TASMANIA TRIP {Strahan}

Strahan is on the Mid West Coast of Tasmania. There really isn't much there but it is pretty.

^^ Macquarie Harbour

^^ Hogarth Falls are a 20 min stroll on a flat path right in town.

^^ Breakfast View from Strahan Village restaurant.

^^ Our hotel. Strahan Village We had a lovely little 3 bedroom cottage right on the main street.
The harbour was 10 metres away. It was very quiet and picturesque. A very small town.

Sadly most of our Trip in Tasmania the skies were grey.
On the positive it didn't rain much.
Just grey skies ruining my photos ;)


We were able to do the Gordon River Cruise thanks to my wonderful Brother in Law.
The grey skies made for an eerie misty day.
Perfect with Convict Ruins and basically untouched rainforest at the bottom of the earth :)

^^ Gordon River and the lower west of Tasmania achieves one of the highest ratings when being listed as a world heritage spot. It ticks 8 out of 10 or something like that. Most places only tick 4. The rainforest here is that which reclaimed the land after the last Great Ice Age. Pretty rare apparently.

We were super excited when a staff member said the captain wanted us to join him.
Would you believe he let the kids all drive the boat?
And that you drive the boat with a tiny little joy stick with one finger?!
{I'm sure there is much more involved than that!}
Each kid got to don the captains hat and have a go.
It was a very special experience thats for sure.

^^ Just before we stepped onto Sarah Island a pod of dolphins swam past. It was amazing. 

Sarah Island has Australia's oldest convict ruins.

^^ Light house love. There are two on the way to Hells Gate. 

^^ It was cold and very windy.

The cruise was very informative and I learnt alot. I was wondering why on earth would anyone come here, let alone find this place at the bottom of the earth? Why did they bother to send convicts here hundreds of years ago?  It's pretty secluded. It was amazing to think convicts escaped and turned up weeks later in Hobart, or even the mainland and even Chile! Yes one boat load escaped to South America. But as everything its all about the mighty dollar and these places were turning a pretty profit with magical wood. Turns out England was out of Oak back in the day but had an empire to run with ships and all. Turns out Tasmania has lots of wood! Win for everyone. Except the convicts who had to do all the manual labour. However the some of the worlds worst slums were London and Birmingham at the time so maybe they got the better deal to be shipped to the end of the earth.

After spending most of the day on the river we hired some toboggans and headed for Henty Sand Dunes. They are about a 10-15 minute drive out of Strahan. It was tough work walking up those dunes, basically vertical but once up it was a pretty cool view. I was smart enough to stay at the top. But not adventurous enough to go up and down several times. Sore legs the next day.

 ^^ Two toboggans and they just threw themselves down anyway.

^^ I was excited to see real Holly in Tasmania. Had never seen it before.

^^ Sunrise and goodbye Strahan.

On our Way out we stopped at Zeehan a tiny town 30 mins away. It was once a booming silver mine town. Now it's sadly forgotten and tiny. However the museum there is meant to be really good {was closed when we went by} but we did check out the Spray Tunnel left over from mining days.

The tunnel was dark and cool. I had found no souvenirs in Tasmania which made me sad when I found an awesome heart rock here. I went to Zeehan and all I got was this heart rock :)

Next Up:  Stahan to Launceston.

TASMANIA TRIP {Launceston}

Last we left Strahan, The Gordon River, The Henty Sandunes. 

Now we were on our way back through the mountains to Launceston.

Old Hercules. Aerial ore bucked ropeway constructed to move ore from the Mine to Rosebury. 

No longer in use but left. Fun to drive right under.

The Shadow of Mt Black which looms over Rosebery

 ^^ Lookout to Cradle Mountain. We drove into the park but the crowds were too much and we only had one day to get to Launceston so sadly we only got to see Cradle Mountain from a distance.

 ^^ Another Lookout on our way. Beautiful vistas all the time.

^^Mole Creek Caves in Karst National Park. The park contains more than 300 known caves and limestone formations. Only a few are accessible to the public. It was cold in the cave. 9 degrees all year round. The caves had glow worms and special type of spider.

^^Historic Clock Tower in Launceston. Our hotel was right near by and beside the bed was earplugs because this thing rings all night!

 ^^ Down town. Launceston had the most beautiful old homes. I would happily go on holidays where I just look at old houses. Tasmania certainly has that. Sadly we were only here for one day. Wish I had taken more photos of all the beautiful old architecture.

^^Cataract Gorge. The suspension bridge was almost a bit scarey lol. The Gorge is only 1.5 km from the city centre. Such a nice place to have so close.

 ^^ There were beautiful peacocks everywhere at Cataract Gorge. They were so beautiful. Our youngest daughter had never seen one before in real life and didn't think they were real creatures. It was fun to see her say 'Oh they are real. I've never seen a real one before.'

^^ There were such beautiful trees at Cataract Gorge. There was a very english garden there. Felt very fancy. Kids really wanted to ride the chairlift but were sadly denied by their parents :) The chairlift is the longest single span chairlift in the world!

The earliest recorded visit to this area was made by settler William Collins in 1804 when exploring the Port in the ship "Lady Nelson". He was particularly impressed by the South Esk and its cataract

Further up the River, at Duck Reach , a turbine-driven power station was constructed by the Council and it is understood that Launceston had the distinction of being the first City south of the Equator to be lit by electricity, generated by water power. On the 10th December, 1895, electricity was officially switched on. 

We left Launceston for a long Sunday drive to Port Arthur - our last stop for our trip.

TASMANIA TRIP {Launceston to Port Arthur}

The last leg of our trip was Launceston to Port Arthur.

