It's a wonder down-under!

Oh my goodness, how I love Australia! We really missed some essentials (ok, craft beer, cheese, chocolate and real coffee) for the six weeks we were in Asia. 

Josh at the park in Darling Harbour

My favorite dudes in Sydney

Victorian Crowned Pigeon at Taronga Zoo

Up close and personal with lemurs

Josh at Taronga Zoo in Sydney

Manley Beach in Sydney

Sydney is a gorgeous, modern city with a beautiful harbour and lots of great restaurants. Unfortunately the only ones in our budget were... you guessed it, THAI food! Too funny. There are tons of Thai restaurants here, but what we really wanted were: 1. Nachos (I have been craving nachos something awful which is odd because the last time I had some was probably last year) and 2. Big juicy burger and a craft beer (more Todd's craving but I definitely miss those things too). We found a burger place in Sydney and shared a beer (pint was $9.80, granted it was Aussie dollars but still over $7 US). With everything being so cheap in Thailand, the sticker shock of Australia hit us hard!  We pre-booked an Airbnb in a neighborhood in Sydney that was a short walk to the CBD ("Central Business District"), which was nice. However the place was super small, with a bathroom that was quite old and stinky and an oven that didn't work. We tried to save some money and bought groceries for breakfast, lunch and that nights dinner (frozen pizza), but it took an hour to heat the pizza... Nonetheless, we were hardly there at all, we spent the first day exploring Darling Harbour and the Circular Quay and Josh enjoyed an awesome kids playground (with slides, zip line and even water sprinklers). It was a beautiful day, very sunny but not too humid. I set a clock to get up early the next morning because I knew otherwise we would sleep through our precious time in Sydney due to our jet lag. The clock went off at 7, we rolled out of bed by 8 and by the time we had some muesli and got dressed it was 9:30. We went to the harbor and got tickets for the ferry and the zoo and went in search of the Australian animals. My favorite animal was the koala bear and Josh loved the Komodo dragon and the platypus. Did you know that the platypus is only one of 2 mammals (The other is the echidna) that lay eggs? They are called monotremes... The entrance to the zoo is via a cable car which offered phenomenal views of the city.  From there, we took the Manley Fast Ferry to...you guessed it, Manley! A vibrant beach town, loved seeing all of the contemporary seaside homes and Christmas decorations and
surfers. So strange to see people preparing for Christmas in the

beginning of summer. But it is normal for the Aussies. After hearing from others who had done it, I really wanted to do the Sydney BridgeClimb, so I booked it for the last night we were there. A group of about 12 of us went all the way up, reaching the peak around 9:20 pm. The lights and the views of Sydney harbor and the Opera House were so worth the climb! 

We flew to Melbourne on Tuesday and checked into our Airbnb, an apartment on the 26th floor of a skyscraper on Collins Street, right in the middle of all that is wonderful in Melbourne. We took the free trolley to Hosier Lane with its graffiti art (I have always loved graffiti, ever since seeing it as a kid from the train in Chicago when I went to visit my grandma...) and went to St. Kilda Beach where the Fairy Penguins live within the breakwater rocks.

Now we are in Tasmania, exploring the island in a Hi-Top campervan (the interior converts to a small double bed in the cabin and a single up top for Josh) for the week. Australians love to camp and Tasmania, in particular, is great for it because free or low-cost camping is everywhere. We have groceries so we've been having most of our meals in the camper. Dinner the first night was pasta with (kangaroo) meatballs. I mean, I've never seen kangaroo meatballs at the grocery in North Carolina so I had to try them! They didn't taste particularly odd, but they were very lean and I don't think Todd cared much for them. All of our campsites so far have been right on a beach and the weather is cool here (40s and 50s at night), so we've been bundling up. We arrived in Tassie (as the locals call it) on Thanksgiving and had a pancake breakfast (better than turkey in my opinion) in a village called Richmond. We also went to Bonorong animal sanctuary, where they rehabilitate injured animals (kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, wombats and Tasmanian devils) so they can be released back into the wild. Most of the animals are injured by cars or in fights with cats or dogs. They had an echidna named Randall who had to have one leg amputated after being attacked by a dog. As a result, Randall wobbles like a little tank when he walks. He is super cute though! We got to feed and pet the free-roaming kangaroos (one of my top favorite experiences of this entire trip!), and we learned a lot about the other animals there. We also got to pet a baby wombat (so cute!) and a koala. The Tasmanian devils are not safe to pet (they bite!), but we saw many of them. They have become extremely endangered as a result of a contagious (devil to devil only) cancer that affects the faces of the animals and causes tumors that eventually lead to the animal's suffocation or starvation. We initially learned about this tumor disease at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, as they have a breeding program in place to try to revive the species. 

We camped in Port Arthur the first night on Tasmania, at a campground / "holiday park" on White Sand beach. The sand was indeed very white. And the water clear and cold. There were a bunch of these crescent-shaped jelly things on the sand, I assumed they were jelly fish or pieces of jelly fish. But they are actually the egg sac for the Conical Sand Snail. Crazy! The campground had bathrooms, water / electrical hookups and wifi included!

Port Arthur is a town and historical site on the Tasman Peninsula, known for many years for the ruins of early convict settlements. However it's also known since 1996 for being the site of a tragic massacre of 35 people. Apparently, the gun-control laws in Australia were changed drastically for the better after the mass shootings.

While in Port Arthur, we also  hiked out to some amazing rock formations - Remarkable Cave and Devils Kitchen. 

From Port Arthur, we backtracked west so we could be in Hobart for Saturday morning's Salamanca Market. The weather was pretty and the waterfront market full of food and craft vendors from all over Tasmania. If I lived here, I would have bought honey, flowers, jam and wine. 

After the market, we drove up the eastern coast to a town called Swansea where we spent the night last night. Not much to do or see in Swansea, but it was a good starting point for our hikes today at Freycinet National Park. We saw Wineglass Bay and the Tourville Lighthouse, as well as wild animals (including kangaroo)!  Tonight we will drive as far north as we can and stop to free camp on a beach when we are tired. We prefer to stop before dusk, just to give us some light to set up the beds in the camper (it's like a jigsaw puzzle) and also to avoid the risk of hitting any nocturnal animals in the road. We hope to get to the northern city of Launceston tomorrow and spend a couple days in the Tamar Valley wine region before we leave Tasmania. From here, we go back to Sydney for one more night and then fly out to Samoa. We've got three short weeks to go and will be home before Christmas. We love seeing pictures of everyone, along with food pics from Thanksgiving as well as Christmas trees!