty of "reserve"nutrients after today, so should we enjoy the view and wish to camp out for a few days, or weeks, on the mountain top, we will be just fine...
Earlier today we also got to cuddle with a friendly and sleepy wombat- that was great.
The tasmanian devils feeding on some roadkill was a memorable experience- the audio was more disturbing than the visual, but again, we shall spare you the video footage for now, but it will surely be coming to a screen near you very soon!

An Eventful Day in Northern Tasmania

Today we went to Sheffield and saw some beautiful murals that the town copied from a Canadian town to enhance the tourism in the area.  Our Canadian teammates were proud of that :)

We also went to a wildlife park and got to see the wallabies in prime mating season.  I'll spare the x-rated wallaby pictures and video, but trust me, they're HILARIOUS!  bow-chica-bow-wow! I'm not sure if we have any underaged blog viewers, but we'll email them to you if you ask.  I (Ashley) also got a leech stuck onto both my ankles and now have an authentic leech bite souvenir to take back home with me.  I thought leeches only lived in and near lakes, but was horribly mistaken.

We went to this WONDERFUL raspberry farm/restaurant where they grown heaps (as the Australians would say) of raspberries and had lunch there.  We all tried something different, but most of their food and drinks have some sort of raspberry component.  We couldn't go to a raspberry place and not have dessert, so we shared a raspberry crepe with homemade raspberry ice cream and a chocolate raspberry mud pie.

We also went to Ashgrove Cheese where they are similar in that they milk their own cows, make milk and cheese.  Apparently their cheese is even exported to Wisconsin and if it's good enough for the cheese-heads, it's certainly good enough for us!  We had some samples and they was delicious!  There has already been talk of stocking up on it prior to our mid-term break.

Next, we went to Anvers Chocolates where they make everything you could ever imagine out of chocolate.  They claim to make the best hot chocolate in the world and i think we all agree that they are telling the truth there!  Fabulous hot chocolate!  They have cinnamon, Aztec spice, vanilla and traditional hot chocolates.

What a wonderful day!  Although with all that food and sampling, our walk at Cradle Mountain tomorrow is something we're looking forward to.