This was bridge day. Of course we had to stop and take photos of Australia's oldest bridges.

 ^^ Red Bridge. Built 1838. Oldest surviving Brick Bridge in Australia.

^^ Ross Bridge. Complete 1838. Convict Labour. Gorgeous Historic Villiage of Ross nearby. 

Lots of old houses and businesses.

 ^^Richmond Bridge - It is the oldest bridge still in use in Australia and the oldest stone span bridge. Complete 1825

^^ Ross Female Factory. The site served as a factory as well as a hiring depot, an overnight station for female convicts travelling between settlements, a lying-in hospital and a nursery.

 We entered a dark back room which had not been renovated. Turned the corner and a DEAD bird is hanging off the pull string to turn on the (non existant) light.... CAREEEPY!!! Ha hahahahah

^^ We finally made it to Classic Cottages at Port Arthur with an empty tank of petrol.

Next and Last Day Port Arthur.

Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula,

The initial decade of settlement saw a penal station hacked from the bush, and the first manufactories – such as ship building, shoemaking, smithing, timber and brick making – established. The 1840s witnessed a consolidation of the industrial and penal nature of the settlement as the convict population reached over 1100. In 1842 a huge flour mill and granary (later the Penitentiary) was begun, as well as the construction of a hospital.  More Info Here

^^ Whispering wishes and throwing in a coin

Nearby Port Arthur is The Blowhole, Tasman Arch and Devils Kitchen.
Well worth the detour. Gorgeous coast line. Was a wonderful way to end our Trip.

^^ Tasman Arch

^^ Gorgeous Coast line

^^ Fortescue Bay. Secluded and dirt road to get there but the beach was covered in about 20 000 blue bottles which popped as we walked along squashing them! It was too cold anyway but that made me not want to swim thats for sure.

^^ Sunny weather on our last afternoon meant icecreams for everyone!

^^ Bye Bye rental car. We made you nice and dirty. Thanks for the ride.

^^ Our cute waterbottle from the Sebel Launceston. Bye Bye Tassie :(


As we exited the airport exhausted back home some dude sidles up to us asking if we want a lift home. Sounded completely dodgy to me. The Mr said nah it happens all the time and usually when he travels for work he cant take them up on their offer. So the guy offers a lift home in a limo for the same cost as a taxi. Felt pretty flash to arrive home in style. HA HA HA. Tv and led lights fun.

And that ends our trip to Tasmania. So many firsts for our family. First time flying for our kids. First time staying in different hotels each day. First time driving a cruise boat. First time seeing an echidna in the wild, First time seeing SNOW! {well ok it was probably weak sleet, but we take it} First time in a limo. First time in some World Heritage spots. First time seeing dolphins in the wild.


Review of Whole Trip Here:

Hobart
Hobart to Strahan
Strahan, Gordon River, Henty Dunes
Strahan to Launceston
Launceston to Port Arthur

FHE LESSON { New Year}

Opening Song:

Opening Prayer:


Lesson:


Talk about the year in review. 
Ask children to mention some of their favourite things of 2015.
Here is a Year in Review Questionaire for older kids so inclined to fill in answers 
(and you can keep them over the years)

{Our kids can often NOT remember anything they've done past a few weeks ago - which makes me sad. I take alot of photos so scrolling through our photos on the computer soon pricks everyones memory - OHHhhhh remember that, when we did this, wow can we do that again, laughing etc - just need to remember kids aren't ungrateful they just don't have long term memory yet }

Get children to list things they would like to DO this coming year 2015

eg my kids come up with in the past :

Iceskating
Camping
Rockclimbing
Beach
Visit Planetarium
Visit favourite Parks
mentioned a few of their favourite family traditions

We decided that we had enough activities for half a year and will designate one saturday a month to check off the above activities.

Via design mom I heard about these fun questions to ask your children, fill out as a questionnaire.
{and keep their replies to look back on over the years}

This year:

Something I want to do
Something I want to read
Somewhere I want to go
something I want to be better at
Something I want

Maybe you can also include:
spiritual goals: {prayers, scripture reading, holding regular FHE etc}
physical goals: {games to play with kids, daily walks together etc}
Places to go:
Mental health/organizational goals: {kids helping with chores}

Write goals on a Calendar or large piece of paper to keep in view.


 Have fun planning out an awesome year! I find written down goals seem to happen more and better!


Activity suggestions:

We have little voice snippets/video segments of our children saying "Hi my name is ____ I am ____ years old. My favourite thing is ____ . I go to______ school. I love to do______ . It is so fun to look back on the old ones and how they used to sound. Our 7 year old was mimicking her 4 year old voice after we did this activity. She was surprised at how 'babyish' she sounded.

Since we only have a couple of these random snippets we thought it might be a nice thing to record each year. Around New Years would be a good day for it?
We said our names, ages, where we live, what we like to do, favourite things.
Each segment lasted about 30secs to 1min.
This is one of our kids favourite things and they have asked about them, saying where is that video about me from when I was ..... old?


Make a family time capsule to store all your comments/questionnaires in for the year and the coming years.


I am making a Happy Things Jar for this year. Hopefully we will keep it up. Decorate a jar and leave a pen and post it notes near by. Each time something nice happens write it down and put it in the jar. On New Years Eve next year (or whenever- ) take out all the folded papers and read them out. A years full of happy memories.
eg - date nights, Childrens milestones, holidays, funny things kids do, sweet acts of service performed to you and by you.


Closing Song:

Closing Prayer:


Treat: Have a mini new year party with sparkling drink and sparkle