Last thoughts on Australia

We thoroughly enjoyed our four months in Australia.  We loved the travel opportunities we had to see so many magnificent places.  Sydney, The Great Ocean Road, The Great Barrier Reef, New Zealand, Tasmania, and The Whitsunday Islands were all great adventures we enjoyed.  Even more we were amazed by God's beautiful creation across the world.  We loved our apartment in downtown Sydney, where we could walk to some of our favorite places including Darling Harbour and The Rocks or catch the train to other great places.  Caleb enjoyed walking 2 blocks to work at William Buck.  We are thankful for the opportunity to explore Australia, meet great Aussies, and for our family to enjoy this all together.  We hope that this blog (and book) will help us remember our time in Australia.

Our Balcony

We spent a lot of time on our balcony.  We also had a few visitors...beautiful cockatoos.

Airlie Beach

After Tasmania we flew to The Whitsunday Islands in Queensland.  We flew into Hamilton Island, into the smallest airport we have ever been to.  They didn't even have a baggage belt, they just drove to baggage carts right up to us.  We then took a bus to the harbour to take ferry to Airlie Beach, back on the mainland.  We would have loved to stay at Hamilton Island but Airlie Beach was much cheaper.  It was beautiful landing on an island.  As the theme of our vacation time, the weather was not to best.  We had planned to take a day tour of the Whitsunday Islands but with the hefty price tag and rainy weather we decided to stay around Airlie beach.  We hate that we missed out on views like this...

Whitehaven Beach

We did have 5 great days.  We decided to splurge on a 2 bedroom apartment which was great because we had a ton of down time there.  We got down to the lagoon one decent morning for some swimming and every chance we got we went swimming in the pool at our hotel.  Our vacation was different than we expected but it was great having down time before coming home.

A few pictures from our time at Airlie Beach:

The view from our balcony.

The view walking down the road from our apartment to town.

Airlie Beach

The Lagoon.

Wineglass Bay

The main reason we drove to Freycinet National Park was to see Wine Glass Bay.  It is one of the most beautiful views in Tasmania.  The day we went it was rainy and cloudy which made the view a little less beautiful but it was still very pretty.  

Aaron and his walking stick.  

The other side of the hill...Coles Bay.

Freycinet National Park and wild wallabies

 The highlight for Aaron was seeing the wild wallabies in the parking lot when we arrived:

Baby wallaby climbing into the pouch.  He was about half the size of the mama.  

Feeding the wallaby.  Later we read the "Do not feed wildlife sign".  Oops. 

He was not afraid of us at all...Lydia on the other hand was climbing as high as she could up my arms.  

Botanical Gardens

Spring!!!

Sorell, Tasmania

Convict Trail, Road signs, and sleepy kids

Port Arthur Penal Colony

 

"Our little felons"

Tasmania Countryside

Tasmania had lots of sheep...but not near as many as New Zealand.

Tasmania

After visiting the rainy Blue Mountains we flew to Tasmania.  We stayed in Hobart the capital.  Tasmania is an Australian state that is and island south of Australia's southeastern coast.  I just say this because I thought at one point Tasmania was its own country.  I never was and still am not very good at geography.  It is about the size of West Virginia.  A lot of people describe it as a miniature New Zealand.  It has similar make up with the ocean and mountains but to a smaller scale.  It was beautiful and again we really enjoyed our time there.  We are very glad that we added it to our list of places to visit.  Hobart is the capitol and half the people in Tasmania live within Hobart and the surrounding areas but it did not have a big city feel to it.  Tasmania is a very historical area (even though its not a pretty history).  More on that later.  Again, we encountered a good bit of rain but that didn't stop us from doing some exploring.  Tasmania's early settlers were primarily convicts and military personnel so one day we explored the Convict Trail and Port Arthur, a penal colony.  The next day we stayed around Hobart and a small town called Sorell right outside of Hobart.  Our last day we drove a couple hours north to Feycinet National Park.  It was a beautiful drive and even more beautiful park.  Again, the weather did not cooperate 100% but enough for us to get in a hike.  Aaron sure did develop a lot of endurance while living in AU and from all our walking.  Pictures to come...

more featherdale park

white peacock...it was beautiful

...and so was this guy who was showing off.

Tasmanian Devil. They are a lot smaller than I thought they would be.