Well, it's been a little while but we didn't really have too much to update…until yesterday. We're in Tasmania and we had heard that in parts of Tasmania, Penguins come to shore at night to nest build in the winter and mate in the spring. Last night we sat out on the shore in what a brass monkey could only term as frigid winds to try to see some of these little guys come ashore. After about 20 minutes of sitting and wondering if we were in the right spot at the right time, we saw our first penguin. We were situated at the top of the beach just before the vegetation. This little fella came up on our right but it seems that most of the action was taking place to our left so he started walking across the beach and at one point was just a meter away. He was actually working his way towards us when I made a little sound just to let him know we were there. He stopped and stuck his neck out and his big black eyes tried to figure out what these two MEC sponsored shapes were. Then he picked up the pace a bit and headed on, most likely to tidy up his pad, or perhaps lure some hot little penguin into his lair. Sooooo cute.These aren't the emperor penguins that are all over the south pole that, as (we learned at the Australian ant-arctic research institute), can grow up to 115cm's!!! Our little fella was about 40cm's tall and beautifully sleek. We moved down the beach away and in all we saw about 5 until our nutz were frozen and we headed back to the van for a cup of tea to warm up. Unfortunately it was extremely dark and no pictures were possible but that was a real thrill.

We head back to Melbourne tonight where we will hopefully not repeat the driving nightmare that we pulled off on the first time through. Of course we had to navigate through downtown traffic on a day when they were having 2 parades on the same day. It took us about 45 minutes to get 2 blocks - yeesh. In the end, the whole fiasco turned out OK as we parked in the parking lot of the Australian national ballet and looked so frazzled and relieved to be off the street that a lady asked us if we were alright. As it turned out she worked for the ballet and very kindly gave us an impromptu tour of the wardrobe department. Fantastic things that they make and I will make note to look closer and be much more appreciative of the detail that the costumes have.

A night crossing of the ferry and we started a great, if not somewhat uneventful tour of "Tassie". Great beaches on the east coast where we camped completely alone on some fantastic beaches. There are lots of Wallaby's here and we were watching one from our window one day and it looked like a scene from the exorcist…next thing we knew, a head pops out of the momma's belly and there's the little guy. The neat part of their biological engineering is that when the momma bends over to feed, the baby (joey) can graze as well. We haven't seen any Tasmanian Devils, or at least alive, but we've heard them at night and they do sound absolutely ferocious. Apparently they're not really good hunters and live off of road kill for the most part. Barbara raised a good point in asking what they ate before the invention of the automobile?? We froze our butts off in the south. A day trip to Port Arthur where one of the first big convict settlements was. To celebrate our surviving the cold night, we treated ourselves to the fisherman's platter at a put in Hobart. We don't go out much and these outings are supposed to be treats. All we can say is that we're grateful that we split an order. People eat fish and chips by the ton down here. Our systems were a mess from the grease and unmet expectations for a solid day! Lesson learned, I hope.

Hobart did treat us to a great music feast as every Friday night they have free music down at the old town centre. We returned to the downtown area on Saturday morning for a fantastic market filled with produce, cheese, snack food and arts and crafts vendors and a solid selection of street buskers to enjoy. Driving up the West coast was a little more active and we managed to get a lot of hikes and walks in.

Our best day had us doing a wonderful walk in the afternoon and upon looking for an overnight stop, we stumbled upon the Tasmanian Sheepdog herding championship. I'm not the biggest pet person, but my main weakness is Border Collies. We camped right at the fair grounds and watched the little beauties tearing around after one another, and then stayed for a good half day of competition on the Sunday. They are amazing to watch. We were even invited to join in a cup of tea and some cake by the organizers. The next night had us discovering what is meant by the roaring 40's. Apparently the 40-50 degrees latitude south are renowned for storms. We were sure we saw Toto and Dorothy fly by at one point. We spent the night with the top down on the van, sheltered behind a picnic hut. Rain made its way in an as of yet undiscovered hole in Max…it was wild and I felt very grateful that nothing worse than having to find our flip-flops the next morning happened.

That brings us up to today where we'll hop back on the ferry to enjoy a weekend in Melbourne before heading to our final stop of Sydney. Miss you all and hope everyone is healthy and well.

Love Jason & Baebs