Day 16: Salamanca Market

Today we witnessed the single most amazing open air market I have ever seen in my life.  There were produce and food vendors and used stuff and new stuff and crafts and crap and…there was just so much!  It was incredible!  I’m not one who enjoys shopping, but this could turn even the most crotchety shopper, if not into a shop-aholic at least into someone who enjoys to browse.  

M. Isham and Misha!  Way too fun in the market today!

There were people with some amazing skills on that street.  We met one  lady who, with her husband, writes and illustrates children’s books.  There were a couple about how to draw Australian animals and we picked them up.  When she signed them for X and é, X told her she misspelled his name.  Looking at it, she had signed her first initial and her last name—which just happened to be M. Isham.  Too funny! 

After Salamanca we spent the rest of the day back at Port Arthur and exploring a little of the incredible wilderness around the area.  Tessellated rock would’ve been fun to explore a little more but the tide was coming in and it was almost entirely under water.  As it was, I was amazed by the incredible things water can do to rocks!

Our week in Tassy has come to an end.  It’s been an incredible week.  I can’t believe it’s only been a week.  This country is amazing.  The people are generally fantastic.  I can’t wait to see what the next leg of our journey brings.

Day 15: Port Arthur

I feel like I’ve been transported to another planet!  I have never seen anything like this outside of the movies!  Acres and acres and acres of beautiful grounds—gardens, a church, a graveyard, stables, barracks…there’s just so much!  It’s incredible!  And to think that it started as a penal colony.  It's like I stepped into a Jane Austin novel!

Or Jurassic Park!

The history of the place is fantastic, but the best part by far has just been the company.  I feel like a broken record but really, being here with Cathy and her family is a dream come true.  Chatting about the similarities and differences in our childhoods, in our parents, in our perceptions of our history and our life—it’s positively heavenly!

Then I turn and see my children romping with their cousins, even with two decades difference in age, and my heart melts and I thank the Lord for my blessings.  I’m overcome with emotion as I see them forming relationships with one another—what I have always dreamed of.  The idyllic setting, the incredible sites and history and people, they’re all secondary.  They’re amazing, but the real sites, center stage, is the conversation we have after the kids are all tucked in bed.  After the sites are seen, the photos taken, the experiences enjoyed we sit around and talk.  We connect.  We get to know each other. 

It’s late and I feel like I’m rambling so I’m going to close.  I am so thankful that families are forever.  That we have eternity to get to know one another—not just the few weeks we’re down here.  God is good!

Day 14: P-day

We’re realizing more and more that we need a break from our adventures every few days to do a little prep for the next couple of days.  For example, we haven’t been eating dinner because we’re rolling in so late that we’re too tired to cook so we’re just eating ramen. (2 minute noodles here)  So today we took the day off to plan some menus and do some beginning prep.  Tomorrow morning, before we head out for the day, we’ll prep dinner so when we get back all we have to do is pop it in the microwave for a few minutes and presto!  A healthy meal after a long day of exploring!

Today happens to be my cousin Reece's birthday and tomorrow is his Dad's.  Not only that, but he and his family joined us tonight in Tassy so they can spend more time with us.  How cool is that?!  To show our appreciation—and because what’s a birthday without yummy food and cake—we went all out.  We knew he liked Mexican food so we made him beans and green rice and steak quesadillas with oysters killpatrick as an appetizer.  Turns out he’s never had oysters before but he ate the first one just to be polite.  Luckily it was smothered in bacon so it wasn’t too bad—he actually ate a couple of them.  

We'd had an adventure searching for dry beans.  We couldn’t find ANY.  We went to 4 different stores and all we could find was a 9 bean soup mix.  Finally, in desperation, we stopped at the five and dime down the street and they had half kilo bags of black beans!  You would never believe what I paid for two pounds of black beans!  But I was pretty excited as I trotted home with that prize!  When Cathy walked in and saw them she exclaimed, "Where in the world did you find black beans?!"  Weird to be in a country where you can't just go to any old supermarket and buy beans.

Cody got them cooking and I laid down for a little nap only to wake up and find that he expected me to wake up and turn them down.  The whole cabin was filled with smoke and the smell was awful!  My precious black beans were ruined!  Not to be defeated, we did our best to take the beans off the top and leave the burnt ones stuck to the bottom of the pan.  We saved about 2/3 of them and, after Cody was done seasoning them, you’d never know they were almost fish food!

At that point, we offered to take the kids to the zoo to feed kangaroos and guess what?  They all turned us down in favor of…wait for it…playing in the club house.  Seriously.  They would rather play with some nursery toys in an old barn than go to a wild life preserve in Tasmania to feed kangaroos!  Not one to argue about saving $150 we stayed in.  One of these times though, they’re going to want to go do the cool stuff I’ve planned!

I love that I was so excited to hear Cathy’s car pull up and even more that we got to spend Reece and BJ’s birthdays with them.  That’s two of their last 3 birthdays that we got to spend with them! How cool is that?!  We had a great time sitting around eating and visiting.  Good times!  Even ∞ tried an oyster.  She hated it, but she tried it!

Seriously, my favorite parts of this trip so far have been the ones where we're just sitting in the kitchen swapping stories with my family.  They’re memories I will treasure forever.

Day 13: Bruny Island

I'm sorry, when I saw it I couldn't resist.

We just missed the ferry that takes you out to Bruny Island so, with an hour and a half to wait, we started exploring ‘the channel’ as it’s called.  We found a great park and the kids started having a great time—except L who was being a total pill.  Inspiration filled me and I swooped him up and asked if he’d like some alone Mama time.  The grin that split his face was priceless!  We walked over a bridge and up the beach—we probably walked about a mile when all was said and done and know what?  The kid was an angel the rest of the day.  Good traveling tip for those of you with kids!  Sometimes, you just need some solo time with Mama!

Another fun travel tip is find a post office!  Postal workers around the world are a quirky bunch and they’re usually filled with character!  The little town of Woodbridge, (Yup, we found Woodbridge!  But we didn't meet Taylor Dosey :(   Tassy is no different.  We met Kelly—she collects postcards from around the world.  She was super nice, gave us a not-yet-published guide to Woodbridge and she had a used book corner in her office selling novels for $1.  The kids were ecstatic to get new reading material!  Even é jumped right into his book and spent most of the drive immersed in his new story.

Who remembers this from Elementary School?!  About 50% of the public toilets have these instead of toilet paper.  I've started carrying a roll around with me just in case.  And soap.  We found a tiny 1 oz bottle of hand sanitizer for $5.00!

We almost missed the second boat because we were having such a good time in Woodbridge.  I think I’ve come to realize and accept that no matter where we are, we’re going to find something awesome and be totally entertained.

Bruny did not disappoint.  First thing we noticed were all the eucalyptus trees. Now I’m sure we’ve seen plenty before, but this is the first time we realized what we were looking at.  The lady on the ferry let us know that if we were coming back after dark, we needed to take care as there would be lots of animals on the road.  At the mention of animals, the kids immediately started looking for their first sighting of kangaroos and koalas.  Thus the eucalyptus epiphany.
 

Instead what we found was Joe.  He works at the cheese company.  So this guy, I don’t recall his name, wanted to learn how to make cheese.  So he got online about 11 years ago and started learning.  This is what that obsession became. 

The cheeses ranged from really yummy to down right disgusting but the bread! Oh be still my heart the bread!  Baked in an outdoor brick oven, crisp on the outside, tender and soft on the inside—I could have eaten a whole loaf all by myself!  It was even still warm!  Worth every cent we paid…and it was a pretty penny at that!  $8.50 a loaf!

WARNING:  Political Rant about to commence!

So everywhere we go we chat with people.  At the grocery store, at the book store, walking down the street…whatever we’re doing, wherever we’re going, we talk to people.  The first night in Tassy the checker at the grocery store asked what’s different here than at home. 

“The price of food!” was my response.  “Everything here is so expensive!”

That was all the motivation the gentleman behind the counter needed to start a rant of his own.  The government, he explained, decided that all workers needed to make ‘a living wage.’  The average McDonald’s employee here makes $22.50/hour.  He proceeded to curse the ‘idiots in office’ for not having the foresight to realize that upping the wages would simply lead to upping the prices of everything else.  You can’t inflate half a balloon.  You inflate the wages, you inflate the price of goods and services.  So now, Australia is the second most expensive place to live in the world and their tourism industry is tanking because it simply costs too much to come here.

I have had this conversation with more than one person a day since being here.  Everyone feels the same way—raising the minimum wage was the worst mistake the government made.

Rant over.

After trying the cheeses, watching the cheese be made, learning that the outer husk of the cheese is the natural mold that grows on something when left out for weeks and months and years (eeewwww!!) seeing an old time cheese mixer and cheese wheel, we made our way farther down Bruny to the isthmus.  

An Isthmus is a narrow neck of land connecting two larger land masses.  ‘The Neck’ as it’s known here, is SUPER narrow and it totally freaked me out.  One lane that’s supposed to be two, I don’t know what we would have done had another car been coming the opposite way.  No guard rails to keep you from flying off into the ocean should anything go awry.  No safety anything at all.  One big wave and you're whale fodder!  Too COOL!!! 

  We were headed for the southernmost tip, the light house—but once again we got distracted.  I needed a 20 minute power nap (too much daylight driving for this night owl!) and the kids were starving so we pulled into a camp site and the kids picnicked on the beach while I snoozed.  Cody found a walking track he wanted to try out so, when I joined the group, away we went.  It was supposed to be just a quick, half an hour jaunt through the rain forest.  Um, no. We ended up on a 3 mile hike.  It was awesome, don’t get me wrong.  But if you ever wonder why we protest so loudly when Cody suggests ‘a quick little walk’, this is why.

We got back to the car just at dusk, meaning we missed seeing the fairy penguins come in from the ocean to the beach L  I hate realizing that we can’t see everything.  There’s just too much—but it’s just so fun!

Okay, quick spiritual moment.  On the hike, ∞ was worried that π was getting us lost.  We didn’t have any signal so maps wouldn’t work but then we tried sports tracker.  Anyone who hasn’t downloaded sports tracker totally should.  When nothing else works, sports tracker always does.  I don’t know how, it just does.  On world view, we could even find the tree we were standing by—it was rather uniquely shaped. 

Confirmation from the map didn’t calm her enough.  She needed more and she suggested we pray.  So we gathered around and she voiced the prayer. 

“Dear Heavenly Father,” she began…and instantly the spirit was so strong that tears came to her eyes.  We all felt it.  Warm, comforting waves washed over all of us, and ∞ was rendered speechless.  “Help us to know we’re going the right way,” π prompted.  

Speech restored ∞ offered a very short prayer asking for comfort and safety and direction and thanking Him for His spirit and closed the prayer.

The hike changed after that.  It was incredible.  We talked about the change, glorying in the knowledge that our Heavenly Father is aware of us, that He loves us and that He is always there for us, even on a seldom used rainforest trail in the middle of nowhere on an island almost in Antarctica. 

Like most nights of this trip the kids were asleep before we got back to the cabins. L actually fell asleep while getting a piggy back from K.  She wrapped him in her hoodie and carried him like a Koala.  Such sweet kids!  A few of them woke up enough to eat some noodles before going back to sleep but most skipped dinner—again.  We’ve taken to eating really large breakfasts and snacking a lot on fruits and veggies during the day since we’re too tired to eat by the night. 

A very good day indeed.

Day 12: Every Day An Adventure

(pictures take forever to get on with the chaos of kids so for now I'm posting just the text.  Come back later to see the fun.)

When consciousness descended on me this morning, I knew I was not alone.  When I was able to open my eyes, a laugh wasn’t far away.  X and X² were sitting in chairs in the corners of this tiny kitchen.  When I asked why they were sitting there, they said they put themselves in time out to keep themselves from doing something wrong. 

As we started to discuss their logic, I was distracted by the glorious view outside the front door.  The sun was rising right before my eyes.  I abandoned the conversation, grabbed my shoes and threw open the door.  I was half way across the lawn before the boys thought to ask where I was going.

“Sunrise on the beach!!” was all I had to say before they were running towards me.  It was only minutes later when 8 of the ten of us were on the beach watching the most incredible sunrise.

We were slow to get moving since the kids were enjoying the sand and the toys and…well, TASMANIA but when we actually did leave, we got side tracked before we’d even gone 5 miles. 

You need a little back story before I tell you why we got distracted.  The guy who runs/owns the South Arm Cabin Retreat is named Malcome and his wife is Rose.  We’ve not met Rose yet, but Malcome is as close to a replica of Cody’s dad as you’re ever going to meet.  They bought this land when they retired; built these cabins and now they take care of this place.  In everything that we’ve seen, it’s run exactly as you’d expect it to be if Jim was running it.  He was super friendly, chatted with us about everything we were interested in, gave us some great suggestions for where to go and what to do…he was incredible!  After we got back from the beach, he came over with two hand drawn maps to show us where we could go to do the things we told him we were interested in.

One of the places he told us to go is to Opossum Bay.  This made us laugh because one of Jim’s favorite TV programs is Red Green.  Anyone who’s familiar with that show knows that he runs the Possum Lodge.  It’s far too similar to be ignored.  So when we saw the sign to Opossum Bay, all thoughts of exploring Hobart’s museum went flying away and we headed to the Bay.  We drove all the way to the end of the bay, ignoring the well established places in preference to wandering off the beaten path. 

 

The beach we ended up on wasn’t the beautiful, sandy beach you’d expect, but a sea shell ridden cacophony.  We found a rocky section and with it all sorts of skeletons.  Then pi² found a live muscle.  This lead us to looking for other sea food.  That’s when I realized what I had been seeing in the water--oysters.  Loads of them, just laying in the pristine waters we were walking next to. 

On one of them was a little tiny crab.

We went back to the cabin with 20 gigantic rock oysters, completely satisfied with the days adventures not sad at all that we missed the Hobart Museum